workshops
 

An editorial in the latest New Criterion, "Deprogramming the MFA," p. 1, begins with reference to the line by Kingsley Amis, Much of what is wrong with the twentieth century could be summed up in the word "workshop." This line seems to get quoted a lot nowadays. I wonder what Spherians think about it. I know a many of us attend (or conduct) workshops, and Eratosphere itself is a workshop. Comments or reactions to Amis and to the whole matter of workshops?

Regarding the Amis quote, I think that an ironic joke has been taken seriously.

I get a lot out of Eratosphere--ie everything I would want to get out of an MFA. I'm getting old. I'm paying for other peoples' BAs and such. So I have to keep the burn rate down. The Sphere is a low cost, high risk option, which sounds about right.

I'm sure Amis was kidding.

RM

(again, I'm with the jokes...yes an MFA is an incomparable experience, albeit surrounded by the serious debate we see in New Criterion and elsewhere. My point is that this place is an education and that Amis must be kidding.)

One who is close to me says that workshops are places where people get on with their work, not get in the way of other people. He also says it's a noun not a verb.

I think we are so filled with guilt that we couldn't meet and exchange ideas about poetry without the earnest figleaf of "workshop".

It's a delight to be here and to meet all you gifted people and I am here for self-improvement and suffering.

Eratosphere is somewhere where poets can discuss poetry seriously.

Maybe a little research about context is in order.

I just googled "Kingsley Amis" and "workshop" and near the top of the list was an Amazon review of the novel "Jake's Thing," (published 1978) which contains the quote in this form: ""If there's one word that sums up everything that's gone wrong since the war, it's 'Workshop.' After 'Youth,' that is." It's not spoken by Amis in propria persona, but by his character Jake, who is in a psychiatric encounter group for what we would now call erectile disfunction.

Did Amis have MFA programs in mind? No, because they barely existed* at the time and he was talking about something else entirely. The quote is simply an introductory-paragraph gimmick.

I'm still curious about the substance of the TNC article, though. I do think an actual program might have more rigor and completeness than what we do here, and I'd like to steal syllabi and book lists.*

*Having read the article, I stand slightly corrected: there were 35 in 1975.

*The article mostly laments uselessness, incestuousness, and oversupply.

That is a very good question, David.

I think Amis is really objecting to consensus, and I agree with him on that. In the business world I think workshops are mostly a waste of time, though I know many of my colleagues would disagree with me.

I place a high value on poetry workshops, being inexpert, and I have never workshopped a poem without it coming out better than it went in.

I read poems by Rhina or Alicia (for example) and think they do better without workshops, because they have expert knowledge and speak with a unique voice.

Then again, I read poems by Tim or Clive (for example) and see how even the best poets can improve by workshopping.

So I conclude the answer is there is no answer, and it all depends on folks.

Best regards,

David

Maryann said
Yes, me too, if you get any pls pass them on to me.

As Rick pointed out, not everyone can attend MFA at universities. Some are putting their children through school, some have to support a family. Some, like me and many others, live in a foreign country, and though I am a big-time consumer of university courses (being fortunate to live near one) it hs no MFA in creative writing in English. I wish I'd had access to Eratosphere when I was young, but better late than never.

As you all know, there are distance-learning CW courses in English nowadays, even MFAs. Also low residencies. I have several English-speaking friends who are taking advantage of such opportunities.

The advantage with a university course is that you follow a curriculum and learn in a structured manner--or you won't pass the exams. In a workshop it is up to the individual--to learn or not to learn.

Though workshopping one's own poems is a learning experience, it is equally valuable to follow along in the comments in the other threads. That is why, IMO, it is important use a terminology that gives everyone an opportunity respond on specifics. That is also why I find frivolous praise counterproductive. (I hope to goodness that doesn't trigger another etiquette debate, please let's avoid that.)

The advantages of participating at Eratosphere) includes contact with like-minded, access to other ways of thinking, and a focused discourse.

So my answer would be "yes", workshopping is an excellent alternative for learning. Now I shall take my soapbox and go pontificate elsewhere.

Janice,
Though workshopping one's own poems is a learning experience

You didn't really say that. You didn't!

Edited back. In fairness I agree with the sentiment that followed the above quote. I've learned more about poetry in the process of critting the poems of others than in any other experience on Eratosphere.
I do think that there is a general tendency to overvalue prolixity when critting. A single incisive sentence can be the most useful kind of crit. We are here to think about language and the dignity of words. When a thoughtful critic responds with brevity it often means that they have organised their thoughts and have no need of half a page.

Deserved praise is serious comment. Frivolous is in the eye of the beholder.

Sometimes it's the latter in the eye of every other critter reading it.

Which is why workshopping can be as irritating as it is helpful. I think it's also part of the reason why so many people quit workshopping after awhile.

For those who stick around it's major-frustrating because not only is it a waste of time it implies that everyone reading it is considered stupid enough to believe it's true. It may not be hard to convince the author of a poem that the praise is deserved but it's nowhere near as easy to convince the rest of us.

I wish people realized it's counterproductive. Not only does it not help the poet it hurts the critter. Reputations are eventually hard to live down and eventually nothing said gets taken seriously - good or bad.

Sometimes it's the latter in the eye of every other critter reading it.
We can't write for the uninitiated Lo. If they keep reading the penny will drop.

Which is why workshopping can be as irritating as it is helpful. I think it's also part of the reason why so many people quit workshopping after awhile.
They probably should.

For those who stick around it's major-frustrating because not only is it a waste of time it implies that everyone reading it is considered stupid enough to believe it's true. It may not be hard to convince the author of a poem that the praise is deserved but it's nowhere near as easy to convince the rest of us.
Never? Never true? Nothing good is EVER posted here?

I wish people realized it's counterproductive. Not only does it not help the poet it hurts the critter. Reputations are eventually hard to live down and eventually nothing said gets taken seriously - good or bad.

Rats!

What part of he latter didn't you understand, Janet? It's the uninitiated as you refer to them that suffer from reading the frivolous praise. They'll never learn to trust their own judgment when the "elders" are heaping praise on poems which do not deserve it.

And I don't know how you arrived at the conclusion that I never thought anything good was posted here. I said, and I repeat, the latter (meaning, of course, the frivolous praise) was insulting and unbelievable.

Elders who praise what they don't admire are certainly to be mistrusted.
I am glad that those who are initiated set an example by speaking as themselves and not as grade school teachers. I wonder what the uninitiated would make of Allen Tice's Sonnet 155? Should Allen explain it to them? One of the most important lessons in all of the arts is to trust instinct. Instinct grows by reading what others do. Not by tedious explanations of nuts and bolts. These can help but are no use at all without the more important experience. Art must be felt.

I've been in some workshops where my poems were ridiculed and attacked. Occasionally that has happened on Eratosphere. But I find it does not happen here a lot--though it's happened enough that I don't post poems here very often anymore.

"Negative" criticism can be constructive. If I know a person is making a observation about an inadequacy in a poem with the aim to help me make it a better poem, okay. That's different from someone attacking me personally--saying my poem is stupid and that proves I am too; or resorting to sarcasm to try to make a point.

Amis seems to be suggesting that a writer is a genius and writing cannot be learned. I've heard people at the school where I once taught say of writing, "Either you have it you don't. It can't be learned." The idea is a neo-romantic idea that the poet is "possessed with more than common sensibility" (Wordsworth), is simply a cut above everyone else, and the plebians had better not even try.

Maryann qualified Amis' statement well and gave it a context. That modifies it a bit. But, of course, Lucky Jim is about the only thing Amis wrote that's worth reading and he went on the reputation of that book for most of his career. Maybe he should have gone to a workshop.

I couldn't disagree more, David.

Frank

I couldn't disagree more either, David. But that is, certainly, what he is most remembered for and I think it's probably his funniest book. I feel fairly sure he might have agreed, in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, with Jake (let's not forget that this comment is said through the periscope of a character; he didn't necessarily think of Mozart as 'filthy', either): most poets of the Movement in the 1950s (and Amis was a fine poet) would surely have had little time for workshopping - or the term itself which is, frankly, vile. But it is interesting that Lucky Jim was heavily influenced by Larkin, who wrote all over tss, demanded more of this and less of that, etc. The difference is that Larkin was one respected peer and friend with a considerable emerging literary talent of his own.

I don't workshop poems, even here, though I respect the decision to do so and I can see what the considered thoughts of John, Janet, Susan, Janice, Mike, Clive and a great many others can do for a poem and its author's inspiration. I do, occasionally, show my nearly finished poems to respected peers, and of course I submit poems to magazines, etc: there's no point in hiding them in a drawer like dirty postcards (who said that? About Housman?). Whenever I have been in a workshop environment in the real, non-internet, flesh-and-faces world I've found myself in a back-patting set. Eratosphere differs because there is no social awkwardness about not patting backs and it is much, much more than just a workshop.

I had forgotten about Amis' poetry. What I've read of that I have liked. I did not know the connection with Larkin, though I'm sure there was this kind of cammeraderie in English literary circles. I imagine I'm being too harsh on him and using just the kind of hyperbole and overstatement he used when he made the remark about workshops.

Unfounded praise is to be avoided, of course, but there is also a place for encouragement of promise. Some of our posters here are as young as 17--though this is not always announced. And a lot of folks here have come a long way since they first joined. Sometimes it seems there is an attitude of "scare them off" or trial by fire to new members who haven't yet got their footing, without giving people much of a fair shake. (Sorry for the three or four mixed metaphors there...)

I agree with Rory that most face-to-face writing workshops inevitably(at least in England) involve a lot of enjoyable ego-stroking and networking. Real frankness can be tricky to achieve. I think Eratosphere offers us the chance to give and receive straightforward opinions and critiques buffered by the distance that the net provides. Of course hackles can still be raised and our sensitive egos can be bruised; but, in my short time here, I have seen people mostly treat each other with consideration.

I think the moderators do a thankless job really well. I agree with Alicia that new and less experienced members need encouragement, and I've seen them get this at Non-Met.(I don't vist Met as often.)On the other hand, I sometimes think that people post rudimentary-looking first drafts which don't even look spell-checked. I find this irritating and disrespectful to other members. I feel relieved when moderators -or someone- has the cojones to point this out to the poster. Steve.

This is a very interesting thread.

I agree wholeheartedly, though I think I'd preface it with "at the very least".

I agree with Janet that "art must be felt"--but to say that is not to say that art, especially poetic art, cannot be learned. There is technique and craft to poetry. Also there is the trap of falling into laziness with poetic lines, doing fill-in's for the sake of meter, rhyme for rhyme's sake, and so on (things I often do). These can be improved. And I also think that ability to "feel" art comes not from any in-born capacity but from familiarity with art. Hopefuly a workshop will cause people to read and study so that art can be felt.

The danger to the belief that art must be felt is a kind of elitism that leads to the idea of poets being some kind of prophetic club and not everyone has the prophetic gift and so are automatically excluded. When we see a poorly done poem we think, and often say, "This person just doesn't have it." Whatever "it" is, they can acquire it, to some degree, by work and exposure to good poetry. This is what we should encourage in workshops.

Also, I often see what Alicia pointed to. Many people here have taken the "drill sergeant" approach to new people posting. "This is a recruit and we're going to show him or her the necessity of having 'the right stuff' and so we'll be rough and yell a little," they seem to reason. This scares a lot of people off. I remember it happening to me when I first posted several years ago. People made brusque, dismissive comments about my poems, were conscending in their remarks, and generally rude. I stuck with it and things eased up but I still remember those things. A workshop calls for tact and good manners.

A workshop calls for tact and good manners

Yes: good manners and also honesty. It's a tightrope, but a fat tightrope.

The treatment of new posters is an interesting topic. No critique should ever be abusive or rude, of course. But someone new needs to get a quick, pointed lesson on what will be expected here. No brutality, but no padding. If this makes a lot of newcomers go away forever, then the system is working.

I have had my head very far up my own venture this week, but my experience indicates to me, at least, how invaluable the workshop is both as a means of improving individual poems and as a means getting better over time.

As one of the newcomer a few years ago, I dealt with being clobbered by clobbering back, which is why (I'm convinced) certain people won't critique my work anymore as a matter of policy. More importantly, I dealt with it by coming back, even when I was inclined to say screw it, with something better. And by coming back more receptive to critique.

I still need to be clobbered. As do we all. I often want to say screw it, and certain people will never comment on my work. And sometimes I clobber back. These things also indicate that the system is working and I am getting something out of it. Maybe not an MFA, but...~,:^)

Rick, I don't want to turn you into an 'object', by which I mean: talk about you as if you were 'out there' and merely an animated lump that I can project my views on -- a 'thread-object' (?), so to speak. However (I hope you don't mind my speculating on you), maybe you were able to clobber back because you had a kind of power base in your being a well-paid and capable editor yourself. Packing heat, as it were. Anyone who rumbles you, gets rumbled. Not everyone has that. Also you are energetic and blessed with a spiky psyche. Not everyone has those gifts equally.

And at 5'3'', I no doubt have the whole Napoleon complex thing going on.

napoleon |nəˈpōlēən| |nəˈpoʊliən| |nəˈpoʊljən| |nəˈpəʊlɪən|
noun
1 a flaky rectangular pastry with a sweet filling.

See your dentist regularly.

Isn't Napoleon a brandy? I mean, wasn't this French general/emperor guy called after it?

Another thing- is an orange called an orange because that's its color or is the color called orange because it looks like an orange?

Sometimes I wonder about these things.

And nothing rhymes with "orange." Am I right?

Answer to Mary below: Two, but I keep one tucked in the vest of my elaborate French general's uniform.

What I wonder is how Rick revised a poem while mowing the grass. Was there a notebook or electronic device involved? How many hands does Rick have?

David,
Since you have quoted me I'd like to reply.

That art can be "learned" is only partially true. Small children show different kinds of talent early in life. Those with latent ability can certainly progress rapidly and achieve extraordinary progress in a sympathetic environment. A colour-blind individual will never be a good painter. A tone-deaf individual will never be a good musician.
Most of us are here because we need the company of others like ourselves who have an unsatisfied need to write poetry.
Because poetry takes many forms it's wise to be cautious when critting the work of a new member.
But we must be true to our own highest needs and remember what poetry can be. I didn't come here for therapy but because of the high quality of the poetry posted by many of the participants. I'm told I praise too often. I am often delighted by work on this forum.

Edited back to add that more poets leave this forum because their excellent work is published by journals which won't publish work that has appeared online rather than discouraged poets. It's excellence that is the main drain on the forum, not dejection.

I thought we went thru this already and decided that Poetry Magazine was essentially the only "important" poetry journal which disallowed workshopping and that even they were pretty easy to get around.

Besides which, Alex has "fixed" Eratosphere so that workshopped poems do not show up on a Google search thereby negating your whole argument.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...oetry+Magazine

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...oetry+Magazine

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showth...oetry+Magazine

I'm unsure where you get your last statement from, Janet, but every time a statement like this is made my email becomes full of letters from past members who disagree with you but are too burnt out to say so.

Amis is not saying anything. It is Jake who is saying these things. At the end of the novel Jake goes off into a diatribe against all women. Many people seem to suppose this is Amis's considered view. But if it were, why would he not say it in an article with his name at the end of it? So with workshop. Jake is not a very nice man. Amis was considerably nicer.

Lo,
It's a psychological pressure. It only needs one leading magazine to inhibit posters.

You do love an argument don't you?

Ah the silent dissidents.

I see that line quoted a lot, John, and it is usually quoted as if Amis did say it himself. And I seem to see it a lot. Writers for The New Criterion have used it at least twice in the last few months and I see it crop up elsewhere. So though one of Amis' characters uttered it, it has taken on a life of its own and Amis' imprimatur has been applied to it, since his celebrity-writer status gives it more authority.

Not necessarily. It takes two to make an argument. I simply respond to a thread with what I think - it's not an argument until someone challenges my response or makes some outrageous statement back at me (or someone else) without being able to offer something concrete that makes the statement believable.

Even then, it's not so much arguing that I do. I just point out the inconsistancies and spend a few minutes backing my own statements up with facts.

Not very poetic, perhaps, but not utter BS, either.

Amis is not saying anything. It is Jake who is saying these things.

Well, yes, as I've noted. Amis has been a victim of this sort of misattribution on a number of occasions.

What he would have thought of workshops I don't know. But I do suspect it might have been not much.

A workshop is a tool. There are good ones and bad ones, and they can be used well or poorly. I would guess that relatively few poets work in total isolation, speaking only to their own echo. Some may have one or two close friends whom they show work to, and if those friends are good poets with congenial outlooks, that may be an ideal situation. For those of us working in isolation from others of our kind, an online workshop can be very helpful. I have learned a lot, not only from crits, but from discussions of technique and of other poets. At times my job keeps me too busy to write or to crit, and at other times I can do both. But I will often come here to read the work of others, even if only for a few minutes.

I think workshops can be destructive if they impose a particular style or content on writers. Writers need to develop their own sense of what is worth saving and what must go. But we all have blind spots, and not even to want to hear how others react to one's work seems solipsistic.

Susan

Well, it must be said: despite all the fussing and fighting I do here from time to time, this board has been absolutely central to my writing.

And, as an otherwise "speaker to my own echo", I am very grateful for its existence.

There are worse words than 'workshop'. One beloved of our absurd government is 'focus group', though I know that is, strictly speaking, a phrase. Does Obama use focus groups? Do you? And then there's the specialised meaning of 'debate', which means, 'We'll let you talk about this for weeks and then we'll do what we were going to in the first place.'
And, talking about focus, what about 'stay focussed', which means, don't let any considerations about honour or plain dealing or telling the truth get in the way of doing something rather nasty. Workshop is a nice thing. You listen. You don't just lay down the law.

Amis would undoubtedly have hated to hear it used as a verb.