I'm trying to get into grad school, applying for an MFA program in fiction. The program is only taking six students so I know my chances are slim, especially because I don't have a fiction background, but I figured that if I didn't try, I would never know. So I applied. One thing I had to write was a "Statement of Purpose". Here's mine:
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
While driving up Route 63 after school, I turn off the radio, begin to make a mental list of what needs done at home. The silence, combined with traffic noise, cocoons me with comfort. An image of my students with iPods and cell phones pops into my head. By the time the car finds its own way home, my mind is full of a pantoum about how people are no longer used to silence. I rush to the computer to write before my son gets home from school; the roast that should have gone into a preheated oven ends up sliced thin and stir fried.
I write. I have wished for a career as a writer, but know writers are not made by wishing, or even by writing. Becoming a successful author takes time, effort and sacrifice in pursuit of something that may never happen. Instead of taking that chance, my career choices have been pragmatic, what needed to be done, even if it meant putting my wishes on hold.
A math scholarship paid for a year of college, which my family could not afford otherwise. The Air Force recruiter’s door suddenly looked inviting when the scholarship money was spent. Computer Science seemed the logical choice when I returned to school out of the Air Force. I had two children to support and computer science positions were in abundance. Besides, I had all those math credits.
Texas Instruments hired me straight out of Penn State. For 15 years my family lived in Texas and my career wound through fascinating projects, from missiles to fashion design. Programming satisfied my creative drive for a long time, until Windows came along and changed the game. Imagine going from creative writing to creating bullets for PowerPoint presentations. Still, it paid well and during all that time, I wrote.
Having grown up in the frigid factory town of Erie, Pennsylvania, I missed winters. So, when the opportunity came to move to Connecticut to work for Gerber Garment Design, I jumped at it. But even with a new job, and the beauty of Connecticut, I had to admit that my career was no longer satisfying.
Pitney Bowes was my last corporate job. After surviving several rounds of layoffs, my turn came. Rather than continuing in a dead-end career, I applied to become a math teacher through the Accelerated Route to Certification. English would have been my preference but programming computers for 25 years qualified me to teach math. Plus, there was a greater demand for math teachers. I have now seen that not only are math teachers in demand, students desperately need math skills. I can teach students necessary skills – to balance checkbooks, do their bills, figure discounts and sales tax. That too is the pragmatic choice.
Now I am 55 years old and still want to be a writer when I grow up. I have since, in fourth grade, Miss Lombard was so impressed with my poem about owning a zoo that she read it aloud to the class. In the intervening time, I have written and occasionally gotten paid for poetry, user manuals and newspaper articles. For love, I write every day.
Although my primary medium is poetry, I have written three young adult novels, and a memoir of my first year teaching in an inner city school. However, something is missing. My prose tells a story but does not paint pictures, and is not always euphonic to read.
Something had been missing from my poetry also, until I met my poetry mentor Tad Richards. We met online. He said he taught poetry at Marist College. I said, “Oh! I write poetry! I’ll send you some! Let me know what you think!” I did and he did. After crying for a long time, I reread what he wrote and realized he was showing me how to fix the poems, not just saying they were bad. He taught me to write poetry, and I learned. As a member of Artemis Rising, a serious poetry critique group, I continue to learn and grow as a poet.
My poetry has been published in many journals including a poem about my other passion, martial arts, in the
Journal of Asian Martial Arts. Poems about my hometown, Erie, PA, have been included in two anthologies,
Working Hard for the Money from Bottom Dog Press and
Along the Lake edited by Sean Thomas Dougherty. Recent publications include poems about my students. “Keisha’s Gone” placed 43rd in the 77th Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition. “Balancing Equation” was published in
The Cleave poetry webzine.
I believe that SCSU’s MFA in Creative Writing program will do for my novels what Tad Richards and Artemis Rising helped me do for my poetry, and what they cannot do for my prose. A monthly writer’s group is not adequate for critiquing novels. Teaching prose is too large of a task to ask an unpaid mentor to take on.
I have read writers who write in both genres, poetry and fiction, and know that poetry can bring a lot to novel writing. I read Marge Piercy’s novels long before I knew she was a poet. Once I did, I could see the poetic influence in her novels and that it adds to the tone and quality of the narrative.
As an older student, I bring experience, and a proven track record of discipline and accomplishments in work, in poetry and in martial arts. One of my favorite science fiction novelists, Sheri Tepper, had her first novel published in her 50s after spending much of her career as the Executive Director of Colorado Planned Parenthood. I think about her and know that I can do it too.
Most importantly, I want a chance to finally do not what is necessary, but what I want to do, to learn to write novels. I hope that once I find my fiction voice, I can marry it to my poetic voice to create the quality of fiction I enjoy reading.
