Routine, Rejection all Part of the Process, Says Poet
Professor and poet Bradley J. Fest tells his students that writing is not about waiting for the muse to show up.
“Real writing happens in sustained, routine fashion,” said the Associate Professor of English. “When they are writing their senior theses, I always have my students make a writing schedule, whether it’s a word count or time spent writing—and not just only writing when inspired.”
And Fest, the 2022–25 Cora A. Babcock Chair, knows the power of routine himself. His third book of poetry, 2013 – 2017: Sonnets, was released in July, the culmination of four years of writing sonnets at the end of the day.
“My day-to-day writing during the period just after I finished my PhD was academic and literary criticism, but I still found myself really drawn to poetry, in which I had completed a master’s degree in fine art years before,” he said. “And I found the American Sonnet form conducive to writing in spurts. I could sit down in the evening and write a poem.”
The American Sonnet, he explained, is still 14 lines but not metered or rhymed, and, unlike the traditional sonnet, engages with politics rather than love and romance. “I was more interested in writing about what it means to experience time and capture it,” he said.
2013 – 2017 is the first book in his American Sonnet sequence. He’s seeking publication for book two and is currently working on book three. Fest has published over 100 poems from the series across more than 40 literary journals and magazines, including three in Masque & Spectacle. His poems “2016.19” and “2020.01” from the series were nominated for a Best of the Net awards.
As a working poet, Fest stresses the importance of students seeing themselves as professionals rather than just artists. “We never talked about publication in any program I ever attended,” he said. “And it was a disservice.”
“At Hartwick, we’re striving to produce practicing writers.”
Bradley J. Fest
Associate Professor of English
