One of the best parts about MFA programs is the people you meet. I love the word “cohort,” but not the way most grad students or academics use it. To me it’s not a statistically linked group of study participants or a bunch of students who happen to belong to the same graduating class. I like to use it in the old way, the Roman way. My cohort is like the army of Macedonia: a band of warriors united in defense of a common cause.
What’s our cause? I think we all have different answers. My answer–my cause–is the protection, preservation, and expansion of creative space inside one’s brain, inside one’s social world, and inside the universe at large. It’s hard out there for a poet.
That is why it’s worth so much when one of my cohort reaches out across the internet, across state lines, across the years it’s been since we’ve seen each other and makes some of my poetry mean something. And Kirsten Clodfelter, in particular, is one of those people who’s just beautiful inside (and out, but I’m talking about inside right now). Here’s proof:
First, she made this adorable being:
Second, she reviewed my chapbook, which is not an act that I am in any way equating to the making of another human being, but an act which means a lot to me, all the same. Kirsten, I’m glad there is you.
Rachael Lyon 