Entertaining angels of a sort

There's a lovely new tavern by Sweet Melissa's in downtown Laramie, and members of the MFA bid farewell to visiting writer Edward P. Jones (The Known World) there this afternoon. Jones was with us for a month giving readings, interviews, workshops and manuscript consultations.

Jones is the last of three eminent guests to the MFA during the 2009-2010 term, and each of them have been wonderful to speak and work with. I've gleaned helpful techniques from the sentence-level style of poet Claudia Rankine's work (Don't Let Me Be Lonely), and I'm interested in her attention to what may appear at first, or to less focused faculties, to be ordinary or unremarkable.

Earlier this spring renowned journalist Philip Gourevitch visited UW for two weeks, and I'm very much in awe of his work, particularly We Write to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families. One particular suggestion he provided while discussing a segment of my own work was, "You're in a position to imagine sympathetically this faith community [that you're leaving]." This concern for an accurate, understanding portrayal of the complex people and events involved in a conflict (whether it be a large-scale conflict such as the Rwandan genocide or a minute, more personal one like a crisis of religious faith) is increasingly important to me, and it was good to hear Gourevitch reinforce this concern. I'm going to miss these opportunities after I leave the MFA in a couple months.