5 Day Trip. Day 2 by Rosemary Griggs

   One summer while I was earning an MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University, I attended the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference.  I was in Forrest Gander’s group along with poet Eileen Tabios who was a fellow student.  Even though the conference only lasted a week, it turned out to be quite influential on my writing.  I had been working on a series of poems about a character named Kimberlie.  In the one on one meeting, each student went over their five poem submission with the instructor.  Forrest encouraged me to continue with the series and he likened it to Berryman’s Dream Songs.  I was familiar with The Dream Songs but had yet to read them carefully and that provided me a direction for study.  At that time, Kimberlie was not a flight attendant, I hadn’t given her a profession.  The series was still very short.  

    Eileen Tabios and I became friends in the class.  I was already supporting myself as a fight attendant, and she encouraged me to make Kimberlie a flight attendant.  I said, “No way.”  For me, poetry was magical and sacred, and I didn’t want to encumber it with details from my day job which was meant to bring me places to write about, not be the focus of my writing.  Eileen insisted that after I had a manuscript, even if it was a good manuscript, something would need to hold it together and make it stand out, and she felt basing it around a flight attendant could achieve that end.  I still wasn’t biting.

    However, when I returned to balancing an MFA program and flying and writing homework assignments on layovers, it was much easier to write about what I had experienced that day.  So Kimberlie became a flight attendant (or likely she already was and it was just me that wasn't ready to admit it) and I’m glad she did.  I’m grateful to Eileen and Forrest and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference for spinning me in that direction.

Comments

[Eileen Tabios]

'Twas good times, Rosemary! Thanks for reminding me!
Eileen

[Rosemary Griggs]

Of course!