It would be nice, wouldn't it? Just the right thing for a poet. And
you're right, of course about those feoffees, though it's not completely
improbable (At this very moment, in a nerdy Hobby cell, occulted signals
are wafting out towards the servants of the Ring, while on an antique
screen the web of Brotherhood emerges through the mist...)
hmm
mj

Rebecca Seiferle wrote:

>The Malaysian Flying Academy
>
>can't we make it this one instead? but which one did you make up? I'd guess
>Middle-earth Feoffee Alliance
>?
>
>best,
>
>Rebecca
>
>---- Original message ----
>
>
>>Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 10:51:38 +0100
>>From: MJ Walker <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: Re: down with the down with poetry crowd
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>>Excuse me, I feel really dumb - but I've been reading all these knowing
>>comments on MFA & its courses for some time now, but just what the hell
>>is MFA? Google tells me :
>>Museum for Fine Art, Mutuelle Fraternelle d'Assurance, the Israeli
>>Government's official website, various Ministries of Foreign Affairs,
>>Middle-earth Feoffee Alliance, Malta Football Association & Music for
>>America,
>>MFA Incorporated (farm supply), Medical Facilities of America, MFA The
>>Global Voice for the Alternative Investment Industry, Midwest Finance
>>Association, The Malaysian Flying Academy, MFA Mortgage Investments Inc.
>>My best guess is Master of Fine Arts. What a weird title, if this is true!
>>mj - who made up one of the above, natch
>>
>>Mark Weiss wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>I have a hard time imagining that poetry, which staggered along perfectly
>>>well with only occasional patronage (in the US at least) for most of the
>>>19th and twentieth centuries would shrivel up and die without MFA
>>>programs.
>>>O'Hara and Ashbery managed to write a great deal of poetry while
>>>otherwise
>>>employed. Whitman likewise, tho with less comfort. Also Niedecker. No
>>>need
>>>to make a list--there were occasional university-based critics and
>>>scholars
>>>who wrote poetry, but they didn't make a living teaching others how to
>>>do so.
>>>
>>>What would probably disappear is the horde of wannabes--the third-rate
>>>New
>>>York School poets bred by Kenneth Koch, the third-rate language poets
>>>coming out of Buffalo, the third-rate mainstream poets coming out of
>>>Iowa.
>>>Many have no real vocation. The hardship of having a day job would weed
>>>that garden pretty quickly, as it always has in the past.
>>>
>>>What strikes me in gatherings of younger poets (I find myself at a couple
>>>of these a week now that I'm back in NY) is that after whatever
>>>reading the
>>>conversation sounds a lot like the halls of the MLA--it's all
>>>career-talk,
>>>and folks wearing the school ties maintaining alliances. So, one's MFA
>>>cohort publishes one, gives one readings, jobs, etc. And nobody seems
>>>to be
>>>talking about poetry.
>>>
>>>Talking about poetry in informal settings was in fact the way people
>>>learned in the past, from the Mermaid Tavern on. It took persistence and
>>>determination, and it was often brutal. It seems to have worked at
>>>least as
>>>well as the universities--there are an unprecedented number of people who
>>>call themselves poets and an unprecedented number of venues in which to
>>>publish. I'm not aware that there has been a significant increase in the
>>>amount of work worth reading.
>>>
>>>Mark
>>>
>>>
>>>At 11:22 AM 1/21/2005, you wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> I'm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>not saying that artists should not be paid - far from it. Nor am I
>>>>>suggesting that poets should not work in universities.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Ok, and thanks for the clarification, Alison.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>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.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Who's saying this?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Oh, I said it from a sort of overview of this thread, making logical
>>>>extensions
>>>>from the various arguments presented here. Bernstein argues
>>>>against various venues that now exist for poets and poetry on the
>>>>grounds that
>>>>they 'water it down', i.e. dilute its purity; Gioia has argued
>>>>against various
>>>>venues that now exist for poets and poetry on the grounds that they
>>>>are too
>>>>suffocatingly elitist, i.e. ivory towers of academe and MFA programs and
>>>>incomprehensible language poets. You seem to imply that deans and
>>>>universities by viewing poetry, as they do _everything_ as part of a
>>>>liberal
>>>>education, devitalize it and create 'protective structures' that make
>>>>Prynne
>>>>possible, i.e. hothouses that cultivate a zygotic plant that could
>>>>not exist
>>>>elsewhere. If, by extension, we were to get rid of all of these things,
>>>>there would
>>>>be little left, few venues for poets or poetry. If poetry is a feral
>>>>vocation, and I'm
>>>>inclined to agree that it is, for whatever one does, whether milking
>>>>goats or
>>>>grading English papers or teaching a poetry workshop or writing in other
>>>>modes, there is a certain ferality of being wild outside those
>>>>particular
>>>>modes,
>>>>for none of them are writing poetry itself, the actual doing and process
>>>>itself,
>>>>but if it is such, I don't have a problem with there being any number of
>>>>environments in which it may disguise itself, find the necessities of
>>>>survival. I
>>>>don't think the elimination of environments, however much they may be
>>>>weeded
>>>>over, trashed, marked by the casualties of erroneous architecture,
>>>>will grant
>>>>more strength or vitality to its feral life, but rather that the
>>>>elimination of
>>>>various environments would make it more difficult for that feral life to
>>>>survive.
>>>>I don't know, having felt enough feral in myself, for a number of
>>>>reasons, I
>>>>wonder what feral animal wants to be spotted and recognized? the
>>>>whole point
>>>>is not to be, if these environments were eliminated, these various
>>>>impurities which afflict the proper recognition of poetry, it's just
>>>>the
>>>>cat in the
>>>>headlights, extinction.
>>>>
>>>>Best,
>>>>
>>>>Rebecca
>>>>---- Original message ----
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2005 17:53:41 +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 5:00 PM, "Rebecca Seiferle" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>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'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>I meant simply someone who taught English in a university. Not,
>>>>>incidentally, a writer, but someone for whom I hold a deal of respect.
>>>>>
>>>>>Someone like Prynne is inconceivable outside the protective
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>structures of a
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>university. On the other hand, the idea of career structures or other
>>>>>aspects of a "cultural industry" are highly problematic in the
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>arts. I'm
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>not saying that artists should not be paid - far from it. Nor am I
>>>>>suggesting that poets should not work in universities. I don't go
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>in for
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>the popular sport of academic bashing. But nevertheless, there is
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>something
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>feral about the vocation of poetry which ought to be respected and
>>>>>recognised; it is a bad mistake to think of poetry solely as an
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>aspect of a
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>liberal education.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>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.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>Who's saying this?
>>>>>
>>>>>Best
>>>>>
>>>>>A
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Alison Croggon
>>>>>
>>>>>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>>>>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>>>>>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>