by Ren Powell
One of the awkward quirks of social media is the occasional crossover of cliques. A few weeks ago, I stumbled on the blog profile of one of my theater students. He wrote that he considers himself an actor,“although” he knows he “really isn’t one yet.”
The fact is I saw very little of the student the first months of school this year because he was acting in a supporting role in a television mini-series. He has been acting in professional children’s theater productions for a large fraction of the modest number of years he has spent on this earth. He has performed for audiences and for cameras, and I am assuming that, for the latter at least, he was paid real money for doing so.
So when is he a “real” actor? When he has a degree from a particular school? When an actor’s guild gives him a card? When he is smugly satisfied with his skills and doesn’t give a prop what anyone thinks of his craftsmanship or talent?
Or will he be disingenuous and, accepting the academy award for best actor, say that he hopes he will one day be able to consider himself a “real” actor, thus ridiculing anyone without an award on the mantel who calls him- or herself an actor?
I have to admit to having a preoccupation with this question. The past decade, I have traveled quite a bit. Every time the airplane approaches the runway and they hand out the landing cards, I get a rush of panic. I stop at the blank that follows the word occupation. Poet, like actor, seems to be one of those titles some of us feel ridiculously self-conscious taking upon ourselves. I am occupied by poetry. I am trained to write poetry. I do not make a living writing poetry. Two out of three dictionary definitions isn’t bad?
The years that my tax form read self-employed, and published a book, and earned enough royalties to buy new shoe strings, or received a grant, I proudly wrote: Writer.
Why not poet? To be painfully honest, because I worry about what people think:
Poet = A person who writes poetry?
Poet = A person who publishes poetry for other people to read?
Poet = A person whose poetry is published by people who have authority within academia?
Poet = A sensitive soul?
Poet = An inspired spirit?
Poet = A rebel with a cause?
Poet = A total flake, a suffering romantic, a person who can’t be trusted with small children or sharp objects?
And just when I think I am in a place where I know the other to whom I am presenting myself and think I can comfortably claim the title as my own, I get sideswiped: This summer one of my doctorate advisers said, “I know you want to have a career as a poet someday.” My defenses jumped to attention: I almost choked on my indignation, my CV … and my own hypocrisy — I thought I was having one. (Glad I’d written “student” on my landing card that morning.)
I have heard people I respect say the oddest things when it comes to the question of who is a poet. One woman I know calls herself a “poetry practitioner” because she thinks “poet” sounds too fancy. But “nurse practitioner” comes to my mind, which makes me think of poetry as ministering to the soul, something I would be very uncomfortable claiming to do.
Many people have told me they feel that the title of poet is something they should not take upon themselves, but rather something that should be conferred by others.
OK then: By whom? Is it appropriate to ask them to consider you for the rubber stamp? Or do they tattoo it on your hairline? Is there a pageant to enter? (Is there a swimsuit competition?!) Can one be stripped of the title when a residency term is finished? When the journal, zine, blog has dissipated in the ether of cyberspace? When you no longer think the world sucks and have no need to refill your prescriptions?
I am going to make this simple. I hereby confer upon us all the title of “poet” and will schedule appointments to tattoo everyone — base of the skull only, please. I can begin this weekend.
Right now I need to get to class. My student may have earned more money as an actor than I did this year, but he still has some things to learn. And so do I.
Sign up below for the tattoo.
Ren Powell has published three poetry collections and eleven books of translations. She is a graduate adviser with Prescott College’s master of arts program and is pursuing a doctorate in creative writing at Lancaster University. Learn more at her website.
What a wonderful and positive affirmation to wake up to this morning! Thank you so much for putting these wise and kind thoughts here for all to share. Of course YOU are a poet!
Here’s a generous definition of “poet” that certainly covers anyone here at RWP: “One who creates poems…one who thinks and feels like a poet…one who prepares to write poems or attempts writing them…” (page 216, The Poetry Dictionary, 2nd ed, by John Drury (Writer’s Digest, 2006)).
Love this meditation, Ren — I feel I could’ve written it myself (though it probably wouldn’t have been as entertaining if i had). Thanks.
Great read to get started in the morning on very non-poetic work. That’s a tat I might be able to pull off, until someone wants to *read* something longer that I write. Then I clam up. Hide. Revise. Rewrite. Reconsider.
Yes, please. I’d like that tattoo. Any color will do.
(Wonderful post, Ren. Went straight to the heart, via my head.)
ren powell replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 12:00 am
My son is working on the design. It has to gel with the one I have already.
You’ve got me hyped-up. Thanks for the affirmation.
Though I do notice you don’t pause a lick at the difference your advisor glancingly pointed out between BEING a poet and having a career AS a poet. The first, an atribute which cannot be taken away and leave something defineable in the same way, the second, (though more simple for the IRS) just a role.
ren powell replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
Who does have a career as a poet then, according to the IRS. I doubt there are many who pay the lion’s share of their bills with poetry. (Yes, I did – ONE year.)
Sometimes I reject the title “poet” when I see poets behaving badly and want some distance from those behaviors, so it’s not that I feel unworthy of the title, but more a desire for creating separation from myself and the yucky.
I also started calling myself a “text generator” for a while because I like the idea of talking about texts as opposed to being genre-bound. I write a lot of pieces that I would not classify as poetry or prose but instead simply as texts.
And there are schools of thoughts about the writer being a kind of machine. Nathan can talk about that more at length if he stops by. That sort of talk isn’t for everyone, but I certainly think it’s interesting to play around with the notion by calling myself a “text generator.”
Of course, I am way into robots, so you can see how I’d dig any concept involving machinery or programming or performing programmed scripts. (Duh, poetry is more complicated than that. I know. Appropriating a label for the short- or long-term is not an absolute statement of a philosophical position on my end. It’s just a little word-play and a way of entering into another way of looking at the world, at writing in general, and at my writing in particular.)
(I should label the rest of this comment “off topic” because I am not trying to indicate that it is in response to what Ren is stating in her piece. It’s more where my own mind is taking me as I compose this comment — a document of the specific reasons I personally am frustrated with the title “poet” right now, and why I am feeling prickly whenever I even see the word “poet.”)
So we should not always assume that all titles which sound atonal or dismissive to our ears are meant in that way by those who use them. There are complicated and various reasons people choose the titles they choose for self-identification, as well as complicated and various reasons that people reject other titles.
Right now, I am calling myself a musician, in part because I feel the pedagogies for learning music and the philosophies that surround being a musician seem more fleshed out and healthier than what I see in poetry and among poets, with exceptions of course.
Certainly there are many fantastic poets and fantastic teachers of poetry and fantastic approaches to reading, writing, sharing and understanding poetry. But there also seems to be far less accountability and more bullshit in poetry, such as entering an MFA program and paying more than $5,000 for your “mentor” to say little more than, “good” and “lovely” on your creative work and saying little more than “good” in response to the critical work you put so many hours and so much thought into. (Yes, that is an example from a personal experience I have been dealing with for the past six months. And it’s only grazing the surface of what I experienced, and did not experience, in that MFA program.)
In the 10 years I seriously studied music, nobody I studied with directly or knew who called themselves a “teacher” or “mentor” ever came close to that level of teaching incompetence and lack of investment. Just the opposite. I learned everything I know about music through those instructors’ careful observation, their attentive listening and feedback, their expert instruction, their compound example of true virtuosity, their understanding and articulation of what it meant to be a musician in the broader sense — and through their pushing and pushing and pushing me. They actually gave a rat’s ass about my development as a musician, and the development of musicianship in their other students.
If I can’t find that in a poetry mentor, I’ll go back to music and find it there, then try to transpose those musical methods to the study of poetry.
And I have not yet been able to find that in a poetry mentor. One poet, who offered to mentor me for free, ended up hitting on me then losing all interest in my work when I said I was not interested in him. (The other offers he made, including helping him with poetry-editing work and a being a featured reader in a literary series he runs, dissipated too.)
Another poet who is a major local fixture wanted to mentor me. He showed enthusiasm until he googled the phrase “Dana Guthrie Martin husband” and landed on some pages on my site that indicated I did indeed have a husband. He then sent me an email telling me that I didn’t know the first thing about writing poetry, that I was not serious enough about poetry to pursue writing it in any meaningful way, and that he was not in a position to waste his time on me.
And now I have just come off six months of dealing with a “mentor” through an accredited academic institution who doesn’t even have the vocabulary of a parrot when it comes to her responses to my work. (I am not even angry with her, per se, but instead with the system that has engendered this sort of behavior on the part of professionals.)
Someday I will simply call myself “artist.” I think that’s where I will land in the end.
Oh, sorry to be a downer, by the way. Carry on with The Good Times! I just had to get that out there. It’s the first time I’ve talked about my experience at all. Do you know how difficult it was for me to keep quiet for six months about this? I really wanted to keep things on the down low in terms of my experience so I could try to make the best of it, to salvage whatever I could.
But the cost of this latest experience has been great, far greater than $5,000. It very well might be what breaks my back and costs me my life as a poet, simply because I might choose to not renew my poetic license after what I’ve been through both this past semester and for the past 3 years since taking up poetry again.
P.S. I am not just idly complaining about this. I made a formal complaint and dealt with that for weeks, being given the run-around by the school’s administration and the program’s director. It went nowhere, despite my persistence and best efforts.
ren powell replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
I had a fabulous connection with my MA mentor. I think it is rare, really. But I think I have learned a lot from the instructors that remain disconnected. Though I think I appreciate it more in retrospect. I learn to trust my own judgments etc. I count on that when I know I have disconnected with my own students.
I think we can all relate to this. I do suspect many people think “poetry” is something weird or goofy or or sissy or overly serious. I’m about to have my “coming out” at work, so a tattoo would be great. Can I opt for “poetess?”
ren powell replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Yes, you and Annie Finch.
This post is much welcomed here.
The issue goes back for me, to the old days when one had to put specialization on her CV. Most college graduate youth used their major : like in engineer , specialization :bridges or big machines or architect or historian: ancient Greece. And there is Ana: philosopher, specialization: the human cognition. Yeah, right !
Reactions:
A. You are nuts
B. oh, so you have a psychology degree!…(nope, philosophy one)
C. Oh, how interesting (read” you snob”)
So, nope I am never going to write “poet” in my CV or tax form. But I take the tattoo. After all it is a vice, like smoking, but since I do it for a public I feel responsible to perfect my skills (like parenting).
PS. Dana, sorry to hear that. Probably we can learn more from this project than we’d learn in class. And unfortunately I do not have the energy or money to go for another degree now.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
I think we can learn a lot here, Ana.
as always, ren, you inspire interesting dialogue.
i love what you’re contributing to RWP.
labels are so difficult. “poet” is, like all labels, quite simple (someone who writes poetry) and quite complex (the expectations, the stereotypes, the good, the bad, the ugly).
the best (and most challenging) parallel in my life is the label “mother.” despite the facts (i have three sons), i have not assimilated “mother” into my identity. it’s still a stranger to me. i am missing so many of the things that people attribute to mothers (of course i bring other things to the role, but my point is the failings of the label as a common source of understanding).
i am a mother b/c i have children, but i know so many people who — even though they don’t have children — are more “mother” than i am. i know women who are mother to me even though we are not related. so “mother” is a label like “poet” for me: how each person fulfills and defines the role is extremely personal.
i relate to dana’s current struggle with the word “poet” not b/c i have those same sensitivities to the word “poet” (i don’t: i have finally agreed with myself that i am one and am more likely to understand myself in that light than any other) but b/c i have gone through that same struggle with other terms.
one thing that helps me — with the poet thing, with my writing life — is to do things that make me feel more like a poet. i have considered the MFA route many times, but it has to pass my litmus test: will it make me feel more like a poet? i’ve been super content, especially in the last couple years, in finding lower-cost (or free!) options that help me advance my own idea of myself as poet. that’s where i am right now.
(one of those things, by the way, is RWP. where we are right now. doing a poet thing and talking about poetry. yee-ha!)
ren powell replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 12:05 am
Never thought of that. When I was first a mother I remember leaving the house for the first time without the baby and wondering if people could see it in my being – that I was a Mother… people have told me they can see in my being I am a poet… but their motives were very, very suspect.
off topic (sort of):
i have a fantasy about an MFA-like experience that’s free to people on-line (and in our communities). a progression of readings. opportunities to write. critique groups. um, yeah, LOTS of it is here already.
if the RWP team would ever be interested in assembling a loosey-goosey, build-your-own, go-at-your-pace pseudo MFA, i’d help. or maybe someone should do it as a sister site.
in fact, i was talking about this with a friend over coffee last week. just making it happen. “university” is one of those amorphous terms, too, yes?
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
We definitely have the infrastructure to do it here, and our mission is written intentionally so that Read Write Poem could move in that direction if the right alignment of support — human, creative and financial — comes into play.
I would see whatever we potentially did here as more akin to an online literary arts center, doing the virtual equivalent (and some real-life work, too) of places like Kansas City’s The Writers Place or Seattle’s Richard Hugo House.
It sounds like you are talking about a real MFA program, where a degree is conferred at the end. I think that would be wonderful, but really hard to pull off, especially if you wanted to get accreditation. Of course, it can be done. Anything can be done when people work together to pull it off.
Another thing I’ve thought about is partnering with low-residency programs to help make Read Write Poem a space where their students can connect and share work, while at the same time learning the online communication and technology-management skills that are so essential to online editing and to promoting one’s work in the digital age.
I mean, with the technology that is currently available, it’s senseless for students in a low-res MFA to only come together once or twice a year and to have their interactions outside that time frame limited to email and maybe a blog or an often poorly designed and maintained wiki if they are lucky.
So some kind of mash-up between using this space for learning the craft of writing poetry and also learning digital communications might be ideal for the MFA student who is motivated, and for programs that don’t have the infrastructure or knowledge to provide a space like this themselves. We have subblogs that could be used for this purpose, as well as the groups.
The real challenge would be convincing low-res MFAs that anything happening here matters, and that they should not continue doing business as usual. There’s the rub.
I would actually love to see a school develop a hybrid Master of Fine Arts and Digital Communications degree that is focused exclusively on training students in online editorship and other digital communications tools. Perhaps the University of Washington will do that at some point. They already have a strong master’s level fine arts program and a strong master’s level digital communications program. Those programs simply are not talking to one another yet.
At the University of Washington, their digital communications program requires students to do things like post all their notes to a website for sharing with others in the program. They have to think about how to communicate every aspect of what they are studying all the time as they are working on the degree.
And just think about it. How much cooler would it be to, say, write a critical annotation about reading the collection Monster Zero by Jay Snodgrass and then post it to a site (i.e., Read Write Poem or elsewhere) where everyone — students in the program and folks all over the world, poets and non-poets alike, can read it, as opposed to writing it in a Word document and sending it to one mentor who comments extensively or stingily, but either way that mentor is the only one who ever sees your piece.
I envision some kind of program where the requirement is to not only write the annotation, but to place it in a digital arena, to have people respond to it, and to show further understanding of the material by entering into a dialogue with those responders. Then the mentor would assess the entire process as part of evaluating the student’s understanding of the work, of how to engage readers and of how to communicate in an online environment.
At the very least, I want to develop an internship for students from MFA programs who want to learn about social networking and digital communications and how those apply to poets and poetry.
jasonriedy replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
This deserves more effort than I can spend right now, but there are many pushes towards expanding traditional universities outward. The physical university just doesn’t scale to the population. One hope is that materials then can move downward and make high school worth-while again. The difficult parts often involve motivating faculty and other teaching participants; it’s astoundingly hard work without face-to-face impressions.
On-line annotation systems are pretty fragile with respect to revisions. The free one I know to handle both (stet, used in drafting the GPLv3 license) is unmaintained.
Dave Bonta replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
For an example of what can be done with high school English students using advanced web-based tools, check out what Peter’s been up to.
carolee replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
so you thought about it some?
and nope: i’m not talking about a real MFA with degrees conferred. it’s the experience i’m after.
all of these ideas are wonderful!
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 12:18 am
Didn’t you want a formal certificate or something as part of your idea? I seem to remember your saying something along those lines at one point.
carolee replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
it’s entirely possible that i said that once upon a time. the fantasies vary.
but no, not right now. right now, i’d just like to do the work that MFA candidates “get” to do in hopes of improving my writing.
and feeling more like a poet.
“One woman I know calls herself a “poetry practitioner” because she thinks “poet” sounds too fancy. But “nurse practitioner” comes to my mind, which makes me think of poetry as ministering to the soul, something I would be very uncomfortable claiming to do.”
I actually really like the idea of calling myself a poetry practitioner. It gives the air of poetry being human services work, which I believe it is. It also lends a humility to the title of “Poet” and acknowledges that there is someone else involved in the process–a reader who is (hopefully) being “helped” in some way by the work. It makes less about me and more about how to serve a higher good through the work of poetry.
Thanks so much for the thoughtful article, Ren! I always look forward to your columns.
Dana, I’m glad that you’re taking steps to talk about your experiences. I’ve been really saddened to hear of what’s been going on for you over the last year, and your experiences (and some of my own) have made me pull back from the “poetry community” and assess much more carefully who I involve myself with. Whatever path you take, I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Kristen, I am just thankful good poets, like you, exist. I mean it. You all are what keep me hanging in there, even if I sometimes feel I am hanging by my neck. I really hope I am well enough to see you and Kristen and Jeremy this weekend. That would be the best medicine yet, I think. Even better than my codeine.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
When I say “good poets” in this context, I am talking about personalities and ethics, not the quality of the poems. Not that the latter is not also true.
Coo. I’ve been wanting a tattoo for a long time but couldn’t decide on what to get. This is perfect.
Artist is the other label that can go hand in hand with Poet for me. Even thinking about saying it out loud makes me feel all queasy and insecure inside. Ugh. It is good to be here with like-minded individuals.
I also don’t really think of myself as a poet. It seems weird. I’ve been writing poetry for nearly 20 years, but until this year (and thanks to RWP) rarely shared any of it.
I think there is a tendency to think that if we call ourselves something we are either getting paid to do it as professionals or we are pretending. Especially with poetry.
Dana’s music analogy got me thinking about this. I know many musicians, so called because they practice the art of playing and performing and yet earn their living by other means. We seem to accept this for musicians. Same thing for runners and athletes who run marathons and triathelons and then on Monday go back to their jobs.
Thinking about it that way makes me wonder why those of us who write but don’t earn a living by it have such hangups when it comes to calling ourselves writers or poets.
My brother hunts and calls himself a hunter even though he earns his living as an attorney.
I write poetry. Maybe I shouldn’t be so weird about being a poet or a writer. It is, after all, what I do, if not for a living.
So, yeah, how about that tattoo.
I’ll take it. Thanks Ren. Well done, as always.
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We like to think of poets as being a bit akin to shamans. (The Greek word “poetes” means “maker,” and had thaumaturgic overtones.) The problem with that is that true shamans almost never seek the role, but have it thrust upon them as the result of an extreme spiritual or existential crisis. And as Ren says, some people have a similar idea about poets: “Many people have told me they feel that the title of poet is something they should not take upon themselves, but rather something that should be conferred by others.” But writing poetry is in fact a pretty ordinary thing, not at all comparable to faith-healing or traveling to the spirit world. To me, it’s a craft just like woodworking, maybe slightly more advanced than hanging drywall, but not much. It doesn’t require any special kind of intelligence; anyone who uses language can, and probably should, learn to play with it in an artful manner. Certainly it’s not hard to find examples of societies, present or historical, where every literate person was expected to learn poetry composition. I feel that’s the direction our society should be moving, too, which is why the example of Read Write Poem is so important: it’s showing how to democratize the learning process.
So if I sometimes avoid defining myself primarily as a poet, it’s not because I’m ashamed of it, or unwilling to tar myslef by association with the widespread assholery that infects the ranks of professional poets — Dana’s dead-right about that — but because I don’t want to contribute to the idea that being a poet is anything too special. It’s writing the poetry that matters. And actually in my own writing, the prose and the poetry are constantly shape-shifting into one another to the point where I can barely tell them apart anymore. Maybe I need to take up sonneteering…
Dana, I’m glad you got that out. It needs to be said.
ren powell replied:
November 18th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Dave- we think alike in several ways… I teach my students about theater the same thing I teach about poetry: there is the craftsman, who can make a cup and saucer that functions; there is the artisan, who can make the cup and saucer that functions and is exquisite; there is the artist, who can make a functioning cup and saucer but may use it to say something otherwise inexpressible…(the latter can’t be taught, in my opinion). I have a whole flash presentation with Oppenheim’s fur cup and saucer. It’s bizarrely important to me.
Katherine Gotthardt replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 7:54 am
You know what is funny is that I had people call me a poet or a writer long before I ever had the courage to call myself either.
Thank you for the Greek interpretation. I love it!
If anyone wanted to get the Read Write Poem logo splat as a tattoo, that’s always an option. I am just throwing that out there.
Thank you all! I love comments (and poetry tangents).
I find Dana’s experience about her academic course very depressing.Unfortunately this occurs far too often .I am sorry to say this but in my experience this sort of thing only happens to very talented students. The average and the ordinary seem to sail through without a problem as they dont pose a threat to lecturers who are fairly ordinary anyway.I speak as both a student and a lecturer.
Oh my, what a marvelous post! Thank you! For years, I have been afraid to call myself even a writer because I felt I was not successful enough to have earned that title. And because I have always had to earn an income through other means–thus calling myself a “consultant” on my tax forms–I thought putting “writer” or “author” or “poet” on anything was simply unrealistic.
I have recently released my first book of poetry, and on the back of the book it says, “Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt is a poet and prose writer.” Perhaps that sounds awkward, but I really wanted to use that word “poet.”
ren powell replied:
December 1st, 2009 at 10:45 am
Congratulations on your book, Katherine!
I tried to post this yesterday… I’ll try again…
I don’t really think of myself as a poet. It seems weird. I’ve been writing poetry for nearly 20 years, but until this year rarely shared any of it (RWP inspired me to change that, but I digress).
I think there is a tendency to think that if we call ourselves something we are either getting paid to do it as professionals or we are pretending. Especially with poetry.
Dana’s music analogy got me thinking about this. I know many musicians, so called because they practice the art of playing and performing and yet earn their living by other means. We seem to accept this for musicians. Same thing for runners and athletes who run marathons and triathelons and then on Monday go back to their jobs.
Thinking about it that way makes me wonder why those of us who write but don’t earn a living by it have such hangups when it comes to calling ourselves writers or poets.
My brother hunts and calls himself a hunter even though he earns his living as an attorney.
I write poetry. Maybe I shouldn’t be so weird about being a poet or a writer. It is, after all, what I do, if not for a living.
So, yeah, how about that tattoo?
I am saddened and disillusioned to read about Dana’s experience which is, most certainly, an injustice needing to be rectified at many levels — personal, institutional, societal. Without disrespecting her, I would like to add, in defense of MFA programs, that my experience in an outstanding MFA program was highly rewarding in many ways. But perhaps, as rallentanda mentioned, I was the kind of mild, average (perhaps naive) student who avoids, through compliance, the difficulties of authentic conflict.
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 10:04 am
Therese, I should add that I was also in the University of Washington’s MFA program in 2007. But after only a couple of weeks, I was diagnosed with subacute thyroiditis and had to leave because I was so ill. I didn’t go back to UW when I recovered — more than a year later — for two reasons:
1. I would have had to apply again at that point. (They only allowed students to take a leave of absence for two semesters, after which reapplying was necessary.)
2. Circumstances in my life and my employment made it so I could no longer be in a residency program.
But I can say that I learned more from Richard Kenney at UW in just a couple of lectures than I learned the entire semester from my mentor at the low-res program I’ve been part of. I can even say that the discussion he led in his class constitutes a great deal of what I’ve been exploring in my poetry ever since, as well as my philosophy about poetry.
I feel that, in contrast with established residency programs, some low-res programs — especially freshly minted ones such as the one I was at this past semester — are uneven and have a all sorts of hiccups. And after being at one of arguably the best residency MFA programs in the country, of having been exposed to that even a little bit, any low-residency program I set foot in was going to have a lot to measure up to.
That’s as it should be, I think. The best programs set the standard, and it’s up to the others to keep pace. But it’s also up to the students to know what they should be getting from any program. Certainly there can and should be variability in style and focus from program to program, but the same baseline quality should be there. Getting in MFA is just like buying a car: They are not all the same, and their quality and value is not consistent from one to another, despite whether all programs are accredited.
I don’t mean to say that these issues are across the board. I’ve seen, firsthand, what I think is one of the best programs out there. And I sure hope what I saw this past semester was indicative of the worst, because if there’s worse to be found, that’s just sad and scary.
I should also note that my experience in my program was largely limited to that of my mentor and the program director. There was another poet and writer acting as a mentor for three other students. I found him to be outstanding. He is one of the best readers of poetry that I have ever seen. Even when he claimed he didn’t know enough about a particular style of poetry to analyze it well, he proceeded to analyze the hell out of it with attention to all the nuance of the poem, all the possibilities of the poem, all the failings of the poem, and all the ways in which the poem could be contextualized within the framework of the poetry that has come before.
If that poet had been my mentor, my MFA experience would have been very different this past semester. I might be singing the program’s praises.
They say everyone gets a different MFA, even at the same institution. That seems to be true from what I have heard and seen. The experience is wholly dependent on your mentors, especially at the low-res program, in which often the only person you will be talking to about your work and about poetry in general both consistently and in detail (or not even in detail in my case) is the mentor.
And mentors are highly variable. Those who write well are not always suited for mentorship. Those with high profiles might be too busy to actually commit to the act of teaching. Those who thrive in a residency environment may flounder in a low-res model. That’s where the institution needs to step in and listen to its students, respond to their concerns, find solutions that make the experience better, and ensure as much quality control as possible. That is where I believe my institution failed me and, frankly, where it failed my mentor as well.
It seems to be taken seriously in anything you
have to be paid for doing it.Get your kids to sell your poetry outside the supermarket and then you can justify calling yourself a poet.
I haven’t sold a poem.I haven’t published a poem.I give them away for free.I don’t have copyright on my blog and I don’t care who plagiarises me.Help yourself.I’m not a poet.I’m a subversive artist.In a coup d’etat people like me are first on the list to get the chop!
The “poet” is the psychopomp, a liminal guide, in many guises, of the soul to the underworld, the shadow you cast into the collective. The “poet” is transitive, that is to say, the “poet” gets around a lot. The “poet” is different in each of us, and “poetry” appears to each of us in many forms. Polymorphous perverse, that’s the “poet.”
The “poet” lies a lot, but only when telling the truth. The “poet” tells the truth in such a way that you take it as a lie, whether you believe the lie or not. The only part of the truth you take in is the lie: All lies are partial truths; that is to say, forms of human understanding. What the “poet” has on offer is beyond human understanding, and what good is that? The “poet” brandishes that question mark like Hermes or Mercury held aloft the caduceus, the winged staff twined with two snakes. It’s hard to say what the “poet” is good for and hard to say what the “poet” is bad for. That mostly depends on you, or what you think of as you. We all have a little piece of the truth, because we all have a little piece of the “poet”, and like I say, the “poet” lies a lot.
The “poet” is the you that is not you. A trickster that wears your face when not wearing someone else’s. You may think of the “poet” as a figment, but the “poet” thinks of you as pigment. The “poet” is like Mona Lisa’s mustache, you don’t know how it got there and you didn’t do it. The “poet” may fib but is also an outrageous gossip. The “poet” talks to his selves and can’t keep a secret. The “poet” makes you keep it, slipping the wet brush in your pocket when you aren’t looking…. Read More
The “poet,” like Job’s Satan, is busy, busy, busy. Going to and fro on the earth, and walking up and down in it. The “poet” works all hours and is likely to call you at 3 in the morning. The “poet” dances with angels and denies God exists. The “poet” prefers paradoxy to orthodoxy; iconoclasm is the “poet’s” orgasm. Rene Magritte illustrated this with elegant concision when he painted a picture of a pipe, and wrote “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” at the bottom of it. This is not a pipe. Put that in your poem and smoke it.
(Reposted from Facebook by request of Deb, Dana, and Dave.)
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Yes! Thank you for posting this here. I love it. I adore it. I am making it into a T-shirt, only it’s kind of long for a T-shirt.
rallentanda replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Ceci n’est pas une pipe
There are two meanings in French
This is not a pipe
or
This is not a blow job
The second meaning is probably what Margritte meant!
Might be useful infomation for those who travel to France
Dana Guthrie Martin replied:
November 19th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
It’s totally useful to me from now on, even though I probably will never travel to France. Thanks for the info, Rallentanda.
I am a poet with a day job. This is how I define myself.
I have struggled with how to define myself for a long time. It almost seems like a question of legitimacy from other when you tell folks that you are a writer, and especially if you tell folks that you are a poet. It’s almost as if being famous or well known is the only mark or badge of legitimacy to non-writers and non-poets.
I also appreciated the comments many made here about MFA programs. I have been checking into pursuing one myself…namely for my own personal reasons and satisfaction. Namely, to rectify a wrong of not pursuing what I really wanted to in college in the first place. But that’s not the only reason I am thinking about plunking down a buttload of money for this…I do want to improve my work and make it the best it can be. I want — and need — some real development and mentoring.
And Dr. Omed, thank you for posting what you did. I would say that everything you have just said about who and what is the poet rang true for me.
-Nicole
[...] the same? I guess I am still an old-school imagist at heart. If I ever got a tattoo of anything, it wouldn’t say Poet, it would say Show, Don’t Tell. (Maybe “show” on the back of the left hand and [...]
I’ve actually been strongly kicking around the idea of verse on my arm. Anyone actually have any “Poetic” ink?
ravenswingpoetry replied:
November 20th, 2009 at 8:28 am
I have plans for some after my wedding next year — but not on my arm.
Thanks for this post Ren and thanks Dana for your honesty in this discussion.
“Text generator” is my favorite description. I wish I had thought of it.
I really like Dave’s idea about craft in that it does away with all the mysticism that surrounds the word “poet” and “poetry” and “creativity.”
I think the writing of poetry can be taught just like the reading of poetry can be taught. And I think the cult of the writer contributes a lot to the problems Dana describes.
A poet? So what’s a grown-up? Do we ever? Sometimes I feel I’m still waiting for that! Let alone worry about if I wear a poet’s mask for Halloween! (And because I just don’t really know.)
I write. I happen mostly to write poems. I’m fine by that, I like it that way. Would calling myself a “poet” make any difference one way or the other?
Years ago I worked this very specialized software sort of job. Over the years I became pretty capable. Then one day “the” guru who designed the whole system went away. Some months later I started getting the help-me calls from offices around the country. Someone, the guru I think, said now it’s him, and so I was. Overnight I became one of those “experts” I’d heard about, and secret was I felt just precisely the same after as before.
Would being a “poet” be any different?
Call me a ground hog and I’ll be just as happy (or not) I think. And another answer is – I do write poems, yes, but do I call myself a poet yet? To my mind, no, even if it is what I “do”.
My problem has always been that I’ve read the “real” poets and so can’t compare. On the other hand, a man is still a man, whether he’s a strong specimen or a weak one. I think I’ll tak the tatoo but keep it under my hair until I find the courage for an up-do!
[...] but have it thrust upon them as the result of an extreme spiritual or existential crisis. In her recent “Considering the Other” column at Read Write Poem, Ren Powell noted that some people harbor a similar notion about poets. [...]