For those of you who don't concern yourselves with the inner-workings of the literary world, AWP stands for Associated Writers and Writing Programs. Each year, they host the largest annual conference of writers, editors and publishers in a different city. This year, it was in Chicago.
I hadn't planned on going to the conference. It all seemed too far off, too professional, too grand for a little first-year poet MFA like me. But I changed my mind after listening to a 25 minute reminiscence/laugh fest about last year's conference at a staff meeting for our literary journal.
"You must go." Our managing editor commanded us timid interns. She looked us each dead in the eye around the conference table and we nodded with quaking hearts.
Whether our attendance was to be for our own benefit or to have more hands to man our table at the Bookfair, I know not. Either way, we booked our flights, booked our hotel, booked our registration, and I was on my way to the Windy City.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into. To give you some idea of the insanity of this event, I will henceforth refer to it as the Writer's Olympics, or the Writer's World Cup. 10,000 writers descended upon Chicago in a literary frenzy, carrying fresh business cards and smart phones with thumbs stretched and ready to tweet. Having been to World Youth Day twice (aka Catholic Olympics, Catholic World Cup, etc.), which generally has attendees numbering in the millions, I was alright with the crowds. In fact, I thrive off of that kind of collective energy. What I couldn't deal with was the pressure: the pressure to be at the best panel, the best reading, the best off-site event at any given moment. The Olympics ran from Wednesday to Saturday: the Bookfair's 550 booths continuously stretching out in the nooks and crannies of the basement of the Hilton Chicago like some monstrous Kraken of the sea, hovering beneath the various ballrooms hosting the panels. The panels themselves gave me heart palpitations, with as many as 20 panels/readings happening at a time. Each featured experienced and well-known writers, editors, and publishers expounding on subjects like Connecting with Readers via your Website and Social Media or The Art of Writing a Joke. There were panels on publishing via your iPhone, on writing with violence, how to write about loss, when a text becomes feminist...you get the picture. Then came the more than 200 off-site events synchronously happening in different parts of Chicago.
I did my best. I averaged 2/3 panels a day, some of which I ducked out of early if they got too boring. I'd run down to the Bookfair or drop in on another. I loved The Art of Writing a Joke featuring Alan Shapiro, at which he and his friends essentially told their favorite dirty jokes for an hour. I didn't learn too much, but I got a good laugh.
My major highlight of the week was meeting my ultimatefavorite contemporary poet: Kim Addonizio. I love her. I love her poetry.
Now, I've met a few famous poets in my day. At Gonzaga, we had Jane Hirshfield, Carolyn Forché and Li Young-Lee come to read, come talk to the poetry classes. We even had a small mixer at Spokane's Atticus for the poetry students with Sharon Olds(!) Through all these, I kept my calm. But I've always wanted to meet Kim Addonizio because she clinched poetry for me. I'd always liked poetry, but it wasn't until I read her work that I realized what poetry could be, its wide potential. She's sassy. Her poems are wild, surprising and different. So I brought my book of hers with me to the World Cup and planned to go to her panels and meet her afterwards. It was my number one goal. I had a speech planned. One that went something like, "Hi, it's such an honor to meet you. I'm a young poet and your poetry really inspired me at a crucial point in my life. It made me decide to be a poet. Would you sign my book?" and then step back and be quiet.
This is not what happened.
Instead, I was at the Bookfair, chatting with some lady at some booth about their summer writing program featuring Billy Collins and Joyce Carol Oates, when I saw Kim's name in little print. This is what went down.
"Oh Kim Addonizio's on here! I love her."
"Oh really? She was just here...actually she's right there." and the lady helpfully pointed her out at the next booth.
I spun around wildly and didn't think at all before I launched.
Me, breathless: "Hi Kim?!"
Kim: "Uh, yes?"
Me, shaking her hand for too long: "Hi, I'm Colleen, I just wanted to say that I'm such a fan of your poetry, and it really clinched being a poet for me, it's just so inspring (speaking faster and faster now) andIwenttoGonzagandstudiedunderTodMarshallwhointerviewedyouonceandhegaveusyourbookanditreallychangedmywholelifebecausenowI'mgettingmyMFAandIhaveWhatisThisThingCalledLovebutnotyourlatestbook."
Kim: "Have some coasters. They're for my new book."
Me: "Thanks!!!! I'll see you at your panels!"
I then ran away, almost bumping into several people. I'm pretty sure I went blind for a few moments. I forgot to ask her to sign my book. It took an hour for my adrenaline to die down. But I still met her!!!!!
The second highlight of the Olympics was Friday night. Some of the girls and I decided to show up late for the HowtobeanAlcoholic panel at the bars of Chicago and go to the Poets Laureate Reading to hear Philip Levine and Carol Ann Duffy (Britain's Poet Laureate).
I went looking forward to hearing Philip Levine, and left entranced by Carol Ann.
I have never heard any poet read the way she read. Carol Ann Duffy is one of those languid women that seem to float on the air they breathe. She quite simply slinked up to the podium, and began to speak in a slow, thick voice, a voice that normally would sound quite drunk, if it weren't for her sharp, dry observations and perfect timing. Her poetry was phenomenal, and I listened breathlessly, attentive to every inflection, every word. As we were sitting there, listening to this great poet of our time, I got the feeling that such events are supposed to give: this wonderful feeling of nowness, of being part of this world, of the privilege that comes with hearing history speaking from the stage in front of me and knowing myself to be part of it simply because I was there. There were well over a thousand writers in that ballroom listening to Duffy read, but it was wonderfully personal. I was discovering new poetry to love, and isn't that really what it's all about? So much of the literary world today is focused on the career aspect of writing: on making connections, networking, researching, reading everything, so as not to get left behind. And I don't necessarily condemn that...it has made a very vague kind of vocation more specific, more accessible, and I am most certainly benefitting from the modern approach to writing (as one friend likes to put it, I'm good at the internet.) For more on the subject, check out this article from the New York Review. It sums up my feelings about it quite nicely.
But boy, do I enjoy it when all those things fall away and I stop thinking about myself, my writing, stop wondering if I could write something like the poetry I'm hearing. How glorious it was to just hear some poems and like them and know that I could never, ever, ever write the way she does, because it's a voice so very Duffy, how glorious to just sit back and fall in love with poetry, with words, with art again because I'm absorbed in the story being told, in the beauty of a turn of phrase. I want to own it, these things, that story, that turn of phrase, but I can't, even if I bought the book or wrote my own perfect lines...I can't own it, and trying to write something just as good won't give it to me. All I can do is listen.
The Bookfair was a pleasure in and of itself. I bought my friend Claire Mcquerry's excellent first book, Lacemakers, and had her sign it. I spent a lot of time at the table handing out flyers and just chatting with the people that came by. These chats can lead to a variety of connections, and a few of the second and third years left in excitement over possible book deals and publishing opportunities, but as a first year, I don't have so much ready for publication, so was free to wander the fair for my own amusement, with no agenda to push as so many at AWP do. It was wonderful, perusing the booths, talking to editors who'd normally never give me the time of day (people are nice when they're hoping you'll buy something). I subscribed to Tin House and Agni and The Fairytale Review and bought more books than I had suitcase space for. I even bought a mug from the Rumpus, seen here. I'm not a mug collector, but this one: I couldn't resist.
It was strange to be with so many of my "people." Writers either dress terribly or wonderfully, and everyone looks the same. We talk the same too. We went out with a few MFAs from Maryland and it struck me: the surreal similarity of our conversations. I almost applied to Maryland, and it was reassuring to realize that I could go to any school for my MFA, and though the program would be different, the conversations would be the same. It was comforting, this sense of a national community.
I've read some critiques of AWP, mostly by misanthropic writers who have an issue with the incestuous "Aren't we wonderful?!" collective selfbackslap of the writer's community and I have to say that yes, yes, we are.
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