A Letter to MFA Students and Graduates from Bob Begiebing

June 28, 2011

Dear MFA Students and Graduates:

Welcome back from your MFA residency.   I’m pleased to hear you all survived, in various conditions, Star Island, dormitory life, graduation, and a day with the advisory board.  I’ve been enjoying tales of your adventures and survivals from Diane.  Charles Stella’s blog added spice to the island narrative.  And Facebook (esp. Kelly’s gallery) gave me a look at the questionable, productive, and celebratory goings on.  So though I missed you all, you certainly have managed very well without me.  I couldn’t be more pleased that the residency worked out and you are now all launched on your new semester through December.

The real purpose of this missive, however, is to tell you how moved I was by your thoughtfulness in putting together that little gathering in Frost Hall, third floor, to acknowledge my retirement from the directorship of this MFA program over the past five years and from the university after thirty-four.  I was genuinely surprised, even overwhelmed, by all the gifts, handshakes, hugs, heartfelt good wishes, and smiles.  Not till the next morning, however, when I looked through your gift bag again did it really come home to me how much you all offered of yourselves and resources to give me a proper send-off.  The wine box, its inscription, and contents are superb; the GPS is something my wife Linda and I have been talking about getting for a long time; and then you go and add to all that gift cards to wine.com and my favorite bookstore (Water Street Books in Exeter NH).  Two bottles of good Pinot Noir—you all know my weaknesses by now!  I mean you really outdid yourselves, and I am very grateful to you all.  Mama Kelly, special thanks to you for setting up the send-off and working so hard behind the scenes with Linda and everyone on the gifts.  

When I founded this writing program six years ago I didn’t know if we could make it work, didn’t know whether we could build an exceptional community, didn’t know what working with a bunch of writers and artists would be like (or even if tolerable), didn’t know if we’d be taken seriously among the national competition, and didn’t know if I had the psychological or cardiovascular system to do endure such a mostly administrative position (something new to me in a long academic career).  Well, somehow, mostly thanks to wonderful, hard-working students and faculty, the whole thing worked out.  And here we all are starting the program’s sixth year, all systems “Go.”

Board member Lissa Warren said at the faculty dinner for the advisory board June 17^th (where I was given yet another send-off) that being a graduate of an MFA program herself and familiar with a number of others, our MFA program is the most non-competitive, respectful, and supportive community of writers she’s ever seen.  To the extent she’s right, we have all the members of this writing community to thank.  It’s the character of the people who create such healthy communities, and we’ve been most fortunate in the people we’ve attracted and retained.  Your generosity toward me earlier that evening also reminded me of that good fortune.

To those of you who expected to see me at the after-graduation party, I apologize for being a no-show.  After graduation I could see that Diane needed a little down-time, needed to talk to me about a number of things in the heave, as Emily Dickinson puts it, between two storms—the campus residency and Star Island residency.  So I took her out to a quiet spot for dinner and we talked for two hours.  Then she asked if I’d help her pack and load her truck so she could get home and repack for Star.  By the time we were finished it was getting late, we were both wiped out, and we just went our separate ways home.  But by all accounts you had a great time without us.  I guess that’s one thing we never have to worry about.

Again, my heartfelt thanks to you all.  I am going to miss you and the labors and joys of working as a teacher and administrator in this MFA program.  The faculty gave me a card with all their signatures and delightful little sayings at the board dinner.  I’ll quote you just one, from the inimitable Craig Childs, who summed things up for me in a way I’d like to share.  “Your presence is already missed, a spitfire is sitting in your chair, and what you’ve created is sailing.”

My warmest best wishes to you all on your continued voyage,

Bob Begiebing

Retired.

Post Residency Poem by a non-Poet-Trying to Rhyme without Touching Myself

Captain Merle, Captain Morgan and Captain Jack

My GA bombed in a seagull attack

You wake ‘em you take ‘em

Can we just shake ‘em and bake ‘em?

A hammered dulcimer, a guitar, a classic blues song

Grizzly Adams on high octane Rock Star danced in a sarong

An impromptu rendition of the Hokey Pokey

Learning that ghosts like to spoon with an Okie.

Diane called Elk with her unusual horn

A new genre--SNHU-rotica—was illegitimately born

‘Imagine’ from the Chapel, we can only wish

Rick’s new craft book ‘How to Write from the POV of a Fish’

Searching for meat, a snuggly rat in the bed

Sooner Born and Sooner Bred, when I die I’ll be Sooner dead

Is that a wig?  Are you famous? Are you from the Navy?

Believe it or not, the cook calls that gravy.

Telling jokes with Uncle Wiggly, trying not to be noisy

Air Force does a quasi-striptease, and we learn to pronounce ‘Boise’

A shy little Texan got up to dance

A well deserved award for Pratima Cranse

A Cosmo reading made the Desert Father turn red

At least Ken woke up in his own little bed

Emma keeps her rat in an unusual place

There’s nothing like that smile on Natalie’s face

Extra crispy or original

Don’t get sucked in

Kim and the corn

Turtles.  Enough said.

Saying goodbye to old friends, and hello to the new

We are Writers.

We are Wet.

We are Trashy Women.

We are Pirates.

We are Goddesses.

Fugetaboutit.

Pre-Residency Thoughts

Last week, I had a list with twenty-six tasks that needed to be completed before I disappear for two weeks for my last MFA residency.  Today, I have one left.  A day ahead of schedule. 

Tuesday morning, I will get on a plane and go to Manchester, New Hampshire where I will spend ten days with talented writers, friends and several others that I’ve never met, yet know they, too, will be counted as friends by the end of the residency.  It’s a wonderful experience for any writer.  But is it worth it?

I leave my husband for a total of 12 days, during which time he is scheduled for surgery.  He will be spending Father’s Day alone.  I will miss two weeks of pay, which is going to make the month of July very challenging.  My youngest son is scheduled to leave for Air Force Basic Training on July 2, so I miss that additional time to still treat him as my baby, before he goes off to really become a man. My oldest son is home from college, and again, I will miss precious time to be with him.  And then there’s my dog.  I will really miss my dog. 

When I return, I will have to make a new list, things that need to be taken care of due to my absence. 

But this I do for me.  And it so often seems that my life is consumed with doing for others. 

So is it worth it?

I may not think so in July, but for now…

Yeah.  It’s worth it.   J

Joplin

I was born Baxter Springs, Kansas.  My family moved frequently when I was a child, but at the age of twelve, I returned to Baxter Springs with my mother.  It was there I spent my teenage years, and there I developed friendships that would last a lifetime. 

Baxter Springs sits in the southeast corner of the state right at that little intersection of lines on the map where Kansas meets Missouri and Oklahoma.  When I was eighteen, I moved away from my parents and went to the closest “city” which was Joplin, Missouri.  Joplin had been my “stomping ground” for most of my teenage years, so it was pretty easy to make it my home.  I met my first husband in Joplin, went to Nursing school, went to college, bought my first (and second) house there and had both of my sons at the hospital.  I lived in Joplin until I was thirty and thought at the time I would be there forever.  But as we all know, things don’t always happen as planned. 

The devastation to the city caused by the tornado that ripped through Joplin on Sunday is difficult for many of us to imagine.  My family members that live in the area are all accounted for, but I have friends that haven’t been as lucky.  Some have lost parents, children, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins, friends.  Some have lost their homes.  We all have lost reference points for many, many memories. 

But watching the news footage from a thousand miles away and talking with friends in Joplin, I realize one thing they haven’t lost: their sense of community.  Thousands, tens of thousands from the area, coming together to provide assistance to those directly affected: giving of their homes, their money, and their selves unselfishly.  This is not considered a wealthy area of the country, mind you, so the gifts that some of these people give are significant to them.  But it doesn’t matter.  They give.  That’s just the way they are. 

It is that sense of community that makes so many of us call the area home.  No matter where our lives take us, that little spot where Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas meet will always be home.    

It is that sense of community that will get them through this.  The coming together of friends, family, neighbors and strangers to support, assist and protect each other during this time. 

It is that sense of community that even and F5 tornado can’t destroy, no matter how hard it may try.

Elephants, Cows and Tim Woodward

Last night, I met up with Timothy Woodward at the Elephant Bar in the District in Las Vegas, Nevada.  It was a beautiful evening in Sin City, made even more beautiful by the permanent smile on Tim’s face.  He has signed with Deidre Knight of the Knight Agency in Madison, Georgia, and his novel, Purple Cow, will soon be coming to a bookstore near you.  Way. To. Go.

Tim is a graduate of the Southern New Hampshire University MFA program in creative writing and Purple Cow is the project he completed during the program.  It's a LGBT YA novel about coming out and finding first love in rural New Hampshire. The protagonist is a 16 year old boy that discovers support comes from unlikely places when you're gay in a place without a built in support network.  It is being published by Kensington Books, which has a strong Gay/Lesbian Division and is a known commodity in LGBT publishing.

Tim is currently working on a second book, not a sequel, targeted toward the same market. 

Stories from the Hoover Dam: Two Deaths

One of the questions people often ask about the building of the Hoover Dam is “How many people are buried in the Dam?”  There is a very simple answer to that: zero.  There is one dog, Nig, who was buried at the site, but humans?  None.   

Although the exact number of those that perished is disputable, the official number of deaths associated with its construction is ninety-six.  But I want to tell you about two: the first and the last. 

Before construction could begin, the United States government had to do a lot of pre-work at the site.  This began several years before the project was ever announced.  On December 20, 1922, an employee of the Bureau of Reclamation fell off a barge into the Colorado River during a geological expedition and drowned.  His death is considered, by many accounts, as the first death to occur in association with the Dam. 

The last occurred exactly thirteen years later on December 20, 1935.  On this day, a young man working on one of the massive intake towers fell to his death. 

The coincidence that they both occurred on December 20^th is itself a bit of interesting historical trivia, but there is something else that connects these two deaths that make them even more fascinating. 

The first death--the man who drowned in 1922 was J. G. Tierney. 

The man who fell from the intake tower, marking the last death at the Hoover Dam?

Patrick Tierney. 

His son.

My Mother's Advice

My mother and I didn’t get along very well.  Ever.  Granted, I was what you might call a difficult teenager, but even as a seemingly well-adjusted and responsible adult, we just rarely saw eye to eye.  So with Mother’s Day approaching, I have been trying to put a positive spin on our relationship.  

 

My mother was a Nurse.  One day, when I was struggling in my first year of college, I went with her to pick up her paycheck.  She got in the car and opened it, smiled and handed it to me to see.  I don’t remember the amount, but for 1982, it was, in my opinion, enormous.  “You know what that means?” she said to me.  “It means that no matter what happens, I can always take care of myself.”

Well, that wasn’t necessarily true.  Eventually, at an age younger than I am now, she couldn’t take care of herself anymore.  But, I do understand what she was trying to say.  Get an education.  Have some way to support yourself and those that depend on you.  Things may not always turn out the way you expect, but at least try to be prepared.  And I did just that.  Prepared myself.  Just in case.

Over the course of my adult life, “just in case” has been here many, many times and I am thankful that I have been able, both mentally and physically, to handle my own business.  I may not always be able to do the job I do now, so I continue to go to school to prepare for what might happen next.  If someday I can’t walk, maybe I will still be able to type.  If someday I can’t type, maybe I will still be able to talk.  You never know.  But I try to be prepared.  And it is in that preparation of self that I find a sense of security, a sense of self-worth and a sense of accomplishment that I always felt missing in my younger days.

 

Thanks, Mom.  That was one excellent piece of advice.