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my own xp has been ok . . . but not for everybody it was read a lot of poems both inside school as a kid and outside school as a kid and beyond school as a kid i didn't go to university (until i was 39) well i visited friends there but . . . but that was there and then . . . times ARE very different and go hear some poets read . . . anywhere i heard a bunch in London in poetry spaces and in pop spaces and in Yorkshire and Lancaster and Wales but then i used to hitch all over the place and try not to be too shy of them or nervous around them, even that is scary (i found it totally unnerving . . . i mean i thought how does one talk with a poet?? ;-) they often like to talk ;-) and hang out with them and go to readings and listen and learn and yes i went to the WF workshop (i was invited by Bill Griffiths) and listen and talk and experiment and learn from that and be open and curious and read just about everything that seems like you haven't seen anything like it before and then work out what isn't being done or not being done as well as it could and consider doing the thing you would like to see being done as well as it can be done and try to do it and put it out there and listen and learn xx cris On Aug 17, 2009, at 6:53 PM, Jeffrey Side wrote: > On those terms he probably would be. The point is, not so much that > poets don't need some sort of learning, but rather how they should get > it. > > > > On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:06:51 -0400, mairead byrne > <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> Yeah, and I wonder was Shakespeare's "small Latin & less Greek" the > 16th >> century equivalent of "the guy doesn't even have an MFA." >> Actually though, I do believe the stakes are real, and very high, for >> poetry. The law, more than creative writing programs, maintains its >> mediocracy (I love PBS but find the conjunction of "unacknowledged" > and >> "legislators" to be neutralizing. >> Old druid that I am, I believe implicitly in the power of words. >> But I >> don't think I'm romantic. >> Mairead >> >> On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 4:09 PM, Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]> > wrote: >> >>> I can see David’s point when he observes that the stakes are low > when >>> it comes to the practical ramifications of failed artistic >>> practices. >>> Certainly, no reader has been injured physically from reading a bad >>> poem. Nevertheless, many degree-level disciplines in the humanities >>> and wider arts subjects are similarly risk-free. Does this, then, >>> mean >>> that they should not be catered for at degree-level? >>> >>> Poetry does have certain skill-sets required in its writing, as >>> anyone >>> who has had to sit through endless lectures on prosody will tell >>> you. >>> True, prosody is, perhaps, now a defunct skill in poetic writing >>> but it > is >>> a skill all the same, as much as that of any involved in musical >>> composition. To the extent that creative writing degree-level >>> courses >>> teach this (along with, hopefully, the historical and theoretical >>> components in the study of literature) then an analogy with degree- >>> level courses in music can apply. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:27:20 -0700, David Latane >>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >>> >>>> Here are a few more probably pompous observations. I wasn't > making >>> an analogy, per se, between jazz and the totality of poetry--but > trying >>> to answer Mairead's query about whether there was any meaningful >>> distinction between "creative writing" in the academy and >>> training in >>> music, architecture and other fields. One of the distinctions for >>> me is >>> that formal training (apprenticeship, guild, academy) in many >>> artistic/craft fields came long before the granting of degrees for > writing >>> poetry for practical reasons. There were skills and techniques in > working >>> with materials that required practice and training--whether playing > the >>> piano, or engraving a copperplate, or cutting a dovetail. And there > was >>> a market for certified practitioners. Poetry writing was different. >>>> I think there are big differences between slam poetry (or any > language >>> creation) and jazz. People with a certain hutzpa and no practice at > all >>> can stand up at a slam and make an impact. People with a certain >>> hutzpa introduced to the piano or saxophone a few days before can't >>> even begin to rip through a few Charlie Parker tunes (with >>> significant >>> variations) without having hard glassy objects thrown at them. >>>> Architecture that gets built requires certain trained skills. >>> When "things fall apart" (Yeats) in poetry "nothing happens" > (Auden). >>> When things fall apart on a construction site people are killed and >>> money is lost. Poets' imaginations are free--no telos. Writing >>> for an >>> MFA degree or any other degree requires the end of getting the > degree >>> to qualify (hopefully temporarily) this freedom. Architects can > imagine >>> freely too -- but the vast majority of them sit a tables in big >>> firms >>> figuring out how to decorate a box more cheaply. They pay for Pei to >>> play. So I wasn't dismissing any architects--but commenting on a > fact, >>> based on a goodly acquaintance with what their actually working >>> conditions are like. Only a few are ever given a pile of money and > told >>> to make something beautiful. >>>> "But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible >>> order, are not only the authors of language and of music, of the >>> dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting; they are the >>> institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the >>> inventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a >>> certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true, that partial >>> apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is >>> called religion." Shelley--Defence >>>> >>>> >>>> David Latane >>>> http://www.standmagazine.org (Stand Magazine, Leeds) >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >>