poet-hopeful

I haven't worked with Bluestoop before, but imo whether a workshop is good or not really depends on your preferences and each individual instructor! Other great venues that offer online classes include Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Sackett Street, Hugo House, and Grub Street. Brooklyn Poets and The Poetry Project are great poetry-specific spaces. Fingers crossed for you re: the residency!

Blue Stoop is based in Philly! https://www.bluestoop.org/ re: rec letters - I agree that you shouldn't go with a professor who's intermittently responding. Do you have the financial resources to take a workshop or two this year? A lot of workshops offer scholarships, too! A previous instructor of mine told me candidly that rec letters are mostly just vibe checks, though I've heard from folks in Draft that they can make a marked difference, too. One of my recs was from an instructor who I workshopped with last year, via Zoom (they teach independently & their rec was from a gmail url, which is generally not recommended, but it turned out okay). You can also ask a former manager to be your rec - anyone who can speak to your ability to collaborate and play well with others (ie. skills that translate to being a kind, considerate person in workshop). One of my friends even asked a coworker to write his, and it worked out for him.

I got an email from Iowa for poetry yesterday :') it looks like they might still be calling!

Do we think Iowa's done calling for poetry? I'm at 0A/0W/0R/4SR/1P 🥺

Hey everyone! I'm a long-time lurker, first-time poster. I just wanted to commiserate. This is my second time applying - this year I applied to five schools - and it's looking like a clean sweep of soft rejections across the board. I know poetry especially is really subjective, but this is affecting me more than I thought it would 🥺 It's really really hard not to doubt my own work. I received a fellowship for poetry recently, and it was definitely validating, but it's been my dream for so long to go back to school for writing (I've been working for 7 years now). I want to try again this fall, but man, this process can be so taxing. Congrats to everyone on the waitlists and acceptances! I'm so excited for all of you, and I hope you can take some time to celebrate :)