Re: [New-Poetry] An Era of DÃ(c)tente for Creative-Wri ting Programs

[Chris Lott]

Specifically speaking of the MFA and art-- not the monetary aspects
and other troubling areas already mentioned (credentialing)-- I guess
I don't see the harm. I don't think the programs (in the main) are
nearly as narrow as you make them out to be nor do I find it likely
that typical activities on the way to a degree would squelch a writer
who has what it takes to be of real significance in the sense of
"paradigm changing" and quite likely to help the legions of those who
just want to write and figure out how to write better.

To feel your pain, I'd have to believe that there are fantastic
artists going into the MFA programs who come out the other end having
lost that fantasticity. There would have to be writers with the tools
to really change the game who, after spending two years getting their
degree, have been silenced or significantly debilitated. I find it
highly unlikely, not least because if the MFA experience has that
power over them, I can't see how they could ever change the game. And
at the same time, the evidence that some come out able to write with a
bit more facility and experience reading a bit more richly appears
indisputable.

Again, I'm talking apart from systemic issues, which I think go even
deeper than we are talking about here, and which could well be
objectionable for other reasons, but not limited to MFA programs in
creative writing.

c