Re: [New-Poetry] An Era of Détente for Creative-Wri ting Programs

[Chris Lott]

Ah, I get it now. You are a Bernsteinian, angry at the Official Verse
Culture stifling all those poor writers who would've been great if
they'd just not been subjected to the brainwashing of the moribund
literary elite. Poor wilting flowers all.

Just as you maintain that whether X was a good teacher or not is
beside the point, so is the fact that places without creative writing
programs have a thriving literature... because places with them do
too.

I'm pretty ambivalent about the issue myself... not because of
creative writing programs in particular, but because the good teachers
in those programs and everywhere else in higher ed are working in a
broken system. One from which there is no real escape and which will
suffer no revolution.

c

On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 7:19 PM, Mark Weiss<junction at earthlink.net> wrote:
> An official literary culture tends to exclude. We're developing an official
> literary culture.
>
> OK, it's been fun. I've said what I wanted to. You're free to ignore it or
> misread it. I have proofreading to do.
>
> Mark
>
>
>
> At 11:12 PM 7/2/2009, you wrote:
>>
>> As has already been mentioned, these poets weren't all teacher free.
>>
>> Further, I fail to see how Hugo's position that you can't teach
>> someone to write good poems but you can help them avoid and get past
>> writing crappy ones stands in the way of "paradigm shifts." At least
>> it certainly seems more in line with what you appear to desire than
>> trying TO teach someone to write good poems.
>>
>> And, really, if those who we assume capable of making that kind of
>> paradigm shifting leap are squelched so easily then perhaps they
>> weren't really capable of doing so in the first place.
>>
>> c
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Mark Weiss<junction at earthlink.net> wrote:
>> > I'm sorry this bugs you. Let's try it another way. You don't get a
>> > Rimbaud,
>> > or a Ginsberg, or an Olson, or a Dickinson. Add your own.
>> >
>> > At 10:12 PM 7/2/2009, you wrote:
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Mark Weiss<junction at earthlink.net>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Again, you don't get paradigm shifts by teaching people how not to
>> >> > write.
>> >> > There's something at stake here beyond the cultivation of a polite
>> >> > accomplishment.
>> >>
>> >> "Paradigm shifts?" Sweet Jesus deliver me...
>> >>
>> >> c
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