So we disagree on very little then.


On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:18:01 +0100, David Bircumshaw 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Although some of the times during the eighteen years I've been going to a
>workshop there have been people (usually retired teachers) who tended
>towards some of the characteristics Tim casts down from the cliff-top to
>perdition it would be what Swift called THAT WHICH IS NOT to accept that
>it's an accurate picture of the overall reality. It does surprise me that
>Tim is effectively claiming omniscience regarding what happens in workshops
>throughout the UK as I don't even know what happens in all workshops in the
>middling size town in which I live.
>I don't doubt that the kind of poetry that resembles Tim's (and my)
>distastes shows its blank face a lot in magazines, but there are a lot of
>reasons for that: the lack of imagination of editors and poets alike being
>one, the warmth of conformity another, as well as the influence of
>competitions, the dead hands of Poetry Review and the Arts Council, and slow
>linguistic death by inanition of our managed and managerial culture.
>
>
>
>2009/8/12 Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]>
>
>> Brilliant analysis, Tim. This may placate some of the responders to my
>> original
>> post.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:25:40 +0100, Tim Allen <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:
>>
>> >Carrie, Alison Mairead etc,
>> >
>> >Rupert was right when he said that I was referring to a historical
>> >thing here in England. I don't mean my anti-workshop thing to be a
>> >blanket criticism. If it does apply on a larger and wider scale it
>> >wouldn't surprise me though.
>> >
>> >Something began to happen in British poetry workshops during the late
>> >70's. It happened very gradually but seemed to be evenly spread, both
>> >horizontally (geographically) and vertically (poetry standard of
>> >facilitator and workshopers). It was related to  other things
>> >happening in society and culture at the time, obviously - what is not
>> >so obvious is which was chicken and which was egg? And of course there
>> >were always exceptions (particularly around the avant circles and
>> >certain excellent teachers) - what I am talking about is a general
>> >drift.
>> >
>> >Workshops in community centers and adult learning centers and other
>> >such places came out of a genuine desire of people to be creative and
>> >to find out how to do better something they were already into. Those
>> >early workshops, many of which had grown out of late 60's values of
>> >freedom, democracy and tolerance, were fun and often quite successful.
>> >But it didn't last. They bit by bit became more prescriptive, less
>> >democratic, less tolerant and more focused on producing the 'good'
>> >poem. It was this obsession with producing the 'poem' which became the
>> >bugbear because it replaced long-term goals (the development of a
>> >writer) with the short term goal (writing something that would be good
>> >enough to get published, or right enough to please the tutor etc.)
>> >This is not just down to the poet/teacher either, it is down to the
>> >participants just as much, if not more in some cases. I must emphasize
>> >it, this didn't happen over night, it took at least a decade. Getting
>> >people to follow certain basic rules so they don't make the kind of
>> >errors that will make a poem unworkable, is not a hard thing to do. We
>> >all know these rules, such things as staying away from abstract nouns
>> >and so on. And the positives were simple to guide people into - write
>> >what you know etc., (If I had ever followed that advice when I was
>> >younger I would never have written anything.) My main point regarding
>> >this, how such a thing became such an influence, is the way such
>> >'teaching points', meant as guides to those starting out in the
>> >artform, became THE RULES for ever, and for everyone. None of this was
>> >to do with conscious decisions, just processes, like evolution.
>> >
>> >If you don't believe me go and plough out all those old poetry
>> >magazines from the 80's and 90's - you will find clone after clone of
>> >the same 'workshop' poem. One of the great ironies of the whole thing
>> >was the way the those involved with workshops used to spout on about
>> >individuality, related of course to that 'writing what you know'
>> >thing, but the more they talked about being true to yourself the more
>> >all the poems began to resemble each other.
>> >
>> >Tim A.
>> >
>> >On 11 Aug 2009, at 00:31, Carrie Etter wrote:
>> >
>> >> Some of these comments about workshops sound like they're based 
more
>> >> on supposition and hearsay than numerous, varied experiences. Ulli
>> >> Freer used to--does he still?--run a workshop at Birkbeck which I
>> >> heard was anything but dictatorial and didactic, and I've got to say
>> >> the workshops I run at Bath Spa do anything but espouse convention
>> >> and conformity (which could be didactic in itself, if you consider
>> >> the general initiative toward originality to be didactic). Different
>> >> instructors have different approaches, of course, and I despise the
>> >> general category referred to earlier as "domestic realism" (which I
>> >> find still painfully rampant), but I don't think the workshop itself
>> >> is at fault so much as individual instructors' attitudes toward
>> >> their purpose.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Date:    Mon, 10 Aug 2009 23:28:52 +0100
>> >> From:    Jeffrey Side <[log in to unmask]>
>> >> Subject: Re: Found a good article called 'POETRY SCENE: CURRENT
>> >> DIFFICULTIES'
>> >>
>> >> Tim, needless to say I agree with you. I find that workshops tend to
>> >> be r=
>> >> un by=20
>> >> poetic dictators who are more concerned with peddling their own
>> >> ideas of=20=
>> >>
>> >> what a poem is than trying to facilitate genuine curiosity in the
>> >> people=20=
>> >>
>> >> they "teach". It is this didactical element that I find disturbing,
>> >> and e=
>> >> xplains=20
>> >> why (as you say) workshops have had such a big influence on poetry
>> >> in=20
>> >> Britain.=20
>> >
>> >
>>
>
>
>
>--
>David Bircumshaw
>"A window./Big enough to hold screams/
>You say are poems" - DMeltzer
>Website and A Chide's Alphabet
>http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
>The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
>Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>