>For instance, I've started (along with Mairead in the most recent one)
>writing programs in two prisons
Fantastic, Gabe. Really. I hear Janine Pomme Vega has done/is doing a lot in
prison writing programs (in the New York City area?).
While I wasn't teaching academic subjects, I was in trades, at Soledad
Correctional Facility in CA, one of the best days for everyone in class was when I
read poetry aloud to about forty inmates for a couple of hours. The common remark
was "hey, they (the poets I read) are just like us". A circuit was completed and
maybe that's what poetry's about? That pass of energy? Was that day.
**************************
Frank Parker
[log in to unmask]
http://users.montereyisp.com/frank
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
>poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Gabriel Gudding
>Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 7:48 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: academic poetry & Emerson
>
>
>Hi Wystan. How are things in New Zealand today?
>
>Mairead, I think your comment to Wystan was very funny.
>
>Henry I'm sorry if I came across as someone scoffing. In fact I think you
>make an excellent point by mentioning the "less cool" audience of
>non-writing readers. Someone mentioned The Whipping Boy, Billy Collins,
>recently in regards to his wide extra-academic appeal, the very much
>poo-poo'd man, who reminds me slighly of Les Murray actually.
>
>But uhh I'd have to disagree with you Henry about that "world of readers at
>large", at least in Americker is not terribly well read when it comes to
>work that's post 1970 in my expeience. The poetry reading community is
>probably abot the same size, maybe slightly larger, than the writing
>community. At least that's been my experience at my semi-extensive
>knowledge of communities at 5 universities thus far. Even MFA students or
>students at the MA level who're interested in contemp lit and are going on
>to a PHD don't really read much in the way of current writers or even
>recently dead writers. These are not in your terms an "active reading
>culture," at lest in my experience. Reading cultures are incredibly small
>and fragile, probably more fragile than writing cultures in America maybe.
>For instance, I've started (along with Mairead in the most recent one)
>writing programs in two prisons (Mairead and I started the one in
>Mississippi) and I can tell you that it's going to be probably much easier
>to start a writing class than a reading class. Why? Because the former
>contains both activities. Reading cultures are strongest most active and
>vibrant and daring where there are writing cultures. Emerson said
>tessentially this in "The AMerican Scholar" (where there is creative
>writing, I paraphrase, we must have creative reading)....
>
>gabe
>
>
>At 08:11 PM 9/5/2002 -0400, Henry Gould wrote:
>>Nothing more old hat than the old know-it-all shrug. What new insight
>>every came from that attitude, eh Wystan?
>>
>>Gabriel, you think I'm being naive, reiterating very simple ideas about
>>individual literary reception. But I think it worthwhile to take those
>>positions further. It IS something of a distortion to picture reading &
>>judgement as a completely isolated, a-social phenomenon. But rather than
>>assume "the community" is an existing network of writers, as you seem to
>>do, I would argue that the community, the matrix of literature, is the
>>world of readers at large, fostered by good schooling, which encourages
>>generous, sustained, individual and communal encounters with classic and
>>current works. It is that active reading culture which should be the
>>productive background of new work, its context and measure. Writing which
>>emerges from a heightened awareness of that context will be less subject
>>to the mechanical workings of CW careerism, or the cliches & manufactured
>>melodrama of "rebel to classic" scenarios, etc. It will be evaluated
>>within a broader social context, both for how i!
>>t reflects on past efforts, and for how it responds to current universal &
>>immediate social realities, demands.
>>
>>It's interesting to hear so many people scoff at the most basic notions of
>>creative or critical reading/response. It's as if the individual reader
>>automatically surrenders authority to the mechanisms of literary
>>"professionalism". It's a surrender of the whole joy and purpose of
>>responding to poetry - the surrender of individual judgement and encounter.
>>
>>Henry
>> >
>> > From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" <[log in to unmask]>
>> > Date: 2002/09/06 Fri AM 10:52:10 EDT
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Subject: Re: academic poetry (& thanks to Mairead Byrne)
>> >
>> > Welcome to the living archive! The Kent/Henry/Gabe twitch action.
>> > Trigger words include 'Silliman', which instantly change the subject
>> > that old archive-chesnut-thread :ACADEMIC POETRY. What I don't know
>> > are the trigger words to shut it off.
>> > Wystan (PhD)
>
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