One difference is that we all use language and 
presumably know the basics of how to read and 
listen, meaning the full range of what's been 
done in the medium is widely available, if 
sometimes involving a learning curve. Because of 
this, poetry has flourished for millennia in 
cultures where the passing on of normative 
practice has often been casual in the extreme and 
the breaking of normative molds has been 
relatively easy. On the other hand, nobody is 
born speaking counterpoint, or knowing whether an 
I beam will bear a given weight, or dancing in 
groups, or understanding cameras and editing 
tables, etc., and much of what needs to be 
learned is most easily and economically learned 
in groups (though there are certainly the self-taught exceptions).

"Institutional education" is apparently useful 
and liberating for some poets, despite sounding 
like prison bondage (there may be a film idea in 
this). If that were the whole of it I'd say, ok, 
why not. But one has to ask if the benefit to a 
few individuals is worth unpleasant consequences 
for the art. In the US, at least, many of the 
consequences of the quite rapid ascendency of BFA 
and MFA programs in poetry have been unpleasant. 
It's not simply that those who've attained the 
routinely obtained MFA are almost the only ones 
allowed to teach, or the proliferation of poet 
conventions with not a party-hat in sight, but 
that the degree has become an entry-level 
requirement for jobs in publishing. MFAs also 
control most of the prizes. So the circle becomes 
complete. On the other hand, it becomes possible 
for large numbers of the certified-as-poets to 
lead conventionally comfortable lives.


I hear--I assume--your democratic inclinations, 
Mairead. There's nothing democratic about art. A 
third rate scientist produces data or experiments 
that the exceptional few who change the way we 
understand the world need as a basis. A 
third-rate certified-as-poet has little to offer 
the first-rate poet, though the c-a-p may make it 
difficult for the first-rate poet to earn a living teaching or to publish.

This came home to me three decades ago when a 
friend who knew the ropes recommended me for a 
stint at the MacDowell Colony. In his letter he 
explained that though I was "self-taught" I was a 
pretty learned poet. "What do you mean 
self-taught?" I asked him. My sense was and is 
that I'd had hundreds of teachers. "Don't argue," 
he said, "this will get you past the MFAs." He 
was right. Mind you, I had an MA in English from 
Columbia and an unfinished dissertation hanging 
over my head. If academic qualifications were 
needed I would have thought that four years of grad school would be sufficient.

As composers go, Phillip Glass might have been a 
good plumber. I hope no one takes that as 
inflammatory--I don't mean to disparage plumbers.

Mark

At 11:24 AM 8/16/2009, you wrote:
>I'm interested in how exceptional people think 
>poetry is, in terms of institutional 
>education.  For example, it's acceptable, even 
>expected, for visual artists, architects, 
>composers, choreographers, dancers, directors, 
>etc to study, in academic settings, 
>conservatories, dance schools, theatre schools. film schools,
>etc, even with very dominant personalities, 
>e.g., Nadia Boulanger, the teacher of Philip 
>Glass (who incidentally earned his crust as a 
>plumber).  Also, although there's no doubt that 
>the academy can have an attenuating influence, 
>the bulk of scholarship in the arts and 
>humanities, and the academy is no slouch in 
>supporting and developing the sciences either 
>(my own school was Purdue, which was/is a leader 
>in Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science, 
>though I studied .... poetry).  In what ways do 
>the "routinely obtained goal of the academy 
>usurp the fantastically difficult ends of the 
>poet," as opposed to how the art 
>school/conservatory/film school may usurp the 
>presumably equivalently challenging ends of the 
>artist/composer/film-maker, or even as oposed to 
>how the academy may usurp the ends of the 
>innovative scholar/philosopher/anthropologist, 
>etc?  Is there something which differentiates 
>poetry from the other arts, in terms of 
>vulnerability to education in institutions?  Or 
>is there something about poetry, as we're 
>discussing it, which resists consideration on a 
>wider stage of arts and humanties 
>education?  Are the ends of the poet really 
>"fantastically difficult," as compared to those 
>of practitioners/thinkers in other fields, e.g., 
>political science, mathematics, digital media, etc?
>Mairead
>
>On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 10:03 AM, David Latane 
><<mailto:[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>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>http://www.standmagazine.org 
>(Stand Magazine, Leeds)
>
>