Pam's article on e-workshops is interesting and thorough, and I can think
of a few people who might benefit from such things. The site around it -
whilst I don't like the narrow text column or the brown-on-black links
myself - is also trying to stamp out a ground for itself in a way which is
admirable in many ways, all strength to it. But the poetry associated with
the site seems - to me - to be disappointing. It doesn't - to me - seem to
be doing anything specifically webbish, or indeed anything which couldn't
take place in any other poetry magazine, and I'm afraid it doesn't seem -
to me - to have benefitted from any of the high-quality e-workshops
described. Others are welcome to tell me (a) that I'm missing things or
(b) that it's none of my business anyway.
But it leads to: who do you discuss you poetry with and why do you want to
discuss it anyway? What do you want out of it? I went to a student poetry
workshop (no leader, everyone pitching in on everyone else's work) back in
the stone age when I was young, and I'd have to say it was useful to me -
not that I agreed with many of the people there, quite the opposite, it
helped me to realise the things I never wanted to write. Later, in a
last-ditch effort to make money from poetry (!), I ran a poetry workshop
myself - and was aware of all "my" "class" wanting nothing more from me
than endorsement, confirmation that they were the next Dylan Thomas/
Adrienne Rich/ Insert Name Here - so that my role as teacher became
twofold (a) help people to parody their selected idols and (b) (advanced
class) how to leave ones models and begin to write like onesself. Often at
this stage I found myself advising people to pursue precisely those lines
I'd abandoned myself years earlier. The process was very demanding, and if
anyone enjoys critting this kind of work and does it for free I'd want to
know why. At the end of the course - by chance - I did a local reading to
which some of "my" "class" came, and made it very clear that they hadn't
come across my work before, and were surprised at some of the basic
principles of it...
It seems that anyone can hang a sign out saying "poetry expert" and people
will come to it unquestioningly. Whereas my own inclination - from really
quite early on - has been to seek help only from people I know and trust,
and only when I needed it (in the Practice questions family and one or two
friends featured highly in responses to the roadtesting question). No
surprise there then, say my critics, doesn't listen to advice, too cocky
by half. Not so, I counter boldly, I'm still finding my own way, relishing
the ability to make my own mistakes, hope I give up when I stop learning
about it.
RC
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