Twice a year I teach in the MFA “low residency” program at Pacific University:
I am now at the campus which is just outside Portland, OR in Forest Grove. Just FYI my name in Finnish means Forest Grove. So I feel well situated.
I love teaching in this program because it has a fabulous student body–most of the graduate students are making their way to literary writing after having had a career or a grownup life, a matter of seasoning that not only makes them more vital and sincere as human beings but it also gives them stuff to write about–things drawn from what Yeats called “the foul rag and bone shop of the heart”.
The faculty in this program is in my view the finest group of teaching writers that I know of. It’s a hoot to be among them, and I always learn something each time I come.
Guide dog Nira simply loves the squirrels because unlike their Iowa brethren, the locals are a bit slow and complacent. Who can say why this should be so, save that Oregon is a lusher and greener place than Iowa where the squirrels are at it tooth and claw.
A long day of travel. A week of poetry and nonfiction. And a restaurant just around the corner called “Maggie’s Buns”.
What else can one possibly need?
SK
Planet of the Blind 