Chris, I'm not saying that courses should be banned, only that they 
make little difference when it comes to enabling the desired “poetic 
sensibility” to be disseminated into society. This is unlikely to change 
no matter how much the increase in student numbers becomes. 
Besides, people have different motivations for wanting to study creative 
writing, not all are for genuine artistic purposes. 



On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:13:13 -0400, cris cheek 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Hi again,
>
>i'm with Mairead on this one. There are undoubtedly bad workshop  
>models and practices out there.
>And i'm no fan of the Iowa workshop model at all! But that's no  
>reason to suggest that there is not something positive going on, at  
>least.
>
>But there are good places to go and hang out and work on your 
poetry.  
>Here at Miami we good a good crew in Cathy Wagner, William R. 
Howe,  
>Keith Tuma and myself. We don't offer an MFA, but an MA . . . more 
of  
>an in-betweeny space for poets wanting to explore and develop  
>practice. Some go on to MFA programs, some to PhDs, some keep at 
it  
>some fall silent (hmm that's a poor binary). Classes here are  
>overwhelmingly women poets (about 3 and even sometimes 4 women 
to 1  
>man) btw. About 30% of undergraduates and graduates go on to do  
>something in academia (broadly . . . school teachers . . university  
>adjuncts etcetera . . PhD). There is a growing local - mid west  
>community of practitioners working through small presses and ad hoc  
>venues et al. We have a growing emphasis on 21st Century Poetic  
>Praxis and most of us teach a LOT of contemporary poetry (work  
>published in the last 10-25 years) informed by broader historical  
>perspectives.
>
>Worth mentioning that all over the map i hear the same story this  
>year about huge increases in application numbers for graduate  
>programs. With the recession biting more and more people are taking  
>this moment to go back to school.
>
>It's not a process of "industrialization" at all, perhaps especially  
>so out side of the big coastal cities. I experience what's happening  
>as a thickening of the patina for poetries. Additional fora for  
>discussion, feedback. Additional resources for production and  
>circulation if you will.
>
>I was delighted by the energy in the London poetry audiences i  
>witness this summer. MUCH of that energy is coming through the 
work  
>being done at Roehampton, Birkbeck and Royal Holloway.
>
>
>xxxx
>
>
>cris
>
>
>> Self-tuition need not necessarily equate pedagogically to the “the  
>> lyric
>> voice”, as, indeed, MFA courses don’t necessarily equate 
pedagogically
>> to its absence. And, yes, the Romantics (who I have no particular
>> regard for, in any case) did form loose associations to discuss their
>> work, but this is different than the “industrialisation” of poetics.
>>
>> As a networking, job creating, publishing opportunity enhancing
>> mechanism I have nothing against MFA-type courses, but I think 
they
>> are equal to self-tuition when it comes to nurturing or “inspiring”
>> creativity.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:45:21 -0400, mairead byrne
>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Obviously I believe that, like the other arts, poets benefit from  
>>> peer
>>> critique and a learning community where there is exchange of ideas
>> and
>>> references, and that workshops in universities and colleges, and
>> writing
>>> programs, provide useful environments for such exchange, 
particularly
>> for
>>> women, who benefit from an environment structured more 
explicitly on
>>> egalitarian grounds than more informal peer groupings available in 
my
>>> culture at least, which were centered around males in the pub.
>>> "Self-tuition" demands an abrasive discussion, just as "writing
>> programs"
>>> are getting.  Audience, ideas, challenge, performance, 
collaboration:
>> these
>>> are some of the concepts quick to materialize in group situation.s
>>> "Self-tuition" sounds like the pedagogical equivalent of "the lyric
>> voice,"
>>> but even the Romantics came together in groups to work and learn.
>> Let's
>>> have a discussion on the benefits of "self-tuition" in contemporary
>> arts and
>>> education.  I think all learning is self-tuition, in a sense, but  
>>> programs
>>> have supplied useful structures for me and enabled me to qualify 
to
>> teach,
>>> and thus support myself and family.  When I was running the
>> Belltable Arts
>>> Centre in Limerick, in the late 1990s, I worked 7 days a week, 364
>> days a
>>> years, 24/7, as it seemed the arts centre was open that much!  
There
>> was no
>>> time for children, let alone poetry or self-tuition.  I returned  
>>> to college,
>>> also in my thirties, in order to have time to write and to prepare  
>>> for
>> the
>>> possibility of a career which would allow me to both write and 
spend
>> some
>>> time with my children.  I identified with Michael's post yesterday.
>> More
>>> than anything else, it was sheer bliss to have structured time to
>> write, to
>>> read, and to articulate ideas which I had been developing for years
>> through
>>> practice, some of which were due for retirement, some of which for 
a
>> leap
>>> forward.  I've never had the sort of anxieties about writing 
programs
>> which
>>> have manifested in this discussion.  I've 15 or so years' experience
>> with
>>> them at this point, and know the pros and cons.  Just as in  
>>> everything,
>>> structure both facilitates and limits.  I'd love to see writing  
>>> programs
>>> situated in the art school rather than the university but that's my
>> thing.
>>> As I say, I don't buy into the anxiety here.  I had no training as a
>>> journalist, learned it all from the streets, the school of hard  
>>> knocks,
>>> self-tuition, blah-blah-blah.  But actually there were few, if any,
>>> journalism programs available in Ireland then.  If I wanted to be a
>>> journalist now, yes, I'd find the best, most challenging, most
>> sophisticated
>>> program I could.
>>> Mairead
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 7:35 AM, Jeffrey Side 
<[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Mairead, the points you raise are, no doubt, true in and of
>> themselves,
>>>> but I don’t see how they are relevant, to the specific point I was
>>>> making about whether MFA creative writing courses (or any other
>> such
>>>> institutionalised programme) are more necessary to teach poetic
>> writing
>>>> than methods requiring self-tuition. I think this specific point has
>> little
>>>> to do with culture, ethnicity or gender.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:18:24 -0400, mairead byrne
>>>> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I think there's a very wide range of ways poets across cultures
>> have
>>>> been
>>>>> formally educated.
>>>>> I think there's always been control in poetry: who is allowed to
>>>>> write/publish.  Poetry, in English, has been much more tightly
>>>> controlled
>>>>> than prose, in this respect.  Obviously, as colleges are explicitly
>> equal
>>>>> rights type organizations, someone like me (peasant / woman /
>>>> mother) has
>>>>> more to gain than in the ostensibly deregulated poetry world 
which
>>>> was, in
>>>>> my experience in Ireland, pretty much as Eavan Boland has
>> described:
>>>> woman
>>>>> is the possible subject but not the possible author of poems.
>>>>> One problem about our discussion is the narrowness of the 
cultural
>>>>> experience upon which each argument is based, e.g., you may 
be
>>>> speaking
>>>>> about poetry in English in England since the mid-20th century,
>> from the
>>>>> position of an English-born white male, while I may be speaking
>> about
>>>> poetic
>>>>> traditions and education in Irish before the Plantations, and  
>>>>> also in
>>>>> English, in Ireland, in more recent centuries; and diverse 
American
>>>>> traditions since Whitman, from the position of an Irish
>>>> emigrant/American
>>>>> immigrant/white/female.  Our positions are extremely close, 
even
>>>>> overlapping, yet there is little clarity.  And our discussion  
>>>>> does not
>>>> even
>>>>> attempt to address wider cultural histories of poetry, e.g., in  
>>>>> Asia,
>>>>> Africa, or even in a range of languages, although we use the
>>>> word "poetry"
>>>>> as if it were not intensely specific not only to our personal
>> histories
>>>> but
>>>>> also to our personal taste.
>>>>> In a sense, there is little "authority" in this discussion,  
>>>>> which does
>>>>> actually make me appreciate works of research and scholarship,
>> which
>>>> attempt
>>>>> a broader or deeper exploration.
>>>>> Mairead
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 6:53 PM, Jeffrey Side
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> 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)
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>