welcome Petrova!
i'm in the middle of an arts degree at Melbourne University, and will likely
do Creative Writing honours in fourth year.
the first creative writing subject i did was a prerequisite. it was hugely
popular. the lecture hall saw people crowding in the aisles and scrawling
notes. i went to a couple of lectures, felt lonely, then angry when mobile
phones started buzzing away.
frankly i only recall a few things from lectures. the first piece of
'advice' we got was that 'it helps your writing to have had a life of
crisis'. seriously.
there was one great lecture by John Mateer, an Australian poet, who read
some sprawling pieces and then talked about Afrikaans poetry. but in total i
think i went to 4 lectures.
tutorials were much more cordial, usually involving about 10 people. i
remember they were held at about 9am in this big room with dark corners.
everyone was so QUIET. the tutor was a nice, soft-spoken guy. i went to
every tutorial, including one or two which were empty. the tutor would talk
to me about Australian poetry for the allotted 2 hours. that was fun.
the course reading pack was immense and cost about 40 dollars. there's no
way anyone could've digested it all in one semester. the range of great
stuff in it (i'm still ploughing through it) deserves years of treatment.
that course was taken in first year uni. second year saw me take on two
creative writing subjects. the first, 'creative writing 2', was nearly
exactly the same as the first year subject, only without lectures. instead
we had 2 and a half hour seminars in groups of about 25. throughout the
semester, each student had about an hour total devoted to his/her's
submitted work. the rest of the time was spent reading other people's work,
or doing class exercises, or reading from the even bigger second-year course
reading pack. i can barely remember the class exercises. i distinctly
remember experiencing a kind of anxious nausea during these seminars. again,
everyone was so bloody QUIET.
the reading pack was, though, great. most notable was an amazing essay by
John Forbes on O'Hara's 'In Memory of My Feelings'. this essay's famous for
making the poem even more complex than it is. though compared to some of the
tedious seminar deliberations it was challenging and provocative.
during the same semester i took a course called 'Writing Poetry', taught by
another aussie poet, Chris Wallace-Crabbe. not really sure what to make of
that course. it was purely a workshopping course - we didn't read anything
except other student's work. most people loved it because everyone's work
got plenty of exposure each week. i was in a seminar group of about 20. his
comments on poems were rarely threatening. indeed he seemed inclined to let
the students have the final say on most poems.
no course reading pack was set for that class. i found myself during many
seminars just wishing that the teacher would throw out some kind of spirited
opinion, the kind of flourish that his beautifully erudite air promised.
instead he was content to sit back and comment every now and then. the bunch
of us were, again, generally very quiet.
i'm not sure if i've really learnt much at all from the 3 above-mentioned
subjects. i guess i'm the kind of student who needs harsh directives, and
none were really forthcoming. the most thrilling hour of my uni life thus
far was a private session with John Mateer. i showed him one of my pieces
and he went about questioning every fundamental premise of the poem. i
walked out shaking and ran straight to the library. it worked wonders.
forgive me if i've dragged on. if you've any specific questions, ask away.
i'm a muddled 20-year old so expect more ambivalent ramblings.
cheers
will
-----Original Message-----
From: Petrova <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Friday, 25 January 2002 12:14
Subject: Newbie
>Hello,
>
> I joined this list a few weeks ago, and I just wanted to say how
>much I've been enriched by the poems and discussion. Thank you all for
>sharing! I'm a novice myself - I've written a few poems, mostly lyrical
and
>certainly not up to the quality of those I've read here. But I'm eager to
>learn and improve.
> What I wanted to ask is, could anyone offer any advice about creative
>writing courses? I know that several universities offer a poetry strand at
>MA level, and I would love to study contemporary poetry in depth.
>
> Thanks
> Petrova
>
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