i went to go fill out the withdrawal the thursday after my last entry. i sent emails of my intent to my professors, my classmates, and one to my bitch ass professor telling her what i think of her. i'll post all those emails at the end of this entry for posterity and whoever else is interested.
so. that's it. im a college drop out. im so kanye right now.
later in the evening of that same day, i sat in love park for awhile awaiting company to head to the concert with. as i sat, i turned over the day's events in my mind and got real excited about it. so i called a bunch of people and told them. one of my friends laughed hysterically for 20 minutes, then told me what a brave thing ive done.
im either brave or completely out of my gourd.
i now have to write a letter to the dean of the college (have i mentioned this here before? ive typed this stuff so many times, its all running together) and i have to stop by the bursar's office to see about getting some of this semester's tuition back (which i dont think i will) and give my punkass professor her books back, and that's that. i am washed clean of temple u.
i did go to that art show at my teacher's house, though. what a drag. she's got a G O R G E O U S house, oh man--like, everything is wood. beautiful beautiful cherry and mahogany and whatever else. she lives in the fairmount area and on the outside the place doesn't look big at all but man, it was like 4 stories high inside. i felt like i was inside better homes & gardens magazine.
i was the only student there and therefore the youngest. other than me, the youngest person there was 35. i wasn't in a mingling mood, so i didn't do much; i mostly sat on the couch and ate up all the crackers. she kept introducing me as her student and kept telling me that i need to meet this person and this person and that person because they're either in temple's grad program or are not long out of it.
..why do i need to meet them now that im not in it anymore?
when people would ask me if i was a student and what program im in and blah blah blah, i didnt feel like going through the whole withdrawal story, so i just went with it. one lady sitting beside me, whom i had never ever laid eyes on and vice versa, said to me,
'are u a student?'
yes, i said, my name's tracy.
'are u having trouble?'
.... wtf? what is my teacherlady (not the teacherbitch, but the one who invited me to the art show; that's how i'll distinguish between them--teacherlady and teacherbitch) telling these ppl? how the fk did she know?
so i asked her, how did u know?
she said she just had a feeling.
bullshit, teacherlady's runnin her mouth abt stuff. whatever, im done. iont care.
but really, what puzzles me is why she's acting like i havent withdrawn from the program. she introduced me as her student, told people to contact me about being a grad student, and before i left, she asked when id next be on campus.
um.... never? i withdrew, remember?
largely, the reason i went was because she said there were people i needed to meet, namely a guy named quincy. i figured it would be this guy because she had us buy a book of his to study later on in class, and because she always talks about how she knows him personally. but it wasnt. it was quincy jones. not the cool quincy jones. her son, quincy, whose last name happens to be jones.
i noticed a tall, very thin, very yellow young man with hair struggling to remined locked come in about 30 minutes before i decided to get up and go. he wasn't an attractive guy. he was very long and gaunt, not cuteskinny but sicklyskinny with frail violinist hands. he saw me when he came in; he was looming near, reading a book, or at least pretending to, by the time i stood to leave. i got my jacket from the closet (broke out the member's only for the first time this season--its gettin cold out, man) and walked back into the room where i was sitting to tell teacherlady i was leaving.
before i left she introduced me to some other people--her husband, the artist; some white guy who just finished his ph.d work, and the tall sickly looking yellow boy with the loosey goosey dreadlocks. that was quincy, her son. teacherlady is a dark woman, so his pops MUST be white, which is interesting to note, considering that teacherlady is the most Mama Africa assed woman i think ive ever met. she had just introduced me to the white guy. 'she's new,' she said. i stuck out my hand to the white guy and to my left i hear a couple of footsteps and an echoing voice asking, 'she's new?' that was quincy, swooping in. as the white guy was giving me his contact information, i turned and was introduced to tallsicklyyellowboy. i stuck out my hand and he held it during the entire time it took his mother to say 'yes, she's one of my students, in my poetry class; quincy's my son. he did his work at temple in the english program and blah blah blah quincy did you something something? oh no, it was blah blah, yeah, that's right.. you need to talk to quincy. you need to talk to him. she needs to talk to you.'
so i break out of the handshake and make niceties for a minute or two. he actually seems like an intereting person; really pleasant personality. he gave me his phone number and email address, at his mother's urging. i doubt that i'll be contacting.
long story short, it was wack. i was glad to get home.
ive suddenly grown tired of typing here. im gonna get up and order pizza and straighten up this trough i call an apartment.
this morning i decided to withdraw from the program.
i was a colllege dropout for approximately four hours.
i essentially decided that i was 97% sure that as soon as i was back on my mother's insurance (i have to be a full-time student to be put on it), i'd formally withdraw from classes, from the program, from temple from grad school from all that.
so ive been waiting. and waiting and waiting and waiting for word from my mama that i'm back on. i didn't exactly get that this morning, but i got something close enough; she told me that she had what she needed from my school, and that she had a few more things to send to the insurance company, but since she has what she needs from the school, i could go ahead and withdraw, if that's what i was going to do.
so that was it. what i'd been waiting for. so i was gonna do it, right?
so i emailed two of my professors, both of whom i was supposed to see in class today. my queer theory and black arts movement classes (the workshop with the wicked woman is held on thursday). i emailed them and told them that i apologize for the abruptness of the informing of this decision (other than the wicked woman, i hadnt mentioned my possible withdrawal to either of my other professors), and that for a myriad of reasons, mostly my diminishing love of poetry and lack of funding, i have decided to withdraw from the program and as such, i would not be in their classes today or any day after.
at 1:39 pm, my phone rang. i didnt answer because i didnt recognize the number. it was a philly number, though.
about 30 minutes later, i checked the voicemail. it was my black arts movement teacher. she said that she was disturbed by my email, and that she's glad that i'm here, and that she wants me to stay, but if i have to leave, i have to leave. she asked me to come to class so we could meet and talk about everything after class. i was touched by her concern, especially when backed with the fact that i still havent heard anything from my QT teacher, so i decided to go. plus, i wanted to talk to her. i should have done it a long time ago.
i got to class about 30 minutes late--class starts at 3:10, i didnt get on the trolley til 3:00, and i missed my train at the station. i got there and went to our usual meeting room. no one was there. she'd been talking about finding another classroom to meet in because our usual spot was so cold all the time. on a whim i went down to the 10th floor and i smelled the scented oil she always wears, sandalwood or some other such boho fragrance. i walked in, huffing and puffing like i'd been running to find everyone (when in actuality it was quite the calm and casual stroll) and i apologized for being late. she said it was okay and called me baby and i sat down and started off trying to will the hours along in a timely fashion. i was fine for the first hour or so, then it became unbearable, as usual. we've finally gotten to the part of the course where we actually read poetry instead of historical background and theory. today we discussed amiri baraka. black poetry. what i've supposedly been longing for (if only we could read some black poetry in workshop...)
i was uninterested. validation: i really don't dig poetry that much anymore.
so anyway
after approx. 28 thousand hours, class ends. 6:05 pm finds me sitting in a faux leather chair in my professor's office, where the air is heavy in the sandalwood or some other such boho fragrance, waiting for her to return from the bathroom. she is only gone for a couple of minutes; when she returns, she whispers to me, before even closing the door:
'what did those women do to you??'
she was referencing my workshop teacher and the other woman who heads the poetry department. i laughed and started to tell her everything, about how i can't stand my workshop teacher, about how dismissive she is, how hard she is to communicate with, about her blackface routine in class, about how she gave us copies of her book and how i intend to sell it on ebay. then she told me that the whole department is like that; that she gets the same thing from this same woman and the chair of the department, only ten times worse. she said that she's pretty much on her own in the department and that she's made a lot of people mad because she spoke out about the things that are going on (i forget what exactly those things were), but by and large, a lot of people are very unhappy with her. she said she didn't care. she seems like that type. i cant think of how to describe it. wait yes i can--like the type of person to say something humorously insulting about something or somebody then laugh really loudly and take a short jog in a semi-circle and go 'wooo girl, im terrible, aint i terrible?! chile, im so baaaad, hahaha!' that type. exactly that type. in fact, she did just that at one point in our conversation, true story.
so anyway. after whatever happened between her and whoever else happened, she wrote somebody up and went straight to the president with her case, which is still pending. so she's on thin ice with some people, but she doesn't really care because she doesnt 'give up easily' (i had a feeling that she was insinuating that i AM giving up easily in pointing that out about herself in regards to my situation. wasnt feelin that too much). then she proceeded to make the following proposal:
after she read my email, she inquired to the graduate secretary or somebody of the sort whether or not a student could switch from one program to another without having to reapply. after all, they've been admitted, right? why wouldnt they be qualified to be placed in a similar program? she said the woman didn't say no, but she said it had never been done before. that leaves enough room to try, and she offered to help me try to git r done. she said that there are ways to avoid people in the program that you clash with, and that there are measures in the master's program requirements that provide for it. i'll have to look at that and see.
she made it clear that it has to appear that this is totally of my own doing, so as not to make it seem like she put me up to it or that she's leading me in anyway or using me to fuel her own personal causes and vendettas. she was big on making that clear.
which leads me to this observation:
she's leading me and using me to fuel her own personal causes and vendettas.
cause check what i found out- i dont know if i mentioned this here or not: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0127,kitwana,26120,1.html
this was back in 2001. and now this. i dunno, she seems like a drama magnet, and she seems like the type to revel in drama. kinda like my neice--she's always getting in trouble in school but its NEVER her fault. it's her friend, or the teacher, or some little boy. this lady strikes me as the same type.
so i dont fully feel like she wants me to do this because she wants me to stay in the program. she wants me to wage a war against my workshop teacher. i know this because A) she made a direct reference to bad blood between them, and B) when i told her of my personal deteriorating relationship with poetry, and how that was a separate issue that has nothing to do with the workshop teacher, but is having just a big effect on my decision,
she said not to mention it in my case for transfer. mad suspicious.
so, i gotta decide by morning whether or not i want to give the transfer a go. that's like, tomorrow. in the morning. just hours from now. i dunno what i wanna do.
i mean, i want a mater's degree. that wld be fricken awesome. but literature? that's not really what i wanna study either. i dont wanna study other people's works; i wanna write my own.
so i dunno.
she invited me to an art show of her husband's at her house on saturday. she said she knows some people she wants me to meet and that i should come out; i'll be the only student there. my workshop teacher will be there too.
brittany's back. so is another friend from my transy days whom id thought i'd long lost contact with. by 'back' i mean that we talk to each other via the net, brittany and i through email a couple times a week, my other friend through an instant messenger less frequently.
its weird.
they both pickin up, or attempting to, right where we left off. laughin and jokin, 'remember when'ing, compliments just flowin like wine in rome.
i mean its cool.
just weird.
i still got some things to get over and push aside between britt and i. im workin on that, and i feel pretty good about it. i'll see her over thanksgiving break. supposedly. that still sort of remains to be seen.
communication with the other friend is... awkward. long story.
between the two of them, though, i like being reminded of happier times. that makes me feel a little stronger, at least temporarily, self-esteem wise.
speakin of which, ive been pretty upbeat all week today. leaving that dreaded campus, especially for a long weekend, does that to me.
im excited about writing. ive got some really good concepts and ideas in my head.
cause its rainy this weekend and i finally have a stopper for my tub and i wanna turn some music up as loud as i can and clean my place and finish up with a long soak in my tub with bubbles and candles with a glass of wine in my hand the whole time.
but wine gives me a wicked headache
so im lookin at these chaser pills like hmmmmmmm
but hell u have to travel like 10 miles to get some REAL likka in this city. there's beer stores here. ive never heard of such. likka stores that only sell beer. and them joints is on every corner. only place i know of to go get likka right now is like 19th and chestnut downtown.
they sell hard likka at drugstores at home. and there's likka stores right across the street from damn near every church. and there's a LOT of churches in the hood.
thats what IM talkin bout. (c) kip
all i want is some $4.99 arbor mist. but nooooooooooooooooooooooo.
except nilla's. and dave's i guess. that dont count tho cause im only there cause i whined about it. lol
anyway *middle finger*
my friend sent me a note on facebook, which absolutely baffles me and wld prolly still suck even if i did know how to use it; she was like 'how u go to temple and only have one temple friend?'
i skipped my first two classes today. prolly gonna fuck up a lot as far as my work load goes. sad thing is, i dont care.
i came out here looking for something. searching. i haven't found it. i have no idea where it is, but its not at temple. its not in the academic study of poetry or even in poetry itself at this point in my life. and sometimes i feel like its not in philly, either. but i dont think its at home.
i feel weird here, very awkward and unsure of myself and small. i mean i like it here, dont get me wrong. but 'i live in philadelphia' does not fit in my mouth or in my mind. everytime i have to fill out something and supply my address, i begin to put down my louisville address. it just seems so surreal, and accepting this new reality is slow. if i wasnt such a withdrawn hermit, im sure it would speed up, but school makes me feel so waterlogged, so sluggish; i can't possibly be good company with the stress it's glued to my shoulders, so 9 times out of 10 i just opt to be alone, or with the one person i know doesnt mind my lethargic/tempramental/blue moods. i feel uneasy all the time. i think that's because i dont feel that i lay any claim to this city, so i dont own it and i guess that intimidates me. it's so weird. its just all so weird. that's the best word i can use to describe this whole experience thus far: weird.
but yeah. back to school and how i hate it. i really, truely hate it. i dont even know where to begin.
im taking three courses. poets of the black arts movement, queer theory and literary criticism, and the mandatory poetry workshop. let's start with the first class--poets of the blk arts movement.
i like it. i love revolutionary shit & that's what this class is all about. poetically speaking. soemone in the class (there are only three of us, four if u count the girl who is only sitting in on the class) told me that he read that temple's african american studies department is one of the only ones in the nation still pretty closely aligned & defined by "black power" as a... theory, i guess. or a manner or mode of pedagogy. or whatever. the professor's okay. she likes to talk a lot, and she goes on tangents often, but she always remembers where she left off. she's obviously very smart too. so that course is cool.
queer theory has the potential to be cool too, but as of yet its been pretty boring.. so far we've read a bunch of boring theory, 'moby dick,' and poems by 'hart crane' who ive decided that i absolutely loathe. here's my professor: http://www.paulagordon.com/shows/delany/delany-photo.jpg he's a very racially ambiguous looking guy, as u may or may not be able to tell by looking at that picture. but when he first walked in the classroom on the first day i thought 'sweet! a black dude!' but the more i looked at him, the less sure of that i was. very fair skin, good hair (quote/unquote). and all the facial hair makes it hard to really see his face. and speaking of his facial hair, it reaches waaaay way down now to his belly, which is rather bulbous, and it leaves like.. a little mound of beard crusties on his shirts and i absolutely HATE it. i wanna just bring a broom to class with me and swipe at it as he talks. or hire a homeless mr. squeegie type guy to just sit under his chair and pop out every 5 minutes to rub him down with some newspaper for $.75. but i digress.
he's a name dropper. that's annoying. and he's very fascinated with himself and insists that everybody else be as well. ooooh, he lives in new york. ooooooh tim curry the actor used to babysit his daughter in the 80s. oooooooh he's had random anonymous gay encounters with 30-50 thousand people in his life. ooooooh he fell in time square and broke his rib 5 days before the semester began, hence the dramatic cane he limps around with. all true stories. so yeah. that's class is okay. there's supposed to be some explicit depictions of sex at some point in the course though. im holdin out for that.
and so, we come to the huge festering boil on the asscheek that is my life. the poetry workshop. if this class was not on my schedule, i sincerely doubt that there would be huge problems at all. firstly, it's important to note that i've discovered and decided that poetry just is not for me right now. i dont like writing it, i barely like reading it, except for certain poets. i dont want to be a published poet right now. i dont want to teach poetry. and at this level of academia, ur ass better make sure u absolutely love what u're studying to apply urself and do well. i dont. and that's not to say that i never will again, its just that right now, this is now where the heart of my passion dwells. i dont know where it DOES dwell right now, but i know that it is not here. so, im dealing with that in addition to the rest of my problems with the course--
jeez i dont even know where to start now. okay.
i spoke to a professor in the writing department about some possible funding before the semester started. he knew i was in the poetry program and he happened to mention that he and the two women who run the program--my workshop professor and another lady, who are in charge of running the workshops each semester--had a falling out because of their differing views on poetry. he said they were very much into experimental poetry. in my experince, that's an understatement. and by 'experimental' poetry i essentially mean weird shit that doesnt really seem to mean much of anything. like:
this is a map. 'take this and do not lose it' . they told us and we listened snowflakes baby arms , citizens.- and fireflies long legs that started the spring. , but none of the above.
see? weird shit. im the only one who doesnt write that way. of the assigned readings she gives us, all of it is that way. no attention is paid to other forms of poetry at all. talk about alienation. i dont feel like there's a place for me or my poetry in that classroom; in my black arts class we've been discussing how one of the main goals of the black arts movement was to establish a new way of looking at black art and literature-- ie, u cant read an amiri baraka poem and evaluate it the way you would a robert frost poem. you know? and that was a concern of mine in this program. i mean it just set the stage for me being singled out, treated as a either delicacy or a nuisance, but a token in either case. and that's most assuredly what happened when it came time to discuss my work. ill explain that part later.
so in class im typically very quiet in class. this is more or less my first real poetry workshop, and i didnt know what to expect. but never in a million years would i be prepared for what i found. now i could be wrong here, but it is my conjecture that black literature and poetry puts heavy emphasis on meaning. what does this poem mean? what is it saying? how is it saying it? you know? but in this class, with this poetry, it's all about form. it's all about page space and line breaks and enjambment and diction and syntax and technical shit. im not saying that black folk dont concern themselves with this when they write, but its inSANE the way they focus on it in this program. i mean we've read shit and never once discussed the potential meaning. wtf is that about? i mean they obsess over it, so much so that it makes me not want to write anymore. moreso than i already dont want to write. i tried not long after id had a couple of workshops under my belt, cause ill need to write new pieces if im expected to have enough material to get me through this semester, let alone the whole year. or whole two years. but i was writing and obsessing over the same things they obsess over, and it just sucked everything that i ever thought was good out of the writing process. the piece i wrote was not in my own voice. im not adverse to change, but this is a change that doesnt feel good or authentic. nothing about they way they treat poetry seems authentic. i mean its such bullshit; they sit around for 3 hrs (each class is 3 hrs) dropping names ("there's something very kerouac-ian about this in that--"), fashioning deeply involved visions regarding the placement of a single solitary comma ("it really adds a sense of movement, of desperation.. the endstop there makes the entire verbosity just pop and implode"), and tension. the word tension is said no less than 85 times per hour in that class. everything "creates tension." everything. this line and this concept--"im very interested in the tension surrounding this." this vowel sound next to this capital letter--"it creates a tension that im particularly interested in.." it's amazing. its dumbfounding. and that's exactly how i feel. dumbfounded. if this is really what poetry is and what its about, im very unprepared in in over my head. but really? it just seems like a bunch of grad students sitting around masturbating each other with big words and concepts that they paid good money to learn. that's not what poetry is to me. i hope i never get used to that.
so, im quiet in class. i never know what to say. i never have anything deeply metaphysical or anything to say, and i feel such pressure to supply those kind of comments to the conversation. but if i did that, id be bullshitting. im not paying to bullshit. i tried to confide in the other black girl in the class/poetry program, but.. she's very much into the whole experimental thing too, let's say. so i dont think she really understands what im feelin or where im comin from. i think i may have offended her, in fact. so, i resolved to tell my professor what was goin on with me so i didnt just look like im not doing the work and not trying or anything.
this lady was hard for me to figure out. ive recently decided that i dont like her. she doesnt look very likable (picture and samples of her work can be found here: http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/duplessis/). that picture doesnt do the full unlikableness of her appearance and personality justice. her eyebrows are black and gray, but her hair is a thinning, dyed-to-death shock of red affixed in one of the dumbest haircuts ive ever seen. most disturbingly interesting to me is her mouth. her teeth are arranged sort of in the shape of a parrot's beak, like this: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/graphics/taxonomy/animals/aves/Parrot/JSC%20980814%20Zoo%20Parrot%201.JPG given that shape, her tongue peeks out whenever she parts them the same way a parrot's does, the way it sort of clucks and rolls around in there, all thick and dry and awkward, almost too big for it little cave of shelter. her mouth is like that. plainly put, she is not an attractive woman. that doesnt have too much to do with why i dont like her, though. i just wanted to point that out. it does, however, make her holier-than-thou, smarter-than-u attitude rather ironic. the nerve of ugly ppl to be uppity.
so anyway, i went to go talk to her and i stepped in her office and was immediately uncomfortable. there's something in her manner that manifests in her gaze and the way she talks to you that just does that. i had the worst time trying to tell her what was wrong with me and it was so frustrating. i was 100% truthful, as truthful as i could have been--i told her that i didnt feel prepared for the class, told her that im not used to approaching poetry this way and that i dont really like it, that the class doesnt make me feel good, told her that i dont think i like poetry the way i used to, blah blah blah. and almost every point that i made, except the one about not liking poetry anymore, she discredited--at least in my opinion she did--by sort of waving it off and saying 'yeah, everybody feels that way;' 'yeah, everybody goes through that;' 'yeah, other people are feeling the same way.' um, okay, i understand that and its significance but bitch, im not 'everybody.' im an individual and its not fair to just write off all my angst as something that's fine because everybody else feels that way. there's other shit at work too that she just acted like she didnt want to see or acknowledge and it was so upsetting. i was depressed the rest of the evening. at the end of the meeting though, we resolved that i would committ to reading 10 pages a night in two of the books on poetry she gave me, on freewriting for 15 minutes a day, and to contributing more in the classroom. which is fine; she's not asking me to do something pointless or something that i cant do. but i dont want to do it. cause i dont like poetry like that. so the drive isnt there. i think that's important; she didnt pay too much mind to that.
needless to say, i havent touched those books, nor have i been freewriting, mainly because im so stressed that i feel like i dont have the time to do so.
the way the workshop is set up is like this: each week (the class only meets once a week) we discussed the selected poems picked out by the professor, poems of classic, well-known (to those in the academic poetry world), published and established poets. we do that for an hour, then we spend the remaining two hours discussing and workshopping the 5-7 pages of poetry submitted by two of the students in the class. since the class is rather small this semester, each poet will have their work shopped three times this semester. that means that i'll need to have 15-21 pages of poetry to share and discuss with everybody this semester. that's 15-21 pages of poetry that i dont have. anyway, that's how the class works. typically the class has no problem doing that. whether or not the poets actually value the comments posed in class is another story, but there's usually no problem getting the discussion popping off. we shopped my pieces last thursday. i counted three start silences of 5-7 seconds each. these are silences that didnt exist in the discussion of anyone else's work. now. this was disheartening a bit, but i understood it. its very plausible that they just didnt know how to approach it or treat it, and were nervous about how to get the ball rolling. the pieces that i threw together i guess were a little heavy (in other words, a couple of them had the 'n-words' in them. one even had 'nigger' AND 'nigga' in it. oy). so i mean i understood it. it was unfortunate, because perhaps if we werent given solely 'experimental' shit to read, maybe that nervousness wouldn't be there. but i mean it was whatever, i wasnt surprised. actually the discussion of my work wasnt so bad. got a couple compliments. they liked them a lot more than i do.
after a student's/poet's work is discussed, they go and meet with the professor afterward, just to discuss things. i was fine with the way the discussion of my work had gone, and wasnt anticipating anything mindblowing to happen in the prof's office. but yo man.. when i tried to tell her what i just typed up there, that there was a little nervousness and hesitance, she pretty much said no, there wasnt.
...excuse me? i was there. i felt it.
but no. she said that it wasnt there. note: she didn't say that she personally didnt think it was there, or that she didn't notice it, she said no, flat out, it wasnt there. im wrong. that basically made me feel like i was creating it myself because i want special treatment. maybe i'm jumping to conclusions in feeling that way. but, she then jumped to conclusions when she then assumed that i only sensed or felt that way because i didnt get the response that i'd wanted, or in her words, because everybody didnt love my work as much as i do.
um, while u frontin i was perfectly fine with the discussion (almost--i'll tell u the part i wasnt fine with a little later) and furthermore, i dont even LIKE my work in the first place so what i look like bein mad at somebody else cause that dont like it either?
she made me feel like i was imagining shit man. dont do that to me. dont patronize me like that. so the communication just isnt there. i told her that im apparently not explaining myself efficiently (read: she wasnt listening to me) which is why she wasnt getting what i was trying to say. so we resolved that i'd write out everything just to get my thoughts out (uninterruptedly). i decided im gonna email it to her whenever i get around to writing it because she does need to know how im feelin.
i got an email later the next day from another girl in my class. here's a little of what she said:
Anyway, I was hoping to see you because I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed reading your work and I thought that the workshop of it on Thursday was really unfortunate...I also wanted to tell you that I was really put off by the way that Rachel spoke in class, and I feel bad for not speaking up against her. From discussing Thursday's workshop with other people, I know that everybody is really quite disgusted...
it felt good to hear this because it helped me name another thing that was bothering me. here's the story behind that:
at about the hour devoted to discussing my work was drawing to a close, the professor spoke for 10-15 minutes about black people. black language, black poetry, black semantics. it reminded me of something de la croix said to the jewish lady brought in to make his show black-people friendly in 'bamboozled' when he said: "continue, oh great niggerologist." i mean yall this chick was the absolute authority on black people the way she was talkin. and i felt so.... retarded. because she felt like she had to give the class a briefing on the habits of the negro for them to understand my work. it was like another star to mark my difference and more than that it was offensive. what was offensive about it, you ask? well. there came a point in her lecturing where she made reference to the way black people talk, saying that our voices have more of a vocal range in normal, everyday conversation than other folks. she then proceeded to imitate a black person talking in order to highlight this difference. now, it wasnt as stereotypical as it may be playing out in your mind.. she didnt go 'yo yo yo big homie, g-money, my nizzle!' or anything like that. i think she used the phrase 'and then i said.' but the whole thing was very, very uncomfortable, and truth be told, i couldnt pinpoint a concrete reason why. it just was. i didnt think anybody else would feel the same way cause, well.. aint nobody else black. except the other black girl. but im sad to say that she doesnt really register as black in my mind. i know, i know.. but she doesnt. sue me. anyway. after her impression, she then looked at me and said, 'excuse my blackface, that wasnt appropriate' or something to that effect. she most definitely said 'excuse my blackface' though. yeah. uncomfort level was through the fucking roof at this point. none of this registered with me as i was sitting in her office upset though; i just knew that i was upset, and when i read the email that i quoted u above, it became clear to me that oh my god.. that's a reason why i was upset. u know? i think that that bit of uncomfort was lying rather dormant in me cause i just wanted to make it home... so when i was pushed over the edge in her office, the uncomfort i felt over that whole thing had already planted the seed.
and furthermore, as i was sitting in the station waiting on my train to go home, i pulled out the copy of the comments on my pieces she'd given me. she suggested/reminded me, prefaced with 'i'm sure you know this already,' to be careful how i use the word 'nigger.'
....
THE GREAT NIGGEROLOGIST STRIKES AGAIN!!!
fuck her man. iont like her. and im bound and determined to let her know that i didnt appreciate that at all, and since she wont listen to me or take what i say to heart, im perfectly okay with doing it via email.
i dont wanna do this anymore, yall. ive been searching. searching searching searching for something and i dont know what it is, but im certain at this point that this is not it. im glad to finally come to that conclusion, but im afraid at the same time. there are lots of people in my family so in awe and enamored at the thought of me being in graduate school. now ima withdraw? what then?
i told my mama how i was feeling in regards to that. she said, 'who cares what anybody else thinks? you gotta do what u gotta do.' that made me feel really good to hear that. cause it means that finally, she understands what im goin through.
but i do want everybody to know that my decision to withdraw, if that is in fact what im deciding to do, is not because im weak. its not because i just dont want to do the work. its not because ive had a couple of bad classes. its because i dont feel in my heart that this is where i need to be right now. bougie ass academia + poetry just doesnt work out for me. some of the best poetry in the world is being written right outside the windows of that 11th floor classroom, right beyond all the barriers that keep the privileged kids from the underprivileged, past the obvious separation between "us" and "them." that's the shit i dig. im wasting time and a whole lot of money. im 23 and broke. i dont have that much to waste.
there's a creative writing party on friday. ive been so withdrawn from my classmates, and everybody's always tellin me how they really want me to come out with them sometimes, so someone made me promise id go. i desperately dont want to go. my weekends are reserved for mushy lovey dovey time; i dont have the time or opportunity for that during the week. and now i gotta go smile in all these ppls faces and act like i want to be there. that sucks.
so yeah. this could potentially be the entire story of my academic graduate poetry career.
i might could be comin to join u, kanye! and i dont feel bad about that.
i just dont want anyone else to feel bad about it, either.
