Let me begin by saying that I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment Alexander McCall Smith puts forward in his Wall Street Journal piece today. Overwriting drives me nuts, and it's something I actively discourage in my composition, literature and creative writing classes. I even break out a study by Daniel M. Oppenheimer titled "Consequences of … Continue reading Hey now, don’t blame us!
“A dark horse among dark horses”
I've wanted to write this post for days now, but I've been too swamped with other work to even think about it. I'm still not caught up, but I just finished a truckload and dammit, I'm going to blog before I start on the next one. The title of this post comes from Seth Abramson's … Continue reading “A dark horse among dark horses”
Not a Good Idea
A couple of friends of mine pointed me to this post about a plan from Warner Brothers to bring back Pépé le Pew in 3-D, voiced by Mike Myers, in one of those CG-laden crapfests. The AV Club says this, in part: Pepé Le Pew, occasionally characterized by people who take these things too seriously … Continue reading Not a Good Idea
The MFA is not the problem…
It's also not the solution, and I'm not sure there's a problem in the first place. It seems to me that in nearly every generation of writing, one group of people is convinced that no one has ever done it as well as they are doing it right now, while another group is convinced that … Continue reading The MFA is not the problem…
More Shameless Self-Promotion
About 3 or 4 weeks ago, I saw someone on Twitter announce that an online journal was just starting up and hunting for submissions, so I thought I'd drop some work on them and see how it went. Well, the editor liked my poems enough that he accepted all of them, and what's more, he's … Continue reading More Shameless Self-Promotion
Poetic Lives Online
The Essential American Poets series selection this week is Carl Sandburg. I'd never heard his voice before, and it was nothing like I'd expected. I suppose I'd assumed he sounded mid-western, Chicagoan, perhaps deep and barrel-chested. Nope. I thought about not posting this, as I don't want the competition, but No Tell Motel's reading period … Continue reading Poetic Lives Online
Shameless Self Promotion
I have two poems in the latest issue of storySouth, both from my upcoming book, A Witness in Exile, which is in the design stages right now. I'm very excited about that as well, and as soon as I have a photo of the cover, I'll post it. I might even use the photo to … Continue reading Shameless Self Promotion
No One Writes Poetry For the Job Prospects
The complaints about MFA programs and their proliferation are many and legion, and in some cases, I even agree with them, or at least with the possibility that such conditions could possibly exist. But I can promise you that what Clayton Eshleman is worried about isn't really an issue. The hundreds of undergraduate and graduate … Continue reading No One Writes Poetry For the Job Prospects
Song Lyrics as Poetry
Every semester, I give my 2nd year students a chance to earn extra credit by reciting a poem. My only requirements are that it be 16 lines long and that I approve it first, and my primary restriction is that it cannot be the lyrics to a song. They're always disappointed by that limitation, mostly … Continue reading Song Lyrics as Poetry
The 6 Myths of the Creative Writing MFA
Seth Abramson has a pretty good piece up at HuffPo about what he calls the myths of the Creative Writing MFA. I recommend the piece, mainly for the last five myths. They're pretty pervasive myths and he handles them pretty well. And I'm not going to take issue with the first one so much as … Continue reading The 6 Myths of the Creative Writing MFA
