Goodonyou Mairead, but remember that your experience is rather atypical. Most MFA candidates come to the program immediately or very soon after unbroken schooling from 5 years old on. I'd like to believe that you're right about stipends for MFAs, but it's not my understanding. It would be a little frightening, in fact, if true--23 year olds with no previous grdauate educatuion or experience outside of schools are hardly my idea of qualified teachers. I picked Clare as a worst-case scenario example--poor and schizophrenic is probably more difficult even than motherhood. The programs make their claim by their very existence, and it seems to be what the MFAs I know expected upon entry. Otherwise it's a singularly inefficient spiritual journey. Mark At 05:34 PM 2/9/2005, mairead byrne wrote: >Agreeing and disagreeing with Mark: > >I've had experience of 3 (excluding the MFA programs not dealing with >poetry, e.g., at Rhode Island School of Design where I now teach). >The great majority of students in the MFA programs I have knowledge of >do not pay fees but work as teaching assistants for stipends between >$10,000 and $14,000 (my figures are 4-10 years old). I agree with >Mark to some extent in his analogy with the dole. I wrote 2 plays, a >short book, and a lot of bad poems on the dole in my twenties (but the >minute I got married I was cut off without mercy: I wasn't even >eligible for Fas schemes, Ireland's other training ground for artists. > It took me a hell of a long time to recover from the shock of being >cut off the dole -- so long I think they had revised the policy on >married women being ineligible for assistance). The dole has made >life possible for so many artists in Ireland, to a point, but there's >not much dole in America. MFA programs may be a 2-4 year rather >stimulating surrogate dole experience. Time to write. I found it >very valuable. > >I don't really think Mark's example of John Clare as germane. I think >for a lot of poets the questions of how to be a parent, how to be a >citizen, how to be a useful member of a community, how to work at what >one is good at: these are real enough questions. I don't identify >that strongly with John Clare. > >I don't agree either that an MFA purports to guarantee social cachet >and a middle-class income: I've never heard that claim at least. > >And I wouldn't ask either Gertrude Stein or Andre Breton's opinion >about cooking cabbage. And if anyone attempted to discuss such a >subject with me at a social gathering I would walk away. > >Mairead > >On Sun, 6 Feb 2005 10:59:38 -0500, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > I'm always hesitant to post to Britpo because I'm acutely aware that its > > value, certainly for me, is that it's not dominated by USians. But I > think I > > can be helpful in this instance, as I've watched with increasing dismay the > > results of the academicization of the arts in the US. > > > > The topic comes up from time to time on all poetry lists. Usually any > > critique of the status quo is met by an extraordinary degree of evasiveness > > or hostility, as a threat to the daily bread, or at least the sense of > moral > > rectitude, of many on the list. > > > > Here's a bit of what I posted last month to Poetryetc, minus the parts that > > are too referential to the context of that discussion. I posted something > > like the first paragraph to britpo earlier this week, but there's plenty of > > fresh meat beyond. > > > > Several things here. First, in the mouths of poets of my kind and >generation > > "academic" has nothing to do with intellectual; it >was, from the >50s into > > the 70s, a convenient name for the then mainstream, which >became >what > > Silliman calls "the school of quietude," despite the fact >that then as >now > > many non-quietudiness types, like Doug, held university positions. >One >could > > even be an acadmic poet without ever passing through the gates > > of >a >university. > >The larger issue is, I think, not how some poets make a > > living and how >much >time it may take away from their writing, but the > > process of >professionalization and homogenization at work in MFA programs. > > The >result, >across the entire spectrum, has been a patholgical degree > > of >predictability--MFA-trained Language poets write more like > > Language >poets >than their langpo teachers, who managed to become poets > > without the >benefit of >several years of workshops, for instance. And the > > same is true for the >endless string of suburban poets filling the designated > > poetry spaces in >the New Yorkeror Poetry. > >What gets attenuated is the > > discovery of craft and its use as a tool for >discovering the world, absent > > any experience working in the world beyond >the schools. > >There's of course > > an enormous ambivalence built into this. I'm aware when >I >publish books that > > if they don't sell well to university libraries and >to >MFAs they won't sell. > > And I also think that it's great that you and >others >don't have to herd > > goats. The problem is that with every graduating >class >there are more > > half-baked late adolescents licensed to call themselves >poets, nine tenths > > of whom will never write anything even mildly useful, >who expect to be able > > to muzzle up to the trough and teach yet another >class how to write > > well-behaved poems of whatever kind, and mediocrity >becomes progressively > > the norm. > >Years ago, when I applied to the MacDowell Colony my friend > > Richard >Elman, >who taught in the Columbia then-proto-MFA program, wrote > > a >recommendation >for me, which he let me read. I was struck by the phrase > > "though he >is >self-taught as a poet..." I told him that wasn't true--I knew > > dozens >of >poets and learned from several, I'd run reading series', edited > > a >magazine, >published my first book, read endlessly, etc. "Listen," he >said, > > "of course it's bullshit. >But it will get you in." It did. > > >OK, now back to > > this list. To the extent that the world needs poets at all it doesn't need > > them mass-produced, and we could certainly do without most of the > blathering > > of licensed 25 year olds, who now publish each other and promote each > > other's work from the classroom or profit-making journals or publishing > > houses for which the MFA is an entry requirement for employment. And > what do > > we do with all the tenured poets who would have stopped writing if they > > hadn't found a sustainable career as poets because they wouldn't have been > > sufficiently called to keep on? Someone recently commented something to the > > effect (forgive me for garbling) that everyone's a poet at 20, at 40 it's a > > different matter. Yes, but the rewards of the current system means that > > those who take the poetry career track at 20 are decreasingly tested as > they > > approach maturity, and many remain unaware that the making of poetry > > requires constant internal testing and questioning. Within the universities > > a poet at 20 is likely to be calling himself a poet at 40. > > Since my return to New York from the wilds of San Diego I've found > myself at > > several gatherings of young MFAs. They compared career notes and nothing > > else. When I was their age, after the requisite gossip and flirtation what > > got talked about was poetry, and information about each of our latest > > enthusiasms was passed about. Ties between older and younger poets were > > forged that acted as a sort of apprenticeship. > > > > I'm aware that one of the arguments for the MFA is that it levels the > > playing field--presumably even the occasional student too poor to > afford the > > monstrously high fees (in the tens of thousands of pounds a year) > charged in > > the US gets admitted on scholarship, and aspiring poets from > > poetically-impoverished places are spared the expenditure of energy and > risk > > needed to make contact with other writers (in exchange for having their > > focus sharply restricted), whether through epistolary brashness or actually > > moving to say NY or San Francisco. But the reality on the ground, even more > > in Britain than in the US, is that these days a John Clare without an MFA > > would not be condemned to destitution--he'd live in council housing, be > > treated by the national health service, and feed himself either from a > > disability pension, or, in the case of those not so incapacitated as Clare, > > earn a minor but sufficient living, under modern rules of employment, > > complete with vacation time that in the US is for most people only a dream. > > > > What the MFA purports to guarantee (and there are far too many MFAs in the > > US to make that claim more than a cruel joke) is social cachet and a middle > > class income. > > > > Mark > > > > > > At 08:18 AM 2/6/2005, cris cheek wrote: > > Hi Tim, > > > > sorry. I didn't think it defensiveness on my part. More an offering of > > a conundrum, which sought to muddy the waters so that actual work could > > enter the frame of discussion by example. I did want to get to names to > > try to understand who was actually being referred to. Although I'll > > fully accept the charge of tired listing. I was, obviously wrongly, > > wondering if a conflation of working in academia and teaching criteria > > developed through personal practice might not be the point of > > conflation. Clearly, as in my own example, the majority of those on > > that list had lengthy histories of practice before teaching, although > > many also studied as undergraduates when young. The lists were quite > > deliberately intended to include some 'ringers' and deploy > > inconsistencies in order to find out to whom the mesh between academic > > verse and avant &c was referring. Also to include for example two > > generations of those broadly considered lang-po in the US context and > > whatever (linguistically innovative if that works) likewise in the > > British ones. > > > > I do agree that the grounds from which many newer, younger (whatever) > > poets are emerging are creative writing courses and their orbital > > activities in further education. Many of the latter are now in > > universities (on both sides of the pond) - and they are nothing if not > > quick to spot financial opportunities (the universities i mean). > > Creative Writing courses have become a cash cow and increased in number > > over the past few years dramatically. I'm not saying this is a good > > thing per se either, but it is undeniably so. Generally, which of > > course i use advisedly, many of those who are graduating from these > > courses are going on into MA and even PhD pursuits. > > > > It *does mean that poets have been acculturated to producing critical > > materials and reflexive writing in close relation to or even as part of > > their emergent writing practice. So critical tools, vocabularies, > > perspectives, strategies (from philosophy, literature, cultural > > studies, performance studies, media studies, bio-informatics . . .) are > > becoming integral to a poet's experience of language. Reading and > > Writing both are certainly changing and with the growing number going > > on into further education the readership is changing also. > > > > One reason, perhaps, why taste tzars such as Don Patterson are getting > > publicly jittery is that the texts available for further education are > > becoming increasingly numerous from those kinds of poets whose > > practices and critical perspectives are lang-po and ling-inno-po (among > > the many variant po in evidence) grounded, partly since it is those > > poetries whose poetics most form an energisiing mesh with other > > critical discourses as listed in brackets above. You know, it's pretty > > simple. To whom is one going to refer to and to differ from (classic > > avant-garde strategies). That does accept the existence of quite > > differing readerships, but that's surely nothing new. What might be > > warranted is a kind of new punk poetry to counter too much of the > > dominance from today's scriptoria. > > > > Being on such courses do allow for reading of poetries that offer more > > resistance and are less easily absorbed (PERHAPS, perhaps). Many > > readers, not allowed such luxury of shared interpretations (outside of > > the experience of belonging to a book group) cannot give over their > > waking hours to such sustained mulling (perhaps, perhaps). > > > > The flavor of a particular program is strongly inflected by its key > > poet(s). It'll be interesting, to take one obvious example, to see how > > writing emerging from Buffalo change over to the coming years, between > > Charles Bernsein's and Steve McCaffery's authored climates of research > > and umbrellas of enthusiasm. Another example is the shift from Burt > > Kimmelman and Sylvester Pollet to Ben Friedlander and Steve Evans at > > Orono (even though Burt and Sylvester remain, Ben and Steve are > > bringing other energies and enthusiasms into play). It isn't exactly > > big thinking to point this out I realise that. One might take the > > current clutch of young poets active around Birkbeck as another example > > over here or the past decade of fierce enquiry at Dartington. I do > > think this is going on in the UK as much as in the US now. The scale > > and intensity differ for sure but with Dartington, Exeter, Edge Hill, > > Warwick, Bangor, Southampton, Roehampton, Royal Holloway, UEA, > > Manchester Metropolitan, Salford . . . and many others the burgeoning > > US model of the Writer's House is likely to follow on. > > > > Staying in education, living off small research studentships and so on > > has (perhaps perhaps) supplanted the dole as one way to develop a > > writing practice in the largely commercially non-viable worlds of > > contemporary poetry (given rare exceptions). There are real problems > > too. One is that writing can become too pedagogically inclined, writing > > what students might usefully study as example. Another is that of > > getting sucked into teaching without ever having much experience of > > outside, in other words skipping that vital phase of resistance and > > struggle, developing a practice outside the institutions. I've > > certainly witnessed examples like that in the US in recent months and > > maybe that produces the efficient and yet smug poetry that you might be > > trying to get at? > > > > love and love > > cris