Yes, Edmund, now that I am working among 'elders' I am trying to track down
that Koch book on working in nursing homes.
Poetry workshops are part of much of the teaching fabric here in the USA -
from Kindergarten and now - as this baby boomer demographic goes into a big
burst - among emerging elderly - who are not going to take it (age) sitting
down. (Imagine rock & rock wheel chair dances, etc.)
Kenneth Koch absorbed - among some that would be to put it kindly - many of
his ideas from the Teacher's & Writer's collaborative - which was started in
New York in the mid-sixties by Herb Kohl. Ron Padgett, until recently, was
head of their very good publications program. Ron certainly brought a
surreal taste for 'play' to the program.
But a visit to their website (please google to find) will give you a sense
of the range of many many possibilities.
I am sure the Oulipo (sp?) example is permeating the more imaginative
approaches to 'exercises' in class.
By the way, speaking of Ouilipo, particularly for its wonderfully diverse
and exhaustive embrace of Paris, I suggest folks keep their eyes for Jacques
Roubaud's "The Form of a city changes faster, alas, than the human heart."
It's coming out from Dalkey Archive Press in July and is translated by Keith
and Rosemarie Waldrop. I got an advance review copy and I can't put it
down, well, I did for this!
Stephen
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
Currently home of the "Tenderly" series,
A serial work in progress.
> i'm curious about Kenneth Koch's how to write/teach poetry manuals - I think
> there are 4 of them -
>
> (I was browsing through Rose, where did you get that red? in the library)
>
> Has anyone used them as manuals? Or read them just for enjoyment?
>
> I'm particularly curious about "I never told anybody: teaching poetry
> writing in a nursing home".
>
> Can this kind of book be a catalyst?
>
> My own interest isn't so much practical (I'm not involved with poetry
> workshops) but I am interested in the history of entertaining instruction
> manuals, from statecraft to etiquette. I believe the earliest known books
> are manuals, like the Arthasastra of Kautilya, c. 300 B.C. (That one
> contains info on "how to create a village", "how to use spies properly" etc)
>
> My impression is that Koch's manuals are rather different to, say, a more
> didactic approach, and it intermixes with the poetry - such as the
> mock-serious instruction manual poems The Art of Love and The Art of Poetry,
> or the lists of things to do in Bed etc.
>
> The instruction-manual poem seems to be predominantly, now, the
> instructions-for-a-conceptual-art exhibit poem.
>
> Edmund
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