> So are you saying that a run of poetry courses should be required in
> graduate math and business programs? Would be cheaper than the separate
> bureaucracies that now exist, and less destructive to the art and the hopes
> and dreams of the young.
> 
> Mark

Mark, you are being foolish! I am being serious.
I would not force a math or business major to take poetry and/or literature
courses - tho that would be pro forma for anybody doing the Bac in France -
where it is typical to meet students in any professional faculty who can
give you a learned litany about Rimbaud or Baudelaire or Racine, etc. That's
French genetics. Obviously not likely in this country (USA).

What I am saying - and I can say it from personal experience - that a person
"trained" as a poet, or in poetry, and/or given the traits of a poet
(vision, destruction, etc.) can break up a system's way of looking at itself
- from marketing to 'product', and bring fresh views (images) to
reorganizing a system on all levels. This is precluding that inside folks
are willing to listen and want imaginative input. (It's like going to hell
if they are resistant and do want you around.)
Reciprocally, there are not a few literary presses that could benefit from
hard core business principles.

I am arguing that our skills (poetry)  are transferable and can help butter
the bread (like create a salary). I mean why else is Ken Wolman - bless my
jealous soul - getting this great new job with a fantastic salary!
Definitely a stealth poet! Right Ken?


Stephen



> 
> 
> At 11:32 AM 1/10/2006 -0800, you wrote:
>> Seriously, isn't it possible to look at the writing and study of poetry from
>> the point of view of "transferable skills."  Most famously, students of I.A.
>> Richards and Empson (sp?), worked for British Intelligence in World War II.
>> The critical skills acquired from examining poems at close range (7 Kinds of
>> Ambiguity, etc.) were crucial to deciphering German code.
>> The point being that strategies in making and interpreting poems (editing
>> and organizing manuscripts) are not particularly unique to the genre - but
>> may be employed variously from architecture to City Planning to forensics to
>> corporate and marketing strategies. Close examination, the equivalent of
>> looking at a poem syllable by sylable, can equally apply to looking at and
>> working with the DNA of other systems.
>> Whether or not one is good at making or reading poetry or making these
>> skills transferable to other systems is, of course, a question of the make-
>> up of any individual.
>> 
>> In short, I don't think MFA study of any good sort is a negative in and of
>> itself. Imposing an agenda of success in the medium (poetry) for students as
>> a result of this kind of study and practice is a red herring. Lots of other
>> productive possibilities can result. It would be more useful to educate
>> people in other lines of business, that a person who has made poetry
>> (writing and study), might provide real gifts to an organization.
>> 
>> And the students may also continue to read and make poetry an essential part
>> of their life (even buying books from those of us poets who remain addicts
>> and lovers and practitioners!!)
>> 
>> Back to the paying job!
>> 
>> Stephen V
>>  http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Mark Weiss wrote:
>>> 
>>>> I think that the solution is to convince fewer people to write poetry.
>>>> Begin by closing down the writing programs that offer the temptation
>>>> of a career, illusory to most.
>>> 
>>> You cannot discourage people from becoming addicted to the art itself.
>>> Serious people will still do it like sneak-drinkers who hide their
>>> bottles in the lighting fixtures.  Bad for me, but I need it.
>>> 
>>> But as far as the writing programs, you may be onto something.  To stop
>>> the excessive numbers of Humanities Ph.D's being churned out 30 years
>>> ago (ask me but don't expect a clean-language answer), programs raised
>>> the bar for admission ("you mean this isn't medical school?"), and quit
>>> handing out money like it was cocaine at a party in the 1970s.  Former
>>> friend of mine was admitted to the Ph.D. program at Indiana University
>>> in Bloomington BECAUSE she wasn't interested in an academic career--she
>>> already had one.  She just wanted the benighted degree for its own sake,
>>> and was willing to pay for it herself.
>>> 
>>> Funniest thing I've seen recently has been advertised in Poets &
>>> Writers: academic programs to certify that the newly-minted MFA knows
>>> how to teach how to write.  Apparently there are so many new MFAs coming
>>> out that the schools and colleges can't absorb them all; thus the
>>> "credential" is a way to give them a leg up.
>>> 
>>> Ken