Today, June 6th

9:30-11:00: Creative Writing (Me)

12:00-1:30: Literary Studies: (Davin)
1:30-3:00: Composition & Rhetoric (Steve)
3:00-4:00: Afternoon Workshop (Jade)

In Creative Writing today…

1. We’ll share and talk about our favorite

quotations from Skittish Libations.

2. We’ll dive into the whole enterprise of

Creative Writing with questions and
no answers. If you actually think you
have answers, I hope to set you
straight.
 Let’s sort of start by just yapping a bit about the
whole creative enterprise.

What quotation did you select in Skittish Libations,

and why?

What, for you, is “art”? What is “creative writing”?

What is the process one goes through on the way
to creating fabulous poetry and fiction?
The improvement An escape from reality; a
Formalist
of reality (art as a sedative or distraction
hammer
Process…

A pile of crap; a
hoax; excuse for not
having a REAL job
Formalist A learnable skill

…Product…
 Maybe writing’s a constant
NEGOTIATION
of binaries

SELF OTHER
Artist Audience
Past Present
Speaking of Past and Present,
here are a couple of competing
claims:
• Creative Writing (Literature) is the art of
language in the present moment. The live,
unstable, mysterious evolution that is
happening continually and right under our
noses. Brand new poetry, fiction, creative
non-fiction, script-writing, and genres we
don’t yet know how to name.

• Creative Writing (Literature) is the art of

language as an ancient activity. Something
we’ve been doing since we first opened our
mouths to speak, write on cave walls, and
sing around a fire. Some theorists say that
the impulse to create poetry is at the root
of the human impulse to communicate, period.
 Ok.
So nobody knows how to define it.
Or there’s no final definition.
Then how do we learn it?
How does it get taught? Should I, as a
teacher, emphasize process or product?
Craft or free exploration? The work of
antiquity or the work of the future?
How is it distinguished from any other kind
of writing and so what’s it’s place in the
schools at any level? In other words…
 What is “Creative Writing”
with a capital C and W?

= the branch of English Studies that

involves teaching and learning how to
write creatively, right?

Yeah, but…
• Isn’t all writing “creative”? Why call it
Creative Writing?
Isn’t all language
• Can it really be taught? Isn’t it about talent
creative,
and a mysterious really?
ability Why the
to summon
muse? even have a distinct
field called Creative
• What’sWriting?
it doing in Can’t
a university? How do you
business
evaluate it?
reports, department
memos, shopping lists,
• How does it relate to Rhetoric and
Facebook
Composition, status
Literary updates,
Studies, Linguistics,
evenWriting?
Technical check-writing all
Isn’t writing be
in these
fields creative “creative”?
also?

• What’s more important: the writing of

literature or the study of it?
 Did you know…
In some of its earliest appearances in higher
ed, Creative Writing was offered to help
students understand literature better. I.e., it
was in the service of literature studies.

The idea was that by writing some fiction,

poetry, or drama themselves, students would
better understand the masterpieces of
literature.
 But also…
a bunch of teachers who
were also writers wanted
to get together with other
writers and blab about
their work—

in a college setting.
(Couldn’t hang out in the
bistros of Paris or
Gertrude Stein’s salon
anymore, so had to get
together somewhere…)
 It’s always been a bit of an
outlaw…
Not scholarly like other disciplines. The MFA is
a studio degree. Very different criteria.

Not really “academic.” Considered to be even

a “spiritual” discipline.

A “soft” subject. Workshop approach is

considered by some to be whimpy: writers
who want to talk with other writers sit in a
circle and read/discuss their stuff, while a
teacher/published writer chimes in.
 Since the 80s, though,
It has been influenced by postmodern theory,
composition studies, and English education.

The way it is taught is changing here and there…

You can now study “the teaching of Creative Writing”

as a subject itself. Or “Creative Writing Studies”
which examines:

o Creative writing pedagogy

o The culture of creative writing/creative writing in the culture
o The history of creative writing in the university.

You can get an MA and PhD in “Creative Writing

Studies.”
Me? What in the heck do I do as a teacher
of the stuff? When I go into the creative
writing classroom…
• I teach genres. Poetry, fiction. Creative
nonfiction. Some script writing.
• I encourage wide-open, glorious self-
expression. Go for it.
• I encourage self-denial and disciplined
attention to the needs of audience. Craft.
• I encourage demented new ways of thinking
about the world.
• I encourage thoughtful appreciation of very
old traditions.
• I try to do everything.
• That’s why I’m burning out.
• That’s why I’m insane.
• Don’t tell my boss.
ok
Poetry
 Poetry
Going Back to The Very Beginning
• Playing with language: Kenneth Koch, The
Luminous Object

• Surrealism

• Worst High School Metaphors

• Harmonious Confusion
Maybe it starts with just
loving words.
 What’s figurative language?
How do you say that someone is drunk?

How many animal metaphors do we use

everyday?

Where did most worn-out metaphors

come from, and how do we keep the
language alive? Look at Lorrie Moore…
 Worst High School Metaphors
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking

alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from

experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a
solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it
and now goes around the country speaking at high schools
about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog
makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had

disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as
a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly
surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly

the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a

Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole

scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re
on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on
at 7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a
sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots
when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced

across the grassy field toward each other like two freight
trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. Traveling at 55
mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. At a speed of 35
mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket

fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two
hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she
was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel
trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted
shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are want to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But
unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get
from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame

duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame,
maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended

one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids

around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he

heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
Sometimes it helps to take a really
unusual perspective…say, that of an
animal.

Once a student wrote a piece from the

point of view of a deer. It described a
hunter’s gun as “a branch that barks.”
Poetry
Focusing on particular traditions:

• The private, inward-directed lyric

poet.
• The community bard.
• The craftsman or maker.
• The mad or divinely inspired
visionary.
 Spoken Word Poetry
The Oral Tradition (the Bard)
 Hey, Daddy-o
This stuff is really old…
• Homer 800 BC
• Old English poetry 400 AD
• Native American 8000 BC to present
• The Beats 1950s
• Slam Poetry 1980s to present
The Beats (1950s,60s)

• Getting poetry
out of the
classroom

• Poetry read to
jazz
accompaniment
Ferlinghetti:

http://www.ndsu.edu/instruct/cinichol/CreativeWr
iting/323/MiscPoemsFerlinghetti.htm

Ginsberg:

http://www.ndsu.edu/instruct/cinichol/CreativeWriti
ng/323/MiscpoemsGinsbergHowl.htm
 Rap and Hip Hop
• Came of age
alongside the poetry
slam phenom.

• Hyperbolic,
gymnastic, inventive

• Heavily end-rhyme
based; rhymes often
funny, clever, silly

• Distinct prosody
The Poetry Slam
and Open-Mike Coffee House Reading

• Harks back to the Beats

• Again, desire to get poetry out of
the classroom
• Emphasis on anyone can write
poetry
• Tends to be political
• Theatrical, sometimes mixed-media
How do slams work?
 check
these
out!

www.nuyorican.org/

AND
www.poetryslam.com/
 Listen to Spoken Word selections,
plus Beat poems with jazz accompaniment
• Blurring the line between poetry and theater; performances
are like one-person, one-act plays.

• Aggressive, clever, sometimes funny rhyme, not in any

strict pattern (triple rhymes, internal rhymes, slant rhymes,
repeated words, etc. In video, “Lazarus, Lazie, Lazy”).

• Projection! Loud broadcast.

• Number of unstressed syllables don’t matter, maybe.

Success depends on how cleverly you get the four stresses
in (rap).

• Getting into a groove.

• Memorizing the material adds interest.

• Mixing genres: insert singing, use accompanying sound,

etc.

• Ritual presence of performer.

 Ok. So.
Describe what you see on the table. REALLY
LOOK. The thing. The thing itself.

Make the object…

Are you being dull?
Are you being predictable?
Are you thinking too much?

Try a thesaurus…
Try Being Surreal
Surrealism
 1924: Andre Breton:
The Surrealist Manifesto

“I believe in the future resolution of these

two states, dream and reality, which are
seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of
absolute reality, a sur-reality.”
“The idea of surrealism aims quite simply
at the total recovery of our psychic force
by a means which is nothing other than
the dizzying descent into ourselves, the
systematic illumination of hidden places
and the progressive darkening of other
places, the perpetual excursion into the
midst of forbidden territory” (Breton).
 Between WWI and WWII

Surrealism:

the principles, ideals, or practice of producing

fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in
art, literature, film, or theater by means of
unnatural juxtapositions and combinations. An
attempt, through these random, irrational
juxtapositions and combinations, to make make
a new reality or a new whole.
Instead of:

I saw the rabbit, as soft as cotton, his eyes bright,

munching the grass.

you get:

I saw the rabbit, ripe as a hammer, his eyes boiled,

baptizing the grass.

(random words from carpentry, religion, cooking)

or:

I saw the rabbit, as Monday as Van Gogh’s ear, eyes in

search of Harvard, document the grass.

(random words from stuff on my desk)

 Early Surrealists Valued:
The names of Aztec gods were on one page,
• random CHANCE and the seizing
serotonin ofinhibitors
uptake accident; on the other.

• “convulsive beauty,”
Here, you said: theavocado
another baby marvelous,
tree. the uncanny,
the You
disruptive, and
threw your shoe. Ithe
I love unexpected;
broke
you. This remarkable statement
Here's your fire
the refrigerator and the fossil fish.
has appeared on earth to substantiate the clams.
extinguisher,
I broke my shoulder blade.
• strange and
I tried to unexpected
make jambalaya. juxtapositions; welcome to the glacier.
To relax the organism, the cookbook said,
pound with a mallet on the head or shell.
• defamiliarizing the everyday so that it once again
appears strange and new;

• liberation of mind from bourgeois modes of thinking;

Don't think I wasn't shocked when
you were a traffic signal
I can't make it any clearer than that
• the oblivion ha-ha
and stay drunk. silly brain brillo stain
and I a woodpecker.
Duende
 Lorca
“intelligence is often the enemy of poetry,
because it limits too much, and it elevates
the poet to a sharp-edged throne where he
forgets that ants could eat him or that a great
arsenic lobster could fall suddenly on his
head—”

“The duende...Where is the duende?

Through the empty arch comes a wind, a
mental wind blowing relentlessly over the
heads of the dead, in search of new
landscapes and unknown accents, a wind
that smells of baby’s spittle, crushed grass,
and jellyfish veil, announcing the constant
baptism of newly created things.”

Duende is “the melancholy demon of

Descartes: a demon who was small as a
green almond and who sickened of circles
and lines and escaped down the canals to
listen to the songs of blurry sailors”
• "The Guitar“

• "Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías":

#1, 2, 4

• "Casida of the Lament," p. 91

Elvis
you know it when
you hear it
Some responses to Skittish Libations by previous students…
 Yes! Absolutely!
Except…
Deven
Creative Writing is any writing that isn’t
done for someone else. Creative
Writing is for the writer. The same I
Iswould
the audience really that irrelevant?
say holds true for any kind of art.
IsAnthis thecreates
artist kind of art you/we
a painting for typically
spend our money
his/herself, and the on?
folks CDs?
walkingBig
around films?
budget the gallery are privileged to see
it. A musician creates an album about
something personal in his life and the
listeners are simply “along for the
ride”.
 Erica
Creative writing is without restrictions,
or not many of them. Individuals are
Yep, completely true!
free to express themselves and be
—except,
original. Too
um, many rules and
what about form? Craft?
restrictions suppress creativity since
individuals are so limited. Creative
And,
writing again, how come
can be described this of
as freedom
isn’t
writingthe artemotions
where that most
are notof us
concealed and the creator is present
actively
within eachsupport?
piece of work.
 Rhetorical
Brian component
of any
piece of
writing
Creative writing is one of the most
powerful ways to expel and express
feelings, thoughts, and ideas. Writing and
all art is meant to affect and influence
the minds and emotions of others. The
needs of the audience are important and
writer should make some compromises,
however a writer should never
compromise their message. Or is it something we do for
its sake—without any
exterior purpose?
 Heather
Creative writing is something that I want to
do because it helps me feel connected.
It is a way for me to tap into my
subconscious thoughts and desires. It’s
a way for me to express those to others.
 What did Plato say
Ethical purpose of art? Adam about this?
All art should be educative (assuming there’s a way things should be –
that there is a right way), for what possible value could art possess if
it did not lead us towards what is ultimately good? This leads us
to the point that we must first know what is good. I’m not so sure we
(as a people/collective consciousness) actually do know what is
good (though we often assume we do). Fortunately, creative writing
allows for the opportunity for each individual artist to search
(however they so choose) for what is true and good through a
process of self-expression, and thus, self-realization. I could go off
on this for hours, but I hope this gives a general outline of why I
write.

P.S. Sorry this is so late, I was at the RNC and then went to a musical
this weekend. But I can’t wait to meet you all later
Ok, the REAL truth comes out. Art’s an excuse to be a
slacker! Plato was right…
 Chris
Creative writing is for writing very creatively. It is
for fun, enjoyment, and school type people.
Art is for those people who enjoy art. It is hard
to say if the writer’s or audience’s needs are
more important because, when juxtaposing
them, only an english teacher could
determine whose needs institute more need.
It should be determined on an individual basis.
All students should take creative writing so they
can learn to write better.
 Ancient DNA: a History
Lacey L. Locket (Sam Schanhaar)
The extraction and amplification of ancient DNA (aDNA) is a
recent discovery in the history of science. The concept of ancient
DNA has eluded scientists …within the Cretaceous epoch,
reportedly also yielded authentic DNA (Cano et al. 1993). DNA
retrieval was also not limited to y and epidemiology. The field of
ancient DNA is constantly growing with the advent of new
techniques concerning extraction and amplification in conjunction
with individuals such as Savante Pääbo and Russ Higuchi. There
have been numerous tissues that have been subjected to aDNA
research including Neanderthal remains, King Tut, and Otzi.

Ancient DNA is genetic material that is recovered from historical

and pre-historical specimens. Ancient DNA can be obtained from
archaeologically or preserved in a museum environment. Ancient
DNA can be retrieved from skeletal material, mummified tissues,
and hair. Viable samples can be obtained from dry, wet, and
frozen specimens. Samples of ancient DNA can be extracted
from plants, animals and insects […]
Notice how little
attention in
these items on
the work itself
Carl genre

Forget
Creative writing, in myallopinion, is poetry, prose,
these that you don’t need to do
really it’s anything
questions—
extensive research to write and doesn’t need
creative
a bibliography. writing
Creative writing can be
is the
something totally new,ofor something ripped off
writing
from one of thepoetry
greats, just a little different;
and
fiction.
different enough, Duh.to not get sued. It can
at least,
The end. yourself, resolving
be a way of expressing
inner conflicts, or just killing time.
therapy Does/can the work have a mind of
(back to the its own? Some artists have
self) spoken about it in these terms…
the life & rights of the work itself!
Eric
I don’t think I can answer all of these questions in a single
paragraph (or a single page) so I’ll focus on one of them. As to
the very broad view
the question of whose needs are most important the writer’s or
the audience’s, I believe that once a particular piece of writing
is set down, that the author in a sense ceases to exist. The
writing takes it’s place among all other forms of writing and
is organized and categorized based on the work that has
come before. Once the writing is set down, it becomes an entity
onto itself, an artifact of a specific time
whereand
didenvironment.
eric go?
Asking whose needs are more important is like asking who
gets the most value from a relic unearthed in an
who was eric…
archeological dig, those people who originally used it in their
daily lives, or those scientists whowas usethere ever an
it to gain eric…
a glimpse of
that daily life hundreds or thousands of years in the future.
eric
The artifact meets both groups needs in completely different
ways and remains ready to fulfill other o
needs in whatever
situation is brought to bear. As a writer, I try to remain
focused on this belief, as I think it helps
eric me distance myself
from the work, and allows me to approach it from a vantage
point other than one of self interest and vanity.
By the end of GS, we’d like you to submit
work for our local buses!