Let it Be

Spring semester: day thirty-three

I was informed via email a few days ago that while March 15 is the "due date" of my thesis to my thesis director, ideally he should've had it for some time by that point, should have read it, and the 15th is the last date by which he should recommend it to the graduate committee.

Uhh, yeah, that's not what they told us originally, at all. We were simply told that we had to have our theses to our directors by March 15. That's it. No details, no "get it done super early," nothing. Just by March 15. When one tells a grad student that something is due on a certain date, expect said grad student to turn in that project at the latest possible time/hour/minute of that date -- because, really, that's what we do. Well, most of us, anyway.

Now, my thesis has been done in several forms and ways, and I could've called it "finished" six months ago if I'd wanted to -- but I didn't. I wanted to keep writing in it, keep revising, adding, and removing poems from it, to make it the best collection possible. I volunteered a full draft of my thesis to my director a little over a month ago, around the beginning of the semester, so that he'd be able to look it over -- printed it out and gave it to him -- and since then I've been slowly revising and adding things here and there, taking some words out, changing around line breaks, spacing, taking entire poems out or adding more in, etc. We had a meeting last week, as you may know, and I told him that I'd have the final version to him no later than the 12th or so at the latest, getting it in with a few days to spare and allowing him to see the difference between the draft and the finalized copy. This also allowed me to get one huge weight off my shoulders and to better focus on my studying for comps over the course of the next month or so, as well. He told me he'd read through most of my draft at that point, and had enjoyed it (which surprised me, really); he liked the flow of it from one poem to the next, understood its overall themes and progressions, etc. I knew then, as I said in my last post here, that my thesis was about 95% finished as it was. I had to make some tweaks here and there throughout it, but if I'd so chosen (or in the event of a catastrophe) he could've kept that copy and I could've called it done.

After that email, I knew what my course of action for yesterday would be: sleep well, get up, and finish it. So that's what I did.

Over the course of about five hours yesterday morning and afternoon, I performed the final read-through and edit of my thesis. Some poems were heavily revised, again. Some poems were added, and then revised and rewritten. Some poems were removed entirely, while others were left relatively untouched. I changed the order of a few of them. I completely restructured and re-edited the title poem of the collection, which is the last poem in the manuscript. There were poems I wanted to add to it, poems I wanted to work on more and find a place for within it, but I did not. I will always be able to compile another collection at some point; it's more important that this one be finished now.

The final copy -- title pages, table of contents, special thanks and all -- is 46 pages. It's the best that I can make it for what it is. Those 46 pages represent three years of work within this program, good or bad. I've written many more than 46 pages of poetry in that time, of course, but those are the best ones, the "representative" ones that, to some extent large or small, I'm proud of enough to include in the thesis. I printed three copies of it, one for each member of my reading committee, and sealed them all within manila envelopes. I will deliver them today. No, the other readers don't need it until April 1, but if it's done, there's no reason to hold it back from them. The month of April in the department is a mess most of the time, what with everything going on as the semester wraps up. It's similar to the month of November in the fall semester. If I get said copies to them now, they may be able to have some free time to read them over Spring Break in a week and a half.

Of everyone in my life, only two people other than myself have read the completed thesis thus far in its entirety, though more than have read the drafts -- Daisy has read it, as I sent it to her last night, and her father requested permission to read it as well, permission which I gave wholeheartedly.

"It's really good," she told me. "Made me cry. I'm an emotional person. Let it be."

Eh. I'm happy enough with it, I suppose. If I could describe my poetry, it would be "poetry good for those people who don't read poetry that often, 'cause they'll like it and think it's brilliant, while scholars of poetry will think it's crap and/or merely passable -- nothing to write home about."

This is, really, the most accurate (as well as brutally honest) description I can come up with. Again, I do think some of my poems are good. Some. Not all, or even most. I've said before that I can't hold a candle to some of the better writers in my own department, even -- writers who, fiction or poetry, get published all over the place, and frequently. Only one poem out of my entire thesis has ever been published, and that was over a year ago now. The fact that no other publication wanted my stuff is proof that to an audience of poetry scholars, it's not outstanding work. I am, however, grateful in some capacity that most people outside of that bubble who read it tend to enjoy it, I suppose. It's a small vindication.

"Is that what you want?" a colleague and friend asked me on Tuesday afternoon. "To be famous? Is that why you write?"

We were discussing her many publications and the sheer talent and creativity she possesses in her own poetry. I'd showed her some of my drafts that I'd let the visiting writer work over earlier that afternoon.

"Well, no," I said. "I used to want that, but I stopped wanting to be famous a long time ago. Too much bullshit, too much pressure."

Literary fame is a strange fame anyway; it's not like famous authors or poets, unless they're really well known (like a Stephen King type of person) will get mobbed on the street. It's not like they can't go into public without hushed whispers around them all the time. Would I like to be moderately known, eventually? Sure. If someone says my name, I want someone else to respond "oh yes, I've read some of his work." But do I want to be King-famous? No. Most of the poets I've read over the years, even the really well-known ones, I couldn't pick out of a lineup because, really, I've never seen what they look like. I only know what Sharon Olds looks like, for example, because I followed her on Twitter just to send her a tweet saying how much I liked her book Strike Sparks.

Rich, however, is a different story. Screw fame -- just give me the money. But that's not even why I write. People say that writers write simply because they must, and to an extent, that is true -- for better or for worse. I write, and even write here, in this blog, because I want to leave a legacy. I've said many times that I'd forego all of the money, all of the fame that I could eventually (but unlikely) obtain via my writing if only I were reprinted and republished continually in every new volume of the Norton or Longman Anthologies every few years. If I even write one poem that bears my inclusion, I'd be happy.

But I'm getting off track. The point is that my thesis is done, and it will be turned in this morning. After finishing it, I ate dinner and was in bed before 7PM -- I didn't read anything, I didn't grade anything -- I just went to bed. I told Daisy that I was exhausted (which I was, for some unknown reason) and passed out. When I awoke around 4AM, I checked my email, took a shower, and here I am now, awake for the day.

I took the too-small sport coat I ordered from Amazon in to campus on Tuesday morning for Parker to examine it. Parker's a tall guy, but he's pretty rail-thin, and I don't say that as an insult at all -- he's just tall and thin. He tried it on and it was massively too big for him. It's too big for him to get tailored to fit him, and it's too small to get tailored to fit me. It's a strange size, even if it does say "XXL" on it. I left it on my officemate's desk with a note saying that if it could fit him, he could have it. I returned later that afternoon to find that it didn't fit comfortably on him, either -- too big in the shoulders and chest. I tried a few other friends, including the chair of the department, and it was either too big or too small on them as well. I ended up giving it to my friend Brian, who is slightly taller, but a fair bit slimmer than I am.

"Yeah, this fits pretty well," he said, buttoning it and smoothing it out, "but there's no way this is a 2XL. It's more like a large."

"That's what I thought," I told him. "Most of the time, 2XL stuff is big on me. This coat was tight, unbuttonable, tight across the shoulders, arms too short, etc."

"Yeah, I can wear this," he said.

"Good, then it's yours," I replied. "Merry Christmas."

He offered to give me money for it or buy me lunch at some point, but I kindly refused. It was less than $40 -- I was just happy someone would get some use out of it, and the returns process for Amazon isn't worth the hassle for $40. Screw it, I don't even care. However, Brian does have a ton of old vintage clothes he's collected over the years, from relatives, thrift shops, etc, and says that he has a blue corduroy jacket that would probably fit me, one he doesn't wear or use, and offered to bring it in as a sort of trade. I told him sure, if I could use it, I'd take it and wear it. I love corduroy, and haven't owned any corduroy clothing in years (it's coming back into fashion again, which makes it incredibly expensive to purchase new).  Even if it doesn't fit, it's not like I'd ask him (or anyone else) for any sort of payment. I'm really not that sort of guy.

Today should be relatively painless and short; I am finishing up the last of my student workshops this morning, and their paper is due on Tuesday, when we start the next unit of the class. I'll be coming home around noon to get something to eat and to do a quick tidy of the house in preparation for Daisy to arrive this evening for the weekend. I don't know what time she'll get here -- it will rely heavily on when she leaves the house and begins her journey southward, and she operates on Daisy Standard Time as always. It will be good to get a few short days of relaxation time with my fiancee before next week, and the next month, becomes hectic as hell again. Next week is crazy for me; I collect those papers on Tuesday, the midterm date is Wednesday, I meet with the visiting writer for the last time on Thursday at 5PM, and then Spring Break starts, during which I will be doing little else but spending six to eight hours every day, if not more, on reading through my remaining reading list for comps. I currently have 27 of the 35 books required for me to study, and the others I'll be ordering sometime within the next week so that I can get them quickly and add them to the pile. I have read through and completed approximately four and a half of those 27 thus far, over the course of the past three weeks or so. Granted, some of those four and a half were 500-page collections, but still. This means that most of my break, I'll be going through about two books a day, maybe three. This is an insane amount of reading/studying/cramming, obviously, and it means that I'll be pounding coffee and sleeping little -- in addition to doing other tasks like grading those aforementioned papers, calculating midterm grades, and finally doing my taxes as well. For graduate students, there's no such thing as "Spring Break." It's always a headlong rush from that point forward to finals week. This semester, it's also a headlong rush to graduation, as well.

Speaking of graduation, I have purchased expensive, ivory linen paper and envelopes, and once I'm done with comps, will be buying a few books of stamps to send out a homemade, very elegantly-crafted set of graduation announcements to friends and family. I've planned to do this for a while now; I have a graduation announcement template that I'll follow, and it is much, much cheaper to create them myself and mail them out than to order a package from an official printer of announcements and spend $200 or more on them. Again, to use a phrase I've said several times in this post already, screw that. I'll spend about $40 total on paper and stamps, and print them on my laser printer next to me, using the remaining paper and envelopes for resumes if necessary. I have a ton of different fonts and designs at my disposal here on my computer already.

Also speaking of graduation, I doubt my parents will be able to make it; my mother has not brought it up in conversation since I told her of my engagement on the phone a few weeks ago, and it was looking even then as if there wouldn't be any real chances of them coming out here for it. I've basically processed and accepted this at this point; it's not like any of my other relatives will be able to come to it, either. That's what happens when you live 1,000 miles from where you grew up, and when where you grew up happens to be poor, destitute backwoods West Virginia. I'll still send out announcements to my entire family, as is customary, but the only familial support I expect to see at my graduation is Daisy and possibly her parents -- and I wouldn't even really want to inconvenience her parents if they're unable to make it. Truthfully, it wouldn't really matter to me much either way if I went to graduation completely alone, attended the ceremony and went through the motions, then came back home and went to sleep. They've already told us that we don't get our actual diplomas at the ceremony, but we must pick them up a month or so later or have them mailed to us -- the scroll that's given to us when we walk contains the directions on how to retrieve said diplomas. My ceremony is on Friday, May 17, for the liberal arts. They split it over two days depending on which school you're graduating from. At least, I've been told that's when my ceremony is -- who knows, really, to be sure. That's also the Friday of finals week, which means that in the days leading up to it I'll be crazy-busy grading papers and calculating final exam scores and final grades for my students. They certainly want to do it fast and get it over with, apparently.

On that note, folks, I shall leave you for the weekend -- there is much to do, and in 25 minutes I must make my morning drive to campus.