I wish I had another solution. When hasn't creativity come from the need to
deal with some sort of hardship? Including the kind that a privileged poet
like Dickinson had to deal with.

Most of us write out of the environments we inhabit. When most poets
inhabit or aspire to inhabit the same same environment homogenization is
inevitable.

Maybe the best one can do for one's writing students is to encourage them
to take a gamble on doing something--anything--that's not in the
career-track for a while.

Mark


At 11:37 AM 1/21/2005, you wrote:
>Several good points in this, Mark, and it's interesting to think of what I
>might
>have learned from herding goats for, yes, I learned rhythm and breath for
>them,
>being so attuned to another creature's body, whether milking the goats or
>acting as midwife.
>
>Well, and it might be noted that what happens to many of those MFA students
>upon graduating is that they become adjunct English teachers and send out
>their thesis manuscripts to the endless round of first book prizes with
>continuingly mental anxiety and desperation. Not so great. And it's true about
>the homogenization effect; I was glad when I got my MFA for working with a
>couple of faculty that came in that once and arrived with different views
>than the
>reigning taste. But gladdest for the contact with a couple of poets with
>whom I
>didn't work; like Ruth Stone for instance who knew what it meant in a Vermont
>winter to go to the stream to get water in a bucket to carry it back to
>the house
>and who, expecting the stream to be frozen, took an axe to break the ice, but
>found herself unable to break it, sort of dissolved in helpless
>frustration, a kind
>of oh help god, realized no one was coming and started to laugh. So I knew
>what she meant when she said one evening "oh I don't know about these
>creative writing programs, they expect you to teach them how to be creative,
>and you and I know that's not where you get it," so wry laughing, since
>it's more
>from those moments with an axe trying to break the unbreakable ice.
>
>best,
>
>Rebecca
>
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 03:39:08 -0500
> >From: Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
> >Subject: Re: down with the down with poetry crowd
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >Several things here. First, in the mouths of poets of my kind and
> >generation "academic" has nothing to do with intellectual; it was, from the
> >50s into the 70s, a convenient name for the then mainstream, which became
> >what Silliman calls "the school of quietude," despite the fact that then as
> >now many non-quietudiness types, like Doug, held university positions. One
> >could even be an acadmic poet without ever passing through the gates of a
> >university.
> >
> >The larger issue is, I think, not how some poets make a living and how much
> >time it may take away from their writing, but the process of
> >professionalization and homogenization at work in MFA programs. The result,
> >across the entire spectrum, has been a patholgical degree of
> >predictability--MFA-trained Language poets write more like Language poets
> >than their teachers, who managed to become poets without the benefit of
> >several years of workshops, for instance. And the same is true for the
> >endless string of suburban poets filling the designated poetry spaces in
> >the New Yorker.
> >
> >What gets attenuated is the discovery of craft and its use as a tool for
> >discovering the world. I'd guess you learned more from the years herding
> >goats and reading on your own.
> >
> >There's of course an enormous ambivalence built into this. I'm aware when I
> >publish books that if they don't sell well to university libraries and to
> >MFAs they won't sell. And I also think that it's great that you and others
> >don't have to herd goats. The problem is that with every graduating class
> >there are more half-baked late adolescents licensed to call themselves
> >poets, nine tenths of whom will never write anything even mildly useful,
> >who expect to be able to muzzle up to the trough and teach yet another
> >class how to write well-behaved poems of whatever kind, and mediocrity
> >becomes progressively the norm.
> >
> >Alison's friend in a despairing joke wished all this away. I largely agree
> >with him, but it's not likely to happen: MFA programs have become an
> >enormous cash cow for universities.
> >
> >Years ago, when I applied to the MacDowell Colony my friend Richard Elman,
> >who taught in the Columbia then-proto-MFA program, wrote a
>recommendation
> >for me, which he let me read. I was struck by the phrase "though he is
> >self-taught as a poet..." I told him that wasn't true--I knew dozens of
> >poets and learned from several, I'd run reading series', edited a magazine,
> >published my first book, etc. "Listen," he said, "of course it's bullshit.
> >But it will get you in." It did.
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >
> >At 01:09 AM 1/21/2005, you wrote:
> >>I am certainly deeply troubled by the "vocational" restructuring (the term
> >> >has often seemed ironic to me) that is happening in universities here.  I
> >> >can't see it as anything but intellectual vandalism.  However, a
> friend of
> >> >mine, an academic himself, remarked some years ago that poetry being
> >>thrown
> >> >out of university could be the best thing that could happen to
> it.  He was
> >> >only half joking.
> >>
> >>Well, I'd guess it depends on what 'an academic" is, which is a second
> >>cousin to
> >>that insult heard in some circles of being an 'intellectual'.
> >>Neoconservatives like
> >>Bob Novak talk about the 'fringe element' of 'some academic, intellectual,
> >>artistic types at some universities," and I suppose it bothers me to hear
> >>the ease
> >>with which poets adopt certain rhetorics so that one group may
> denigrate the
> >>other by calling them "academic' poets.  I've heard a few writers say that
> >>teaching full time in a MFA program is like being "eaten alive" but that
> >>can be
> >>heard elsewhere, as when Ahkamatova described translation as 'eating one's
> >>own brain.' I think of "academic" as requiring endless meetings, all
> sorts of
> >>administrative paperwork, critical and scholarly publication, peer review,
> >>the
> >>labyrinth of tenure, and it does often effect any poetry one might write,
> >>so one
> >>doesn't write it, or it becomes, consciously or not, written toward a
> >>certain style
> >>of academic and 'serious' poetry acceptability. On the other hand, I am and
> >>know a number of poets who teach at universities or colleges and yet while
> >>they
> >>are 'academics' in the sense of working at an institution, none of this
> >>pertains. It
> >>doesn't, for instance, pertain to me. I have one class one day of the week
> >>for
> >>three hours with about ten students and it's just a delight, reading and
> >>talking
> >>about poetry, of all sorts. And that's it, three introductory meetings
> >>when I got
> >>here, and otherwise I see only those colleagues with whom I've become
> >>friends,
> >>other poets that I meet for lunch and we talk about all sorts of things
> >>but little
> >>to do with the university. And so it's hardly a devitalizing experience.
> >>Of course I
> >>haven't had an 'academic career' either, having spent twelve years raising
> >>goats
> >>for instance, and so this is just a random and perhaps temporary
> >>'residency.' But
> >>I do know poets attached to various universities, and it seems to me that
> >>they
> >>just go on writing their poetry as they would have anyway. I can't
> >>imagine, for
> >>instance, that Doug who's attached to a Canadian university is a
> >>devitalized poet
> >>as a result. If someone feels that way, as your friend seems to have, then
> >>it's
> >>probably time to leave rather than wishing to be thrown out. But even
> >>then, I am
> >>reluctant to believe that anything, whether poetry or astrophysics,
> >>benefits from
> >>exclusion from the university or any other realm. Well, this arguing among
> >>poets
> >>about what to get rid of, whether we should get poetry booted from
> >>universities,
> >>or booted from funding by organizations because their reasons may be less
> >>than pure, etc, seems to me somewhat ridiculous. I keep thinking of two
> >>people
> >>starving on a desert island, amusing themselves by thinking up imaginary
> >>dishes, and then getting into arguments over which ingredients to
> eliminate.
> >>
> >>Best,
> >>
> >>Rebecca
> >>
> >>---- Original message ----
> >> >Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 16:22:18 +1100
> >> >From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
> >> >Subject: Re: down with the down with poetry crowd
> >> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >> >
> >> >On 21/1/05 3:53 PM, "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> I'd been thinking that it
> >> >> was not so great that various universities here are planning on cutting
> >> >> astrophysics, theoretical math, linguistics, ancient and classical
> >> languages,
> >> >> and
> >> >> a number of arts programs, including some related to poetry, and it's
> >> just a
> >> >> loss
> >> >> and driven by the bottom line of covering one's losses.
> >> >
> >> >I am certainly deeply troubled by the "vocational" restructuring (the
> term
> >> >has often seemed ironic to me) that is happening in universities here.  I
> >> >can't see it as anything but intellectual vandalism.  However, a
> friend of
> >> >mine, an academic himself, remarked some years ago that poetry being
> >>thrown
> >> >out of university could be the best thing that could happen to
> it.  He was
> >> >only half joking.
> >> >
> >> >Best
> >> >
> >> >A
> >> >
> >> >Alison Croggon
> >> >
> >> >Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> >> >Editor, Masthead:  http://masthead.net.au