etherfarm

Around the word in 10 weeks

Later

01:20 on Monday, November 24, 2003 • 10 responses

Earlier

I had a lot of trepidation about teaching creative writing in Santa Cruz. I developed a severe allergy to “all-things-writer” during the period in Maine when I focused heavily on creative writing. It’s not that I don’t think writing is a skill—I certainly do.

It’s just that I wish writers wouldn’t call themselves writers. I’ve found that when writers actually cultivate the pride necessary to call themselves writers, they cease being writers and they become talkers. Talkers - about - themselvers.

To put it another way, I really can’t stand hearing writers talk about writing. And in my most jaded moments I just really can’t stand hearing writers talk. Period.

Add to this the absolute contempt I have for all-things-poetry in Santa Cruz. Most of this loathing centers around beat poetry and hippy poetry. I went through a beat poetry phase. Straight through it, in fact. My interest in beat poetry ended the minute I saw beat poetry written down. I couldn’t take beat poetry seriously afterwards.

There’s a “writers’ ethos” out here, perhaps most prevalent amongst undergraduates, which makes revision of one’s writing almost criminal. I had a student once declare that he doesn’t revise because he doesn’t want to “taint the muse”. I told him his muse should attain something more than 4th grade proficiency in English and learn to conjugate verbs other than “to be”.

I no longer consider myself a “creative writer”. I still write things from time to time, mostly character exercises or general ideas for stories (I’m often inspired by the writings of Witold Riedel), but my attentions are spread too thin for someone in graduate school, and writing’s the kind of thing that can suck me in for days on end.

I have to say, though—while it’s been a lot of work, the creative writing class I’m teaching is finishing up, and I’m very proud of the work I’ve done. I give very good feedback (I’m pretty direct), and I’m really encouraged that my students have taken the criticisms so well. Being in a ”hate-free zone”, people in Santa Cruz don’t take any criticism—perhaps especially constructive criticism—too well. Messes up their chakras or something.

In any case, I’m wrapping up one of the best classes I’ve ever taught. Even better—the students are mostly freshmen and sophomores, so I’ll be running into them as they move through the ranks over the next few years. The highlight from this quarter was having three students go from D+ work to B+ work, and they worked their asses off doing it. The low point of the quarter was receiving an email commending me for extending an assignment. The email read (in its entirety):

sweeeeeet!  That’s hella dope!

See, I do good work.