What Our MFA Students Say
Choosing Columbia College
Columbia is a great environment for the arts in general, and there is a definitely more innovative prevailing aesthetic and openness to all kinds of work. —Kristy Bowen, MFA ’07
I was attracted to the idea of a diverse urban campus in a large city. At Columbia College I feel like I can attend school and benefit from the city at large too. It really is an “urban campus.”
—Yvette Thomas, MFA ’08
I could tell from the website and list of professors that my idiosyncrasies and poetic schizophrenia would be cultivated instead of dismissed as “eccentric.”
—Kristen Orser, MFA ’08
Moving to Chicago attracted me. I’m from New York, and I wanted an urban landscape with a multitude of literary activities—which I surely found! —Hanna Andrews, MFA ’07
Unlike so many programs that offer MFAs in Creative Writing, I was solely interested in studying poetry. I appreciated the fact that Columbia offered an MFA exclusively in Poetry.
Fantastic Faculty
The best part of Columbia’s poetry program is the faculty. With possibly the widest range of aesthetics and temperaments, it was easy not only to find someone to connect with, but also someone to challenge you.
—Brandi Homan, MFA ’07
There is a distinguishing utter lack of pompousness among the faculty, visiting poets, readers, and students. I have found them to be talented poets who nourish their own work through nourishing others’.
—Carol Eding, MFA ’06
Students receive a great deal of personal attention and access to faculty. Also, one of the most exciting things for me was the variety of aesthetics held by the faculty—there’s no one school of poetry taught at Columbia or more importantly, no one style favored over another. This makes for a writing environment where innovative, wildly varied, original work is being made. —Hanna Andrews, MFA ’07
I like the fact that I can count on the professors listed in the advertisement I saw actually teaching the classes.
—Yvette Thomas, MFA ’08
I’ve continued to foster my outside interests and, with the help of professors, discovered how to use my non-poetic interests as poetic subjects. —Kristen Orser, MFA ’08
There’s no such thing as feeling like an anonymous number in a program like this. You receive a lot of personal help and attention, as well as access to a very fine roster of visiting poet-readers and the visiting poet-in-residence. —Margaret Brady, MFA ’07
Publishing: Creating Culture
Columbia Poetry Review has taught me about public relations: how to solicit poets, how to coordinate a reading, and how to create a community for poetic voice to be published. —Kristen Orser, MFA ’08
As a result of a class visit by Joyelle McSweeney and Action Books, I co-founded Switchback Books with two fellow MFA students. In one year, Switchback published a full-length collection, gave local readings and organized an author reading tour, published a chapbook of the editors’ work, went to AWP, and ran a contest to decide on the second book. None of these experiences would have been possible without the spark that came from that class visit, or without the support of other students and faculty. —Brandi Homan, MFA ’07
Terrific Teaching Experience
The act of teaching has intellectually bettered me. If I am asking my students to question their assumptions, map their ways of thinking, and push further into an idea, I have to do the same thing.
—Kristen Orser, MFA ’08
Taking the Composition Theory and Praxis class helped me solidify my own teaching philosophy; having discussions with and observing poetry faculty helped me envision applying that philosophy toward the teaching of creative writing. —Hanna Andrews, MFA ’07
Exceptional Opportunities
Columbia offered the opportunity to cast my net wide, try a variety of poetic styles, and experiment until I found out what worked for me. This program celebrates variety, but insists on craft, language, and intelligence. —Kristen Orser, MFA ’08
I realized my responsibility, as a young poet, to be aware of the current poetic landscape, as well as an acute awareness of the lineage and influences that have allowed me and led me to write the way I do. This awareness was fueled by the reading I was encouraged to do by faculty, the questions about my writing history and process that I was asked to articulate, and the work I was doing in the classroom, whether it was a critique of the relevance of avant-garde in contemporary writing, or the translation of French poetry.
—Hanna Andrews, MFA ’07
In addition to reading more and thinking critically about my writing, the program also fostered some interesting projects and sent my work in directions I wouldn't have imagined. Sometimes, there was a certain serendipity in the course offerings that lined itself up with projects I was either already working on or wanted to start, which worked out well in shaping and pushing them along. —Kristy Bowen, MFA ’07
Lifelong Friendships
I gained poet-friends that I plan on knowing for the rest of my life.
—Brandi Homan, MFA ’07
You can’t put a quantifiable price on the value of the people you meet in a program like this. —Margaret Brady, MFA ’07
Keeping It Real
Humor is a big part of this program. Not to say that our poetic endeavors are not serious: they are, but there are fewer egos. This lets us all revel in sound and delight in language.
—Kristen Orser, MFA ’08
Probably the most important thing I’ve learned at Columbia is something David Trinidad said: “All poets are useful and necessary.” Hearing something like that makes you feel like you have a place and a purpose in the world. —Margaret Brady, MFA ’07