Comments on: Perchance to Poetry Prof

By: Daniel Flynn

Daniel Flynn — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:46:25 +0000

Perchance to Poetry Student –
From the desk of a secondary school teacher – poet, I too celebrate the job as much as I ponder the work. Here, with teenagers, there is perhaps more security than community but there are also plenty of individual rewards and freedoms when I walk in and begin to speak. Thanks for sharing similar ideas at your level of academia and thank you for a great semester too!

By: Alicia (AE)

Alicia (AE) — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 09:53:59 +0000

Thanks for this post and happy end-of-semester! It is good to be reminded of those poet-teachers who are as passionate about their teaching as their poetry.
In October at ALSC there was an interesting panel about Creative Writing versus English Departments. What seemed to come out from the discussion was the fact that Creative Writing teachers and departments had essentially taken over certain functions that English Departments abandoned in a scramble over theory–close reading, reading for pleasure, appreciation of literature. One professor lamented that after an entire graduate seminar semester of Spenser, not one of his students could reproduce a Spenserian stanza, whereas in Creative Writing departments students were able to recognize and even produce things such as sonnets. I think this might be something that gets forgotten in the debate. Reading and writing are flip sides of a single coin, and it is the creative writing teachers, the Poetry Profs, who are keeping alive a passionate engagement with the art in the university. Not all of their students are going to be poets, of course, but even those who are not will come away with a better appreciation of poetry.
I know I have made remarks about my concern with the professionalization of poetry–po-biz–the whole apparatus, prizes, conferences, blurbs, tenure, etc. Maybe my concern is misplaced, I don’t know. I don’t think that these concerns necessarily conflict with poets being in academia. I certainly do appreciate that academia provides a home, is indeed a patron, for many of our best poets–that there are MFA programs that fostering terrific young poets, and that there are poets who are born teachers who absolutely belong in academia. And we all have to make a living. Academia is no less the real world than banking or journalism. I love teaching–I used to be a high school Latin teacher once upon a time. I’m sure I would be an academic poet if I lived Stateside and could land a job…

By: Ada Limon

Ada Limon — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:24:09 +0000

Rigoberto,
This is a lovely ode to all those poets teaching now. As you know, I’m not in the academic world at the moment, but trust me, no hateration here. I admire and adore what you all are doing everyday. Enjoy that time off. Savor it, you’ve earned it.

By: Rich Yanez

Rich Yanez — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:20:22 +0000

Having witnessed many a poet & writer survive semester after semester, I find a strange comfort in this post. While I go through many emotions each semester–love it, loathe it–at the close of each period of “advocating,” which I think is part of what Rigo calls “service,” I reflect on the seeds planted among young voices. I toast all of you who are also “profes” in this world of words. You are truly gifts!

By: Simon DeDeo

Simon DeDeo — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:45:42 +0000

It’s nice to see “us” taking on what to me seem to be the two neuroses of contemporary American poetry — at least on the production side — academia and form. (By the by, Mark Wallace said some clever things on the former topic.)
Academia and form — to me these twin obsessions seem to center around the question of worth, of the creation of institutions that can be considered neutral sources of value. I do think — and I don’t think I’m alone in this — that “judging” poetry is a very difficult task. You really have to spend a great deal of time with a contemporary book before being assured of its value, and even then that judgment is deeply fallable. The famous line from I think Emily is that poetry is that which “takes the top of your head off”, but there are many ways for that to happen and one of them is a key change in a bit of pop music — an experience that wears off after a few plays.
(I remember my own first — very negative — reactions to Jorie Graham’s Errancy and Anne Carson’s Men in the Off Hours, two books which I now consider some of the best work of the 1990s. And of course my own work — I know I’m not the only writer who is continually mystified — irritated? — by which things I’ve written “survive and propser.”)
I think I’ve generally come to terms with the tentativity of my judgments, their continual defeasability. But to round back to the academy and to form — both of these questions seem to center around our (”us” as readers) nervousness about this. “Writing in form” — being able to reliably find feet and rhyme — is an extrinsic measure, something you can immediately judge — just as “ratified by the academy” — being able to find a home in an MFA program, University press, or tenure track position — is.
As my comments on Alicia’s post make clear, I’m far more neurotic about how form is used in this fashion — but then, on the other hand — many others are exercised by the academy.
[As for academia -- it's not an easy job, but on the other hand most academics are aware they've taken a pay cut and cashed in job security in return for some particularly important things: intellectual freedom, the ability to play a bit of a role in public life, the emotional satisfaction of teaching and research, and so forth.]