Plumbers do DO workshops; this is a technique commonly used in
apprentice training in the UK for plumbers plus joiners, gardeners,
hairdressers and caterers.
Thinking about the origin of the term might help here!
all best from Bridget
(gorgeous morning in the Borders apart from the endless racket of the
fledgling buzzard family)
On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 7:21 AM, Alison Croggon<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Plumbers don't do workshops. I can't think of any artisans who do
> (although anything is possible).
>
> I don't think there's anything wrong with structured learning,
> although I don't think that's synonymous with workshops. I don't think
> there's anything particularly wrong with poetry workshops. I can
> imagine that sometimes they can be challenging, stimulating, exciting
> &c. I kind of suspect that more often they're a way for poets to make
> money, and for the participants to make friends. Neither of which is
> inherently bad.
>
> I guess it also depends what a workshop is. Last month I spent two
> weeks in workshops developing an idea for a piece of theatre; I'll
> spend another two weeks at the end of August developing what I've
> written in between the workshops. Although it is, in a real sense, a
> learning experience, it's also a workshop that assumes all the
> participants know what they're doing and isn't about teaching. It's a
> very broad term.
>
> (Btw, where did this guy get the idea that artists in the performing
> arts don't support each other? It's a collaborative artform!)
>
> xA
>
> On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 10:56 AM, mairead byrne<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Come to think of it, Blake shouldn't have bothered his barney going to art
>> school either. But then poetry isn't an art or a craft or a skill or a
>> trade (what the heck is it...?). No, the pub is the only writing workshop
>> we need boys. Who on earth would want a more structured approach to the
>> whole thing? Women with children? As if they can write poetry ....let them
>> do pottery. Which is an art and a craft and a skill and a trade, unlike
>> poetry.
>> Mairead
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 10, 2009 at 7:31 PM, Carrie Etter <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Some of these comments about workshops sound like they're based more on
>>> supposition and hearsay than numerous, varied experiences. Ulli Freer used
>>> to--does he still?--run a workshop at Birkbeck which I heard was anything
>>> but dictatorial and didactic, and I've got to say the workshops I run at
>>> Bath Spa do anything but espouse convention and conformity (which could be
>>> didactic in itself, if you consider the general initiative toward
>>> originality to be didactic). Different instructors have different
>>> approaches, of course, and I despise the general category referred to
>>> earlier as "domestic realism" (which I find still painfully rampant), but I
>>> don't think the workshop itself is at fault so much as individual
>>> instructors' attitudes toward their purpose.
>>>
>>>
>>> Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:28:52 +0100
>>> From: Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Subject: Re: Found a good article called 'POETRY SCENE: CURRENT
>>> DIFFICULTIES'
>>>
>>> Tim, needless to say I agree with you. I find that workshops tend to be r=
>>> un by=20
>>> poetic dictators who are more concerned with peddling their own ideas
>>> of=20=
>>>
>>> what a poem is than trying to facilitate genuine curiosity in the
>>> people=20=
>>>
>>> they "teach". It is this didactical element that I find disturbing, and e=
>>> xplains=20
>>> why (as you say) workshops have had such a big influence on poetry in=20
>>> Britain.=20
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
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