In perfect innocence of creative writing programs, I managed to grow a
few stern opinions about them. At the same time, I know one very fine
poet who wouldn't be writing poetry at all if she hadn't done one, so
have been forced to modify my prejudice a teeny bit.
Here in Melbourne we have a Professional Writing Course, in which, a
student assured me, one lecturer actually drew a graph on the whiteboard
to illustrate the qualities of a particular story. I couldn't believe it
was true. Personally I can't understand how a workshop doesn't do
anything but confuse the would-be poet - six different opinions on a
piece of work, most of them along the lines of whether the poem is
"liked" or not (it's certainly a very bad idea for plays, despite current
popularity). They seem to just encourage pandering, and I was shocked
that the ultimate outcome of the Melbourne course was Being Published:
surely there's more to learning about poetry than the approval of editors
and a slick self assuredness? What about doubt, that useful discomfort?
Seems very wrong to me, somehow, although I always had that same gripe,
how do you learn about poetry?
Read it, I guess...
What's wrong with studying English Literature in an academic way in order
to find out how poetry works? Not that I've done that, either, but it
seems to me eminently sensible, and perhaps a parallel to courses at the
Conservatory.
I've been reading Tyger, Tyger to my youngest son each night on his
insistence as a charm against nightmares (a facsimile postcard he puts
under his pillow). And tripping over Blake's rhythms and rhymes, and
finding my memory provoked by the leaps and gaps in that apparently
simple poem, it has occurred to me more than once over the past few
months that such a poem would _never_ survive any conventional
workshopping process.
Cheers
Alison
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