At 37, I believe I am now in my fourth adult incarnation. The first one began in 1990, when I graduated from Imperial College London with my impressively useless degree in Chemical Engineering and began working in Marketing for Birds Eye Walls, Surrey, England. I was your archetypal ‘yuppie.’ I married a classmate, Phil in ‘91, and we bought a bijou of a house in Wimbledon. We worked long hours and spent fat paychecks on the latest electronics, holidays in fashionable resorts such as the Bahamas and shows/clubbing in London. I wasn’t writing much at this time and I drank far too much, but there is no doubt I gained hugely from those years, of which more later.
The marriage fell apart in ‘94, precipitating the disintegration of everything. Phil found it hard to let me go, which eventually forced me to move cities to Bristol in the SW of England. There I became Anna Two, a Bohemian writer, employed part time as a Studio Manager for a Design Agency, who took recreational drugs and argued philosophy and politics in various pubs. During this period I wrote an autobiography and published my first poems.
Anna Two married again in ‘96 and gradually dissolved into Anna Three. I had two babies in ‘97 and ‘99 and moved to the States in 2000, which put paid to the cosy part time job I had working a computer helpdesk for a Panasonic factory. In the US I became a suburban housewife. My only outlet outside of that was poetry. I joined the Burlington County Poets in September 2000 and little by little became more immersed in the South Jersey Poetry scene.
Anna Four began an MFA in Creative Writing this January at Bennington. Interestingly, in many ways the closest previous incarnation to my present one is Anna One. This is to do with various things which include focus, self-motivation and a set of skills I learned on numerous Unilever Management Training Courses. Like any blue-chip company Unilever invested heavily in training. They taught me Negotiation Skills, Active Listening, Mnemonic Techniques, Organizational Skills etc. etc. You would not believe how useful these skils are in a Graduate workshop, or simply just hanging out with a bunch of people in a similar situation.
I would guess 37 is close to being the average age of a Low Residency MFA student. I met some fantastic people noticeably younger than me on this residency: W, J, A, K, M and D, you know who you are. But I’m grateful for the perspective age has given me and for the opportunity to continue to re-invent myself. I’m hanging out for Anna Five.
