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Tried to upvote this but was out of reactions 😂

Congratulations!!! Huge!! Best of luck 🤞 My own thoughts as a Vandy applicant are that maybe one person gets in off the waitlist—maybe—but that if I were to get a WL slot, I'd 10000% apply next year if no dice.

After submitting 3/4 of my apps, I ended up writing like six poems that could have easily been in my work samples 🙄😂 Ah well, at least I can pester Wendy Lesser with them, as is according to Q1 tradition.

Looks like there's a second one now, so I'm considering Vanderbilt a soft rejection.

Amen. My sample poems are, frankly, extraordinary (modesty be damned). Further, my motivations and aspirations for attending a program are pure. My recommenders are top shelf and enthusiastic. If, all these considered, I still don't get into a program, then I can relax into the assurance of knowing it ain't me—it's the fit. And I can't really be mad about someone declining to dance with me. I'ma dance anyway, albeit alone.

Yup, nada from my 4 schools, but looking like 1 soft rejection so far. Probably UMass or bust for me at this point, considering I need a full ride + a job (or a benefactor) to afford a program. If no UMass with TO-ship, then probably no MFA for me in this lifetime.

Appears to be a Vanderbilt poetry wait-list in the Results here. If it's real, I'm gonna breathe a little easier and consider it a soft rejection.

Selling weed (I'm a budtender)

A true anecdote about acceptance that I heard in a Dharma lecture at Wild Heart Meditation Center: A little girl buys this absolutely perfect sunflower at the farmer's market. Overjoyed by this perfect sunflower, she runs across the market to show her parents. As she runs, she notices that several perfect petals fall off and flutter to the ground. She stops, looks down at the lost petals, and exclaims: "Oh! Okay! Bye bye!" Then turns and continues on her way. Thank you for your practice, kiddo. So may we all 🙏🌻

Rooting for you—and all spec fic writers—because my world and language has been shaped and elevated as much by spec fic as "literary" fiction. Le Guin, Stephenson, and Herbert have influenced me as much as Baldwin, Cusk, and Hesse.

Good time to remind that self-reported data are extremely unreliable. Making assumptions based on them is more likely to cause suffering than peace.

This was absolutely the right call 🤙

Appreciate this, and similar. Second and probably last cycle for me. Turning 40, recovering from long term illness and loss of my life as I knew it. My writing and routine are already at a high level, so I can keep this up and I'm still very much Doing Poetry. This is the perfect and perhaps last time in my life to do another graduate program—and boy would I like that—but it ain't in my hands. If Major Jackson or Peter Gizzi call and draft me, amazing; if not, then I keep on doing what I've been doing for 39.8 years, and intensively focusing on for the last 1.5—putting one foot in front of the other. Living my life, touching grass, and being face to face with other people.

May y'all be at ease. May y'all be at peace. May y'all be kind and gentle with yourselves. 🙏

I have poems in my work sample that were published in Pshares, APR, and Kenyon Review, and I still feel like any admissions committee would be justified in rejecting me for simply not being a fit for their program. If it's the work, whatevs. If it's my gender, ethnicity, or age, whatevs. It's not personal. I'm gonna keep writing and publishing poems regardless.

Will another tattoo magically get me into an MFA program? No. Will it reduce my suffering while I wait? No. Will it be a good distraction while I wait? Awww yeah, better get two ✌️

Any and all news is welcome at this point. I'd like to just move forward with whatever path is ahead.

Doing dishes just now, this popped into my head: "You can't hurt me, you're not a deafening silence from MFA programs!"

Yes, these self-reported data are very, very incomplete. Example: I don't even have a Facebook account, and will not create one, so will not report on Draft. Another example: Duotrope. They go so far as to remind users that a "zero percent acceptance rate" for a publication simply means that no users have reported data, not that the publication accepts zero submissions. Looking for data where there aren't any is an invitation to suffering, rather than answers or peace.

Reminder to breathe, drink water, get outside, move your body, and connect meaningfully with other humans.

Not scared, but not particularly excited to figure out life in lieu of beginning an MFA. Would either get a job or leave the cat with family and spend some time in a monastery.

Meditation and Dharma practice, mostly. And a correctly prescribed SNRI ✨ And the perspective of being 39 and barely surviving multiple life threatening crises over the years. Helps me remember that not getting into an MFA program is a good day compared to what I've already survived, and now thrived through. So, like I said: mostly meditation.

Hitting this a few times a week and finding it helpful, bumping for y'all.

This was very helpful. Thank you for sharing that 🙏

Hey, y'all. Been a while since I last applied, better part of a decade now. Kinda kept my nose to the grindstone and was fortunate to experience cool things like Bread Loaf, a wild (and mostly wholesome) AWP Seattle, and publications in places like Pshares, APR, and Palette. And I was more or less content to keep on living as a "working" poet, making pretty good money in a career that afforded me stability, a decent quality of life, and an opportunity to cultivate my solitary writing life. But when, deep down, you really wanna teach something you're passionate about, and good at... Well, it's like Stephen King wrote in The Dark Tower: "Talent just wants to be used." But what I consider my biggest strength—my unconventional literary path—is also my biggest insecurity applying to MFA programs this time around. I have a BS and MS in Chemistry, and don't recall taking a single literature course in my post-secondary education. I've read a good deal, have attended a whole buncha workshops (BLEWR 🙏), and have some big name poets who have very generously offered to write on my behalf. But I def still feel like I'm a weak candidate because I am not straight out of an English/Lit undergrad or Masters program (among a few other reasons). I guess you just never really know, huh. Anyway, geography was really a top factor for me, as well as faculty (relationships), so I'm keeping the list very tight this year and applying to: Columbia, NYU, UMass Amherst (my alma mater), and Vanderbilt. If you're as prone to overthinking and spinning about this whole process as I am, then here's a little chant I created for myself, based on a Buddhist Equanimity chant: • Regardless of my wishes for them, my application decisions are not in my hands. • I alone am responsible for the contents of my applications. • May I accept my application decisions with equanimity. • May I find a true source of happiness. • May I find peace exactly where I am. Just trying to keep that in mind while still chipping away at obsessively crafted application materials 🙃👋