in the morning / we are forgiven

or: pointing to where softness should go

nostalgia for a future that never happened

I've been pretty frustrated and burnt out at my day job, for reasons I won't get into here. An unfortunate side effect is that I've been... not considering, exactly, but definitely casting a sideways glance at going back to finally get my MFA.

Some deep Bridget Lore: I got a BFA at Columbia College in Interactive Arts and Media– I was originally going for a BA in Game Design, got disillusioned with the program and bearish on my career outlook, and also got really into, like, technology-mediated and responsive installation and performance art. Think Cory Arcangel, or Luftwerk. Or this. Or this. The BFA program was new– and unfortunately doesn't exist anymore– and the degree cohort consisted of me and three other people. My faculty advisor and mentor was a well-known new media artist who just... did not believe in me or my work. At all.

In hopes of actually getting the mentorship I needed to make the kind of art I wanted to do, I went straight from Columbia into an MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. My focus was on Design for Emerging Technologies, which seemed close enough to what I wanted to do. But I had trouble finding mentors and collaborators there too, and my art practice quickly stalled out. Combined with a really deep depressive episode and I ended up leaving the program after one year, with the degree unfinished.

(Leaving the program kicked off a series of events circa 2012/13 that changed my life, and not necessarily for the better. But like. I'm here now. And I'm a girl. And a poet. That means something.)

So now I'm here, working in healthcare and writing/performing poems in my off-hours. My current day job has been pretty rough and, frankly, with the job market being what it is, I'm not sure I could find another FT job quickly. And I need one, at a certain salary threshold and with health insurance, because I have a family to support now.

And yet here I am, casually browsing Poetry MFA programs.

I think what I really want is just space and time and support to keep doing the things I'm doing after work. Poetry is the thing that's filling my cup right now, and I wish I could just, you know, go to a nerd monastery for a few years and focus on that.

I've been attending a weekly online writer's workshop hosted by author and slam poet Neil Hilborn. Over the summer he offered to take an editing pass at my chapbook WIP. He left some feedback on my draft over the weekend and then sent me an email with his Big Picture thoughts.

Just a quick note to say that I finished editing your manuscript and I absolutely loved it. You've got a perspective, a distinct voice, and you've got a ton of talent, and most poets can't say the same. I really don't have any major revisions that need to be made, just the smaller ones within the poems themselves.

To be totally real with you, I just think this book is cool and needs to be out in the world. Submit it to as many chapbook contests as you want to. But also don't be too stressed if it doesn't immediately get picked up. Print some chapbooks yourself, sell them at shows, get them into peoples' hands because folks need to read these poems. Put poems out there with reckless abandon and trust that you've got more poems in you. If you've got any questions or if you think I can help please let me know, because I am so excited to see where your writing career is headed.

When I read that email all I could think was, fuck, if only someone said something like this to me when I was in art school. My life could have looked a lot different, you know?

I don't know that going back to grad school would give me what I'm looking for, and right now it feels like too much of a financial and creative risk to seriously consider. But I feel good knowing that there's support and community out there outside the MFA Industrial Complex. Maybe I'll go back someday. Right now I get to make art and share it with people and have them tell me, in the moment, how much they connected with it. In the midst of some very tough days this year, making art is one of the things keeping me going.

Updates

I'm going to be a featured reader at Tuesday Funk!

If you're in Chicago come see me (Nov. 4th, 7:30pm, Hopleaf) read poems about gay sex and grief and having gay sex while grieving!

I have a poem in Issue 2 of TRANS MAG!

My piece is a blackout/erasure poem based on Executive Order 14168, the Day One EO declaring that trans people don't exist. Pick up a copy and support trans art and lit!

I'm going to feature at That's Poetic!!

This will probably be my last reading for 2025. Come see me (Dec. 14th, 5pm, Bramble Arts Loft) read some cozy poems about queer chosen family!

What's Bridget Reading?

Marrow by eri lucia kapling just breaks my heart early and then keeps breaking it until at the end it's more of an oil. eri is such a stunning writer, deft and brutal all at once. Definitely pick up a copy when you can.

What's Bridget Listening To?

Not content with turning me on to Lucy Dacus, Kyrs has now gotten my hooked on Ezra Furman (who we listened to a lot when we were on tour earlier this month).

Other People's Poems

"Any fool can get into an ocean..." by Jack Spicer

Love you,

Bridget