How Do I Say This?

With the semester fast approaching, I'm trying to figure out what my poetry voice is, feeling especially anxious about the fact that I haven't discovered it. I mean, let's be honest, I thought I was decent at poetry, but I didn't know that I was, you know, good enough to be accepted into an MFA program. Now I'm trying to discover myself as a poet.

We've already received our extensive schedule for the nine days that we'll be on campus, so I know what's coming. The thing that terrifies me most is going to occur on the second to last day: reading out loud. I have to get up, stand before my peers, and read one of my poems. I've had no real practice doing this, so I don't know how I'd want to read my poems.

I've been pretty terrible in all past speech classes, so I don't have a lot of confidence at the moment. When I get nervous, I start talking fast--so fast that I often forget what I'm talking about/where I was at in my speech. I barely open my mouth and talk mostly through my teeth. I know it's a problem, so I'm concentrating on reading slowly. Not like grandpa, annoying slow, but slow enough to plainly pronounce every word. After I get that down though, it's still a matter of what kind of voice I'm going to use.

I've been watching videos of poets reading their work. Some are really good. Some are really horrible. I don't want to drone on in a dull voice and bore everyone so thoroughly that they forget the content and focus on how much they hate my voice. I've been practicing at home alone, but that's always going to be different compared to how I react to a crowd.

My next idea was to read a poem to Adam, but I feel sort of ridiculous, which probably isn't a good sign, because, if I can't read a poem to my own husband, who can I read to? You'd think it'd be easier to read to strangers than to someone you know, but I just don't know. Reading to anyone just unnerves me. But I've got to get this down. In between reading the assigned books that I REALLY need to start getting through. I've put aside Omeros for the time being and am working through the others to ensure that I get something down. Oh, jeez. How am I going to make it through this?

I guess it's just a good thing that I really, really want to be a writer. So, I'm going to do this. Somehow.