28 abr 2005

There are thousands of ways to create poetry. Teaching someone "how to write a poem" is an impossibility. It's not analogous to teaching someone how to change a tire, or scramble an egg. Of course, in any given context (time, place, language, tradtion) only about a dozen ways of making poetry will seem at all possible. Usually, only one will be the focus of any pedagogical technique, as institutionalized in any given location. Let's say that writing fiction is reduced to the idea of writing the "New Yorker Short Story." That's just one form, one tradition narrowly circumscribed in time and place. There really is a way of teaching someone to write the Cheever/Updike story, as updated by more recent writers. It is like teaching someone to scramble an egg. If you don't want to scramble the egg, what are you to do?

5 comentarios:

son rivers dijo...

Well, you could poach it. Which I would say is more common in "poetry" than we'd like to admit.

Jonathan dijo...

Wasn't it Creeley who wrote: "Love is dead in us if we forget / the virtues of an omelette?"

gina dijo...

an omelette and a quick surprise

Jonathan dijo...

It's actually an "amulet" but I was making a weak joke. Forgive me.

gina dijo...

I caught the joke, I was just finishing the line. Sorry for any misunderstanding.