Hiya,
who are we talking about here? On the US side of the pond we can list
at least the following as having supported themselves, whilst
continuing to develop their creative practice, through teaching in
universities and I mention the following as those that many on this
list will have some knowledge of: (in no particular order and i'm
deliberately mixing up generations and to a certain extent indicating a
diversity of poetic camps) Susan Howe, Rae Armantrout, Carla Harryman,
Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Bob Perelman, Harryette Mullen,
Barrett Watten, Lyn Hejinian, Steve McCaffery, Rachel Blau duPlessis,
Marjorie Welish, Cole Swenson, Jen Hofer, Chris Stroffoli, Steve Evans,
Ben Friedlander, Barbara Cole, Keith Tuma, Nathaniel Mackey, Jim Reiss,
Annie Finch, C S Giscombe, Bill Howe, Jed Rasula, Pierre Joris, Jerome
Rothenberg, Steve Tomasula, Susan Wheeler, Jennifer Moxley, Mairead
Byrne, Lisa Jarnot, Anne Waldman, Anselm Hollo, Charles Alexander,
Amiri Baraka, David Antin, Robert Creeley, Clayton Eshleman, Peter
Gizzi, Karen Mac Cormack, Eileen Myles, Juliana Spahr, Rita Dove, Joan
Retallack, Lisa Samuels, Jorie Graham, Susan Schultz, Billy Collins . .
.
erm you know - and the point is?
then we come closer to home and find the following in similar
conditions: Andy Brown, Robert Sheppard, Harrett Tarlo, Will Rowe,
Andrea Brady, Robert Hampson, Denise Riley, Tony Lopez, Keston
Sutherland, Caroline Bergvall, Scott Thurston, John Hall, Patience
Agbabi, Allen Fisher, Peter Middleton, Andrew Motion, Georges Szirtes,
Jo Shapcott, Don Paterson, Sean O'Brien, Brian Catling, Ruth Padel, Ian
Davidson, Tom Leonard, Bill Griffiths, JH Prynne, Rod Mengham, Peter
Larkin, Simon Perril, Peter Robinson, Roy Fisher, David Miller, Carol
Ann Duffy . . .
erm (see above) ? ?
fwiw I'm writing as a sometimes in sometimes out sometimes academic.
That is I worked as a poet for twenty years before even going to
college and the reason I went to college was because I'd been given
some teaching work (a little) and wanted to know more about how it was
in that climate (mid 1990s) to be a student.
So I went to college, for the first time (apart from a dabble with the
Open University in the mid 1970s), aged 39. I guess I could have taken
my practice along and gone for a practice-based MA but instead did an
access course, a degree (not in english or creative writing), a PhD and
a debt i'm still repaying to boot. Throughout that time I got yearly
contracts to teach as part-time lecturer (mostly in arts school
contexts and mostly at Dartington College of Arts and there mostly in
Performance Writing - now Writing) for about 4 months of the year and
did other things the rest of the time (touring with bands, readings,
commissioned works . . .). I say all this as it's clear to me that my
teaching experiences, my own reflexiveness on what i had been doing and
was up creatively, my creative practice and my earning (about 2500
after tax for traveling between Lowestoft and Deven each week teaching
for a day or two in between - hardly go to the bank stuff)
intertwined.
I've just returned from teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels
in a big US university and can say something of that experience, if
anybody really wants to get into it and something of how it differs
from my experiences here.
But i wonder how this hugely partial listing of names skews or at least
plays into this emergent discussion. Many are not on these lists of
course and that's of interest? There are striking differences between
those two lists? And this is by no means intended as an apologia, nor
an 'outing'. I'm curious as to quite where this discussion might go.
It might well be a particular moment in poetics in Englishes this. One
reason why the heat is currently in the air and mud flying in the media
more broadly might be because poets of all persuasions are contesting
the controls exerted through academic space. Another might be that so
many many new poets emerge through creative writing course in one way
or another? And again i'm not saying that's good, it's just so -
except . . .
love and love
cris
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