The End is Near

I'm finally nearing the end of my thesis. I've written the intro and the poems. I have like two weeks left to perfect it, but I think I am almost completely done now, aside from formatting it all properly (yuck). I'm feeling a mixture of relief and incredible sadness. I don't want this to be over. I mean, I have learned a great deal, and I think I am ready to defend my thesis, but I'm reluctant to let it all go. It's going to be extremely odd being at school in January and not going to any of the mentor group meetings or craft lectures, not having to be at school from 8am until basically 9pm. My attendance will not be required at any of the special events. That's not to say I'm not going to attend whatever they'll let me attend. I plan to be at as much of it as possible.

And the silver lining is, of course, that two of my already graduated friends are going to be there anyway. They, like me, have no desire to stop going. So at least we'll have each other, and we can do stuff together while everyone still in the program is attending those required classes. I just can't wait to see everyone and be together again. I have so much fun while I'm there with them. So yeah, at least I know that I can keep going back anyway to see them and write together, because my friends there are a tremendous help with my own writing.

Anyway, I just wanted to write that it's been a long, and yet terribly too short, road to the end of my thesis, but I'm closing in on the end. I particularly feel that way, because I finally just wrote a poem that I have been struggling so long to write. Considering the content of my thesis, I've known from the beginning that I needed at least one poem about my dad in the manuscript, but, try as I might, nothing ever came out that was worth keeping. I think I've written probably at least ten different poems about him and a gazillion revisions of each. I was too angry, too bitter, to whatever, to let them be any good. I wanted to make accusations or toss out insults.

Finally, my friend, Heather, suggested that I try an imitation poem. I thought it was worth a shot, since, after all, I had only managed to write this other poem I had been struggling with by imitating one of Kim Addonizio's poems. I went through a list on poets.org and finally came to "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath. By the time I reached the end of it, I knew what I was going to do, and I did it, and now, for the first time ever, I actually have a workable poem about him. It needs some tweaking, but it's finally there, and I can lay the whole subject to rest (not to mention, I wont have to cut out a chunk of my thesis intro).

That's definitely a relief, especially since I had just finally gotten it to where it needed to be. So yeah, I finally signed the Murray Muse's foot, because I feel like I'm in the home stretch. My manuscript has a title and only needs a little more tweaking to be whole and complete. I'm actually now feeling as excited as I am terrified. Which is seriously a plus.

Other than that, I also received a copy of The Minnesota Review that I have a poem in. That was nice. Particularly because I have had a long dry spell with publication. Thankfully, with my thesis going on, I haven't had a lot of time to dwell on that. But I also did get some amazing news that's sort of related to that. I was nominated for the Intro to Journals contest, which is a very big, prestigious sort of award that I would probably die if I won. But just being nominated really made me feel like I had done something of worth. I spent the last two weeks trying to decide which three poems to submit, and I think I finally have those figured out too. Fingers crossed!

Well, that's it for now. Time to work on my poems a bit more.