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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