[New-Poetry] An Era of Détente for Creat ive-Wri ting Programs

[David Graham]

I see you don't agree with my offer of agreeing to disagree, Mark.   
Well, I can't agree with that.


========================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu

Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
==========================================




On Jul 2, 2009, at 8:09 PM, Mark Weiss wrote:

> I'm not sure that it's any more hypocritical than a doctor  
> complaining about his profession (they all do), a teacher  
> complaining about the uselessness of most schools (they mostly do),  
> etc. Perhaps the reason that those in other professions tolerate  
> widespread criticism from within is that no one doubts the  
> usefulness of what they set out to do, regardless of the  
> shortcomings of the institutions they work in.
>
> Meanwhile, you might consider that all of us much-proclaimers  
> didn't begin to much-proclaim out of some weird coincidence.
>
> At 08:01 PM 7/2/2009, you wrote:
>
>> Mark, I'm not saying what you apparently think I'm saying below.   
>> I was complaining about what a hypocritical blowhard a poet like  
>> August Kleinzahler is, who happily accepts cushy teaching gigs and  
>> reading invitations from the very institutions he then sneers at  
>> so self-righteously. Mostly, it seems, without much familiarity  
>> with the life of a regular faculty member in such a program.
>>
>> Apart from that, concerning the value of MFA programs and the much- 
>> proclaimed but little-illustrated "bureaucratization of poetry"  
>> you keep mentioning, we should probably just agree to disagree at  
>> this point.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20090702/d92d05a4/attachment.html