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.
Previously mentioned example: James Wright, Ph.D., University of
Washington, who taught in his later years at Hunter (later Lehman)
College in the Bronx. His dissertation had something to do with Charles
Dickens and at Hunter he taught courses in the Victorian and American
novel. He didn't wish to become a "creative writing" teacher.
O'Hara had his museum job. A life conducted on the street, in the
public "arena" (maybe aptly named).
I wonder if I would have bought an insurance policy from either Wallace
Stevens or Charles Ives.
I wonder if I would have taken my kids to Dr. W. C. Williams, 9 Ridge
Road, Rutherford, NJ, if they'd had bronchitis.
ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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