The Writing: On finding one’s own measures (Part 2)

On Sunday I began a postscript detailing my most vivid memories of emerging in my career thus far. It turned out to be larger than a postscript. Here’s the next leg of the journey, on my first fellowship and my first book.

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My first fellowship.

The same year I received my first acceptance, I started hanging around Poets House, a poetry library once open on the Hudson in New York’s Battery Park. I spent so much time there that I eventually became friends with the programs coordinator at the time, who encouraged me to apply for their Emerging Poets fellowship. I knew about that fellowship, but reading over the bios of all who had gotten it, I felt my own credentials were not up to snuff and had instead planned on applying next year (maybe). I never put my materials together. The deadline came and passed.