The "workshop" was reified in the US in the university (MFA programs) and while everybody knows the pedagogical problems with its sameness, the hides (Hydes?--no, not completely fair) that bind are hard to break. In a discussion with a "senior poet" a couple of decades ago I was told that Zukofsky's work was in the lunatic fringe; I asked what about an MFA student who wanted to write like that--and was told that students came to study with him and learn how to write mainstream poetry. Fair enough--even though even then the two expressions that made me tingle were "mainstream" and "cutting edge."

I've no personal experience but as an observer on the sidelines I've thought that the "for credit" workshop (&c) has a way of making the routinely obtained goals of the academy usurp the fantastically difficult ends of the poet.

David Latané
http://www.standmagazine.org (Stand Magazine, Leeds)