Who Is Zis Man?

I just had the strangest interaction. i got this email on my notre dame account from eduardo corral--hi eduardo, como estás?--that said, i've been reading your live journal entries and i totally feel what you're going through. at first i was like, who? who is this guy? turns out, he's a talented latino poet. . . i did some research, found a rad poem of his about frida kahlo on a web del sol chapbook. he has this one image of the curtains moving like honey in a jar, and i was like, yo, this guy's got it going on. he's a really good writer. so far, so good. but there is where it gets weird: yesterday, i got my rejection letter from colgate, and the painfully generic reject letter said: Our fellowship in creative writing for 2007-2008 has just been awarded to the poet. . . you guessed it. . . eduardo fucking corral. okay, they didn't swear, but i'm gonna. what are the odds? the person who randomly emails me is the same dude who ends up winning the colgate fellowship, and i get BOTH letters on the same fucking day. mathematically, let me just say, that's uncanny.

And then the hits just keep coming. i decide to do a little counter e-stalking if you will, and learn more about this Eduardo Corral: turns out, he has degrees from iowa and arizona state, he's been published in some decent journals, and he's a talented, emerging latino poet. then, once i find HIS blog, i find out, not only did he win the colgate fellowship, but he also recently received a goddamn YADDO RESIDENCY. basically, this guy is doing almost everything i wanted to do this year, except, maybe, write reviews about judy garland. amazing stuff.

::

I walked to the post office today to send my ninth letter submission to juan, the non fiction editor who's slowly becoming a friend of mine since we met at awp. i revised my lyrical essay and now i hope he likes it enough to take a bite.

As i was about to walk back, it started raining and i kinda loved it. i mean, i just stood there under the awning of the post office, waiting for the rain to stop, held captive by that perfect moment, forced, willingly, to stand there and just count the streaks in the sky. it was like waking up in the desert, forced to count the shades of blue until the sun eats away at the constellations: the mistake was more beautiful than the intention, that's what was so great about it.

Post-MFA Crisis Really Begins

Well, my rejection list is almost complete. no's from:

the george bennett fiction fellowship
yaddo corporation
and recently, the colgate creative writing fellowship.

This leaves:

the sparks prize
the JET program
emory university fiction fellowship

at this point, any of those would do. but if not, i'll figure something else out. i'm still kinda keen on chicago or osaka though, personally. on verra. . .

Bummer: No Yaddo Fellowship This Year

Man, i'm kinda depressed right now. i just got my rejection letter from yaddo, and that was one of the fellowships i wanted the most for so many different reasons--the solitude, the beauty of saratoga springs, the productivity, the presitge--and now i have nothing worked out for the summer. it's amazing how one letter can change your status from hopeful and mysterious to despondent and chaotic.

I don't know how, but sometimes i forget how much rejection there is in writing, how on every level of this process--the mfa program, the literary journal, the agent, the publishing house, the fellowship, the grant--rejection is actually the rule, and acceptance, the anomaly. i keep on forgetting. . . i keep getting these outlandidsh hopes, i keep feeding my insatiable dreamlife, and then yaddo rejects me and i realize how quixotic i really am. it's humbling and it hurts. . .

i just knew by the size of the envelope that yaddo had rejected me, so, before i opened the letter, i took a bunch of pictures of myself in my mod squad look when i still felt talented and hopeful. that way, they couldn't take it away.