Poem of the Week: 4.22.23

Saturday edition

Drum roll, please.

🥁 🥁 🥁

Last week, I signed off with the promise of big news.

If you’re an astute POTW reader, you may have picked up on the clues: two posts in a row about Albuquerque right around the calendar time for annual academic admissions…

That’s right! I’m going to grad school to get an MFA in Creative Writing at

UC San Diego!!!

Lol. Allow me to explain.

I started Oliveira Poetry and the Poem of the Week last September not long after I had made up my mind about what to do with my life for the next few years. Applying to grad school was partially the impetus to starting this Substack. Editing, revising, and writing for my applications went hand-in-hand with feeling like my work was “good enough” to be shared publicly, too.

I briefly mentioned I was working on MFA applications in my “About Me” post, but I was lowkey about the admission process since getting into these highly competitive programs felt like a shot in the dark. An MFA in Creative Writing can be as rigorous as PhDs in other humanities fields because the 3-year programs culminate in creating and defending a dissertation of scholarly work. Furthermore, the MFA programs I applied to are all fully-funded (my art degree is FREE 😤) which leads to many applicants and few spots (UCSD’s MFA program received around 200 applications and gave only 4 offers of admission). My odds felt narrow, but I went for it.

Ms. Walker in the 6th grade

was the first teacher to really bring my attention to my own writing when she praised a short story about a pirate. I believed her when she said I was a skilled writer who should keep writing. I kept writing for fun and kept receiving praise from the people I shared with, but you know what they say. Too much of a good thing! I started to doubt whether or not friends were being honest when they said they liked my work. Did they really think my writing was good? Or were they only giving nice words to the nice guy with a fat ass and a killer smile?

Well, I guess that doesn’t matter now! I GOT INTO GRAD SCHOOL, BABY! Above all else, acceptance is gratifying and affirming. Now I have proof my writing is ight! That said, this space through Poem of the Week has been similarly validating for my emerging poetic career—so thank you for that.

So what’s the deal with ABQ?

Great question, philosophically. As for me, I was fortunate to get into both the University of New Mexico (shout out Rudolfo Anaya) and University of California San Diego (also got into CalArts in Santa Clarita, but they weren’t bringing enough $ to the table 🧐). I spent my spring break visiting both schools and making a tough decision, and though I was leaning towards UNM at first, I landed on and committed to UCSD for its funding, multidisciplinary & experimental curriculum, and closer proximity to my mom’s kitchen.

I’m really excited to start as an MFA student at UCSD in the fall, where I’ll be writing and teaching for the next three years. By the end of it, I’ll have written a full-length book of poetry ready to hit the printing presses. Wow!

“Look, man. Good for you and all, but I’m here for some weekly poetic action, not your life story.”

- you, maybe

Fair enough.

So here’s something special. For this week’s POTW, I’ll link you my poetry manuscript that was good enough to get me admitted to a few MFA programs! You’ll recognize most of the poems if you’ve been here for a while.

11 poems worth roughly $150k over 3 years. Not too shabby. Would love to know which poem is your favorite in the comments.

Shout out to my friend Brandon who came up to me at work to ask why he didn’t receive a POTW in his Thursday morning inbox. That was heartwarming. Routine feels good! Back to it next week. Love ya.

Scholarly, Ricky