“The ghosts of Rilke and Wordsworth--along with the 300+ MFA programs, which now seem to employ all Living Poets--have misled the American public egregiously into thinking that poets are morally pure and/or useless.” ThinkingSeemsPoetPureProgramGhostUselessMisledWordsworth Author:Katy Lederer
“Auden, who asked two things of an imagined world-that it be somehow like ours and somehow unlike-would be Ben Marcus's ideal reader, yet even without the poet's dire program, I am altogether taken by this hilarious and sexy alternative universe. Just imagine! it is all done with words instead of mirrors, so much more reliable and so much more heartbreaking. Thus Prospero enthralls his crew.” WorldTwoDoneWould BeUniverseTakenImaginePoetReaderIdealsProgramMirrorsSexyAlternativesTwo ThingsCrewHeartbreakingAudenProspero Author:Richard Howard
“I'm not a poet, but I was in the poetry program. And I'm also not much of a nonfiction writer, at least not in the standard sense of nonfiction, nor especially in the way we were thinking about nonfiction back then, in the late 90s.” ThinkingWayPoetLateStandardsProgramNonfiction Author:John D'Agata
“I think that the dark side of MFA programs is that they're generating more poets than the culture can absorb and there are more people writing poetry than possibly read it or can certainly earn a living around it.” PeopleThinkingWritingCultureSidesDarkPoetProgramDark SideWriting Poetry Author:Edward Hirsch
“I think in terms of educating a group of readers, MFA programs are very good. I just think the model of MFA programs in which a young poet goes through the program, publishes a series of books, gets teaching jobs, that's a bit at risk.” ThinkingBookJobsYoungBitsTermRiskGroupsTeachingPoetReaderModelsProgramSeriesVery GoodPublish Author:Edward Hirsch
“When I taught at the University of Houston in the Creative Writing program we required the poets to take workshops in fiction writing and we required the fiction writers to take workshops in poetry. And the reason for that is because the fiction writers seemed to need to learn how to pay greater attention to language itself, to the way that language works.” WayNeedsWritingReasonLanguagePayAttentionFictionCreativeGreaterTaughtPoetProgramUniversityCreative WritingWorkshopsFiction WritingFiction WritersHouston Author:Edward Hirsch
“In 1967, the students at San Francisco State invited the poet Amiri Baraka to the campus for a semester. He attracted other influential black writers such as Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullins, Eldridge Cleaver. What emerged was something we called the community communications program. That's how I got involved; I got involved in a little play” LittlesStatesPlayBlackCommunityStudentsPoetCommunicationInvolvedProgramInvitedSan FranciscoInfluentialCampusSemesterCleaver Author:Danny Glover