Graduate School Applications

I've narrowed my graduate selection down to one school: Goddard. Goddard has been a pioneer in the low-residency model of MFA programs and I'm busily putting together my application packet.  

Three of my former Evergreen professors have agreed to write glowing letters of recommendation for me, or, at a minimum, recommendations that shimmer, slightly, before going out altogether.  

Hopefully, these letters and the application I'm able to create will be enough to get me through the gatekeepers and into the program.  

There is something terrifying about putting your work out there to be judged--professionally--by a committee made up of people you don't know; people who will make the decision to accept or reject you as a potential graduate student.  

One of the sections of the graduate application requires that you select a certain number of works that will make up your educational cannon.  This is the portion of the application packet that I find particularly daunting.  

How do you know which branch to pull from the poetry cannon?  Could a person fashion a graduate experience exclusively from the Beat Poet movement?  Could you include a selection from the Harlem Renaissance with a selection from The Black Mountain Poets?  Could you put  Langston Hughes  alongside Alan Ginsberg, and make something from the hash?