California Poet

Tomas Transtromer Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

2011-10-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

This year is certainly a good one: Tomas Transtromer has won the Nobel Prize.

I first became aware of his work during the late 1970s/early 1980s when I studied with Phil Levine and Peter Everwine at FSU; both are admirers of Transtromer's poetry and promoted his work to their students.

Now all that's left is for Bharati Mukherjee to win a Pulitzer or the Nobel as well (J.M. Coetzee won the Nobel in 2006--I think it was 2006, another writer I have admired for decades).

Congratulations to Philip Levine, Our New United States Poet Laureate!

2011-08-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

This year is turning out to be a fine one for poets I value. For example, I was happy to hear that Eduardo Corral had won the Yale Younger Poets Series Award, and now Philip Levine has been named Poet Laureate of the United States by the Library of Congress. Congratulations to Phil!

Please visit Letras Latinas Blog at the following URL for more information about Philip Levine's latest honor:

http://latinopoetryreview.blogspot.com/

Politics, Poetry, and The Dulled Public Soul

2011-08-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

I watch with dismay as mostly Republican/Tea Party politicians refuse to tax the wealthy who, of course, are the main people they care about: they stand up for them when they don't want to close tax loopholes for jet setters and corporate bigwigs, those moneyed organisms (to call them humans would be too kind at the moment) who have no concept of what it means to worry about having enough money to buy a month's worth of groceries for their families or having difficulty paying an electric bill. I watch and shake my head at those who believe the working people who paid into Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid should sacrifice because politicians controlled by the wealthy promote the notion that "entitlements" are the main culprits for America's financial woes. Too bad the "lock box" Al Gore spoke of never came to fruition to prevent politicians from siphoning off those "entitled" funds to pay for wars and corporate welfare.

And I wonder out loud, "What the hell happened in the cosmos that created such dulled souls?" If I'm a good critical reader of Christian doctrines and teachings, I must assume such politicians and those wealthy organisms they represent would have a difficult time entering anything remotely considered a heaven when they die since they don't use their unique power on earth to help the poor--a damning sin if ever there were such sins.

And what does this have to do with poetry? It has everything to do with poetry, for poetry above all else that it aspires to be connects our souls to each other; we become kindred spirits who yearn for what all art universally yearns for: the eternal and the human.

If my training as a poet has taught me one thing, it has taught be me to be fully human, to care about those all around me who struggle each day to be blessed rather than cursed, who walk into the light of day and the dark of night knowing they will leave this world alone, naked, and wishing--no, praying--that they lived their lives on earth dedicated to nurturing souls, their own and others, instead of destroying them.

That is what poetry does for all of us; we commune with a universal soul--each of us readily wades into a pond: We sense the coolness of the nearby waterlilies, anchored yet seeming adrift; we experience the soft mud oozing between our toes, the sweet sinking with each step; we take in the sun's water-borne glinting, and we shimmer in response.

But no such shimmering takes place when politicians and their corporate sponsors decide that compromise means no taxes for the wealthy, no end to wars across the globe, and no end to the hatred for the ordinary man, woman, and child who don't have lobbyists or political action committees or "conservative" talk show hosts who care about them.

When I hear politicians claim to have religious beliefs and convictions, I understand why mental illness is a commonplace phenomena, for the ability of people to be self-delusional is always astounding--and always harmful to those in their wake.

My Brando Died

2011-05-19T23:28:00.000-07:00

My dog Brando, born in April 1996, died today, May 19, in the early morning hours as I slept next to him.

He was Mary's dog ("Our little boy," she would say), but I inherited him when she passed away in 2001. When I woke up, his snout was turned toward me, touching one of my thighs, as was usual for him: I think he felt reassured that he could feel my body next to his as we slept. Mary got him used to sleeping with us, though I think he preferred to sleep next to me: Mary's chronic respiratory condition would cause her to toss while she slept--Brando knew if I moved it was rare and, for some reason, I was always aware of his position in bed as I slept (though I didn't realize he had died until I woke up this morning).

The late poet William Matthews wrote about the death of a dog in the poem "Loyal": At one point, the speaker notes that he wants to weep "steadily, like an adult, according to the fiction that there is work to be done, and almost inconsolably."

I too want to weep, and not so much for Brando but for myself, for he--and his kin--gave the kind of love few humans can come close to equaling: total love despite the flaws of the loved one.

In my chapbook Braille for the Heart, one of the poems is about Brando. I post it here for the twelve-pound wonder who championed love above all else, who now plays with Mary for eternity--and I feel happy for him and for her.

The Myth of the Happy Family: Canine

If my sick self mumbles a prayer,
a faint adagio of
faith might twitch Brando's

donkey-like ears: If dogs tune in earth-
quakes and Spielberg's alien
Edsels, they can sniff

out God's pizza-bearing messengers
who trod the piss-claimed pathways
of the Village Green

Apartments. No tenant knows what sin
might doom him, but Brando's safe;
he'll respond to that

overdue horn blast with a scrolled turd,
mount the blond neighbor's bitch, and
nose into a bowl

of sleep. For no other beast offers
his broad, out of kilter ribs
to me like Brando;

he'll sidle up like a movie star
and shimmy and pant for that
stark bone of love some

people pocket or misplace or lose
altogether. If grace knocks
like rain, if the first

twister of judgment careens like a
Kearney Bowl modified hard-
top in mud, Brando

will likely yawn, yelp, or pass his own
impolite wind as roofs bloom
and human ledgers

vermilion the flesh-spent vale--it's all
explained with a biblical
blink. And in the Book

of Canine, the sequel stars an in-
ept burglar, his jimmied doors
(as foretold) paw-marked.

--Robert Vasquez

Notes on Writers and the Teaching of Writing, II.

2011-04-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

II.

In Women Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, Joan Didion notes that she learned how to write sentences by reading and analyzing Ernest Hemingway's sentences: "When I was fifteen or sixteen I would type out his stories to learn how the sentences worked" (323). Not surprisingly, Didion, like many others writers, finds Hemingway's direct manner of utterance attractive: "I mean they're perfect sentences. Very direct sentences, smooth rivers, clear water over granite, no sinkholes" (323).

Didion contrasts Hemingway's "clear water over granite" with Henry James' "perfect sentences too, but very indirect, very complicated. Sentences with sinkholes. You could drown in them" (323). For anyone remotely familiar with both authors' works, Didion's use of "smooth rivers" and "sinkholes" seems appropriate: Hemingway's audience awareness is in many ways quite different than James' intended audience--and the authors' mannerisms declare what they value.

Their stylistic mannerisms could be analogous to the two main camps in contemporary poetry and writing in general: The Hemingway camp favors austere language and direct syntax, whereas the James' camp loves lush language and syntactic complexity.

For example, when I consider the poets Philip Levine and Rita Dove, I would have to place them in the Hemingway camp; both create poetry that utilizes the language of everyday discourse and syntax. As for Charles Wright and C. K. Williams, their poetry would definitely fit within the James' camp with its "sinkholes."

Does either camp have an advantage over the other? I would posit that the tribe of Hemingway certainly has a greater degree of what's known as relative readability: Their manner of phrasing, their syntactical constructions, would be less stressful to the average reader when it comes to comprehension. This isn't to say that their poetry is simplistic, though the danger does exist; nevertheless, poetry in the Hemingway camp, at its best, can be compared to the best of Shakespeare and Donne.

But the tribe of James also has an advantage: those "sinkholes" permit stylistic leeway and, quite possibly, greater non-linear introspection; the reader can dive into those sinkholes for brief periods, but the danger involves losing track of the writer's initial linguistic leap or arc, so to speak.

When I consider two poets--among many of my influences--whose works I consciously chose to emulate in terms of stylistic mannerisms, I think I was attracted to both partly because they were good examples of those two camps: Robert Bly and James Dickey.

Bly's poetry has tremendous appeal for me precisely because of his austerity; of course, this could have something to do with his and James Wright's adherence to the "deep image" ethos that somewhat echoes Haiku's emphasis on precision to the point of laser-like rendering at a localized level.

Dickey's work also utilizes imagery, but the welter of imagery and the complex syntactical constructions (the clauses can be overwhelming at times) Dickey infuses and wrings out of each poem has great appeal too: The challenge in Dickey's work is to allow the imagination to roam the cosmos but always come back to the journey's center or "purpose" (a word and concept I'm uncomfortable with when it comes to creative writing) which is often simply to enjoy the linguistic excursion itself: the poet as cartographer mapping out a route to some unknown destination.

For me, both camps have their advantages and their potential pitfalls. For poets and writers, the challenge is to work within those camps--or attempt to intertwine them--and avoid the pitfalls.

Good News: Eduardo C. Corral has won the Yale Younger Series of Poets Prize

2011-02-15T18:08:00.000-08:00

Some of you are aware of Eduardo C. Corral's poetry and his always interesting blog, Lorcaloca. However, what some of you might not be aware of is that Eduardo has just won the Yale Younger Series of Poets Prize. In fact, he is the first Latino ever to win this prestigious first-book award.

Considering the quality of Eduardo's work, I'm not surprised that the final judge selected his manuscript: Kudos to Eduardo and to the Yale Younger Series of Poets Prize organization!

MFAs are Terminal Degrees (Even at Two-Year Colleges)

2011-02-14T18:42:00.000-08:00

Years ago I passed up two opportunities to accept tenure-track professor positions in English/Creative Writing at two universities, in part because I thought I could have an equally positive impact at the community college level (and especially in Tulare County, for the most recent census has noted that nearly 60% of the county's population is "Hispanic"--I much prefer the term Latino); after all, unlike many four-year institutions, two-year colleges literally accept any adult, and that all-inclusive atmosphere has certainly made my classrooms both lively and memorable. Still, both university job offers came partly because I had at least satisfied one common requirement for tenure-track positions at most publicly funded universities: I had earned the appropriate terminal degree, an MFA, in my area of specialization.

But, when I accepted my current position in 1991 (I had never taught at a community college before 1991: my previous teaching posts were at two University of California campuses--and, yes, I did have to "adjust" my expectations and standards), I was the only MFA degree holder regardless of discipline (i.e., creative writing, 2-D or 3-D art, drama/theater arts, etc.) at College of the Sequoias (COS). In contrast, the majority of faculty who teach at two-year colleges have either an MA or an MS degree. In 1991, I was the lone MFA fish in my pond, so to speak, but graduate programs that confer MFAs have since increased dramatically in number; hence, I'm no longer in that position at COS.

However, the same lack of knowledge I first encountered in 1991 about MFA degrees still seems to be the norm at most community colleges--and that sad fact can have serious implications (that involve life-long earnings and even retirement annuities) for those who've earned these terminal degrees that are the equivalent of PhD degrees.

I first became acquainted with the MFA degree when I took my first creative writing workshop at a community college back in the mid 1970s: My creative writing professor had an MFA from the University of California at Irvine. And he made it a point to explain to us why his degree was quite different than those held by the majority of his colleagues: A PhD holder in English literature or composition is primarily a historian or critic or student of a body of work or an area of study, whereas an MFA holder in English is primarily a creator of literature (often poetry or fiction, though drama and creative non-fiction are also gaining currency in graduate writing programs): the PhD recipient explains works of literature or literary theories by others, but the MFA recipient creates works of literature. Essentially, if one takes literature or theory courses, one examines literature by well-known authors; if one takes creative writing workshops, one produces literature that's critiqued by workshop participants and professors.

Consequently, the goals of those earning such terminal degrees are totally different: a PhD candidate studies literature, an MFA candidate produces literature. And every literature course uniformly adheres to one vital aspect: the students' writings never take center stage in their seminars. In contrast, every creative writing workshop emphasizes the students' writings.

The formal coursework for either an MFA or a PhD candidate usually comprises two years of full-time study (most MFA/PhD degree programs require approximately 54-60 semester units beyond the BA level; in contrast, most MA/MS degree programs require approximately 24-30 semester units beyond the BA level); however, some MFA/PhD candidates may opt to lessen their coursework loads in the face of required teaching duties and writing schedules and, thus, take three or even four years to complete their coursework--this depends on a program's protocols and residency requirements. Still, someone who's quite gifted as a student and as a writer could complete an MFA or PhD in as little as two years (but three to five years is a more commonplace time period for some to earn either an MFA or a PhD).

The dissertations/theses for PhD and MFA candidates have one important commonality: they must be book-length works of publishable quality. As for MA/MS theses, they're often 25-40 page articles--and articles are not book-length works. No wonder many MFA and PhD programs give candidates from five to seven years to complete their degrees. In fact, if one examines the unit requirements for many MFA/PhD programs, one will realize that the majority of PhDs take more than three years to complete their degrees because of the time needed to complete their dissertations: again, formal coursework can usually be completed in two years. Given the fact that PhD candidates rarely take courses that focus on evaluating and improving their writing skills, the plethora of ABDs (all but dissertations) should not be surprising: Most PhD candidates are not formally trained as writers of academic non-fiction prose.

And therein lies the advantage of the MFA candidates: Since most completed multiple semesters of creative writing workshop attendance during their undergraduate years, they can easily transition to and indeed flourish under the writing demands placed upon them at the graduate level. As a result, most MFA candidates have no problem completing their book-length works within two to three years. Rare are the MFA candidates who must take five to seven years--unlike some PhD candidates--to complete their books.

The Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) has long promoted the MFA as the appropriate terminal degree to teach creative writing at the college and university level; more importantly, the AWP has steadfastly supported the position that the MFA is the equivalent of the PhD in literature or composition. Not surprisingly, many of us have benefited from studying with tenured professors who earned MFAs; additionally, many MFA holders currently direct or have directed graduate creative writing programs, including Christopher Buckley, Garrett Hongo, Alberto Rios, David St. John, the late Herb Scott--the list of notable poets and writers goes on and on--and a number of MFA recipients have won a myriad of prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize: Rita Dove, Richard Ford, Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine, and Charles Wright are among such recipients. In short, the overwhelming majority of four-year colleges and universities have long accepted the MFA as the appropriate terminal degree that's equivalent to a PhD for tenure-track positions within the fine arts disciplines, but community colleges for whatever reason have been slow to accept or even understand this over half century-long academic standard (the MFA degree in English has existed since the 1940s)--and that lack of knowledge causes some to rhetorically say, "Well, what do you expect at the junior college level?"

That term, junior, carries pejorative connotations, and when I joined the community college arena, I already knew that many who teach at four-year institutions viewed "juco" schools through rather unflattering lenses. I remember one professor in graduate school who was adamant that I should never teach, even part-time, at a community college: "I guarantee you, you'll regret it," he said, his head angled downward as if he were contemplating one of the circles of hell reserved just for those who teach at community colleges. His main concern--for me and others with MFAs--was the complete lack of institutional reward for faculty at the two-year college level when it comes to publishing; moreover, he made what has come to be a somewhat prophetic comment about terminal degrees at community colleges: "At junior colleges, they don't understand that MFAs are similar to PhDs," and that alone should "scare you away from them." He noted that most who teach at "junior" colleges have MA or MS degrees, and he posited that they're "not eager to admit that MFAs are terminal degrees. You'll only threaten them with your MFA, and that won't be good for you or for the students, especially the students." He later explained that students at "junior" colleges aren't assured of having qualified faculty in their creative writing classes since seniority alone oftentimes determines teaching assignments at the two-year college level, not area of specialization which is the academic norm at the four-year college/university level.

He was certainly right about the lack of knowledge about MFA degrees (I recently asked someone who has an MFA if he had heard that MFAs were the equivalent of PhDs, and he answered emphatically, "No!" Ironically, he earned his MFA at a college that notes in their MFA handbook that the MFA is "the equivalent of a PhD"--and the notation is in bold letters. I don't blame this person or anyone else who thinks that MFAs are not equal to PhDs; rather, this just illustrates that even some with MFAs aren't necessarily aware of the terminal degrees they possess).

However, hope bounds eternal, for a nearby community college district, the State Center Community College District (SCCCD), which comprises Fresno City College and Reedley College as well as other centers, has for years recognized the fact that the MFA is the equivalent of a PhD: the SCCCD gives both MFA and PhD holders the same yearly stipend.

If we can figure out that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa, we can surely figure out why some degrees are considered "terminal degrees" and accepted as equivalents to PhD degrees at the vast majority of publicly funded universities; once enlightened, we can use that knowledge accordingly at the community college level and equally recognize and reward those who've earned terminal degrees.

Satan's Billboards

2011-01-13T01:29:00.000-08:00

Along a stretch of Highway 198 just west of Hanford, CA, a billboard proclaims a message supposedly from Satan (he asks people to avoid a certain religious group). Obviously, Lucifer didn't pay for the outdoor space, but the idea of the most famous of all fallen angels utilizing advertising to sway the populace seems appropriate when one considers the angry, blame-oriented tenor of the times.

Lucifer would certainly like a billboard that says, "Don't worry about your neighbor's welfare: Worry about yourself." Preoccupation with one's situation is something every human who once breathed on the planet could understand; even primordial man, hunkered down next to his weakening fire as the rain soaked the world outside his cave, would have been acutely aware of his plight: "Where will I find dry stuff to burn to keep away the cold and the beasts?"

Many in this country have no such immediate concerns, but the homeless can empathize with such vulnerability; not far from the neighborhood of my childhood in Fresno, dozens of ramshackle tents and cardboard and wood scrap constructions line the asphalt of what was once a bridge from California Street to Van Ness Avenue. The kids called that area "The Hill" and we would ride our bikes down those bridges that rose over the railroad tracks and the nearby Fresno Rescue Mission where "the men of the road" could find a meal and a bed if there was room. Now entire families inhabit that area and must fight poverty, drug addiction, violence--and our nation's collective apathy for their lives.

One of Satan's billboards would surely pronounce, "Apathy is good: To hell with the other guy. If you give him some money, he'll waste it on drink or drugs." Rationalization has a way of dulling the soul to the point of maladjusted pride: "Whenever one of those people asks me for money, I say, 'Get a job!' Jesus!" The irony of such an exclamation is profound, for Jesus would have never rationalized turning away from even the least of his fellow man or woman or child. Yet, millions daily turn away and think they're championing some kind of moral ethic, though if one logically analyzes such a response (to deny someone aid), one would ultimately have to admit that Satan would embrace such an ethos.

Satan's billboards could be direct:
"Don't extend tax cuts unless the wealthy are included too."
"Overturn legislation that gives the poor and the working classes health care."
"Don't spend your taxes on the general masses: That's socialism and communism."
"Privatize all social services: Don't waste money on others."

Now don't get yourself riled up if you agree with the previous statements; however, seriously ask yourself one question: "Would Satan or Jesus support such positions?" If you think Jesus' teachings support such anti-human thinking, please let me know the title, chapter, and verse of the text you've been reading if you consider yourself a Christian.

But Satan's billboards could also be subtle:
"All white or mostly all white juries and hiring committees and neighborhoods don't harm anyone."
"Support the police: They know who to stop."
"Let's take back America!"

Implicit in those statements are those who will be considered guilty until proven innocent, those people of color who won't secure employment even though they're highly qualified, those who will grow up in segregated areas--and even cultivate segregated adult lives--and be conditioned to fear diversity or be intolerant to difference, those who will be wrongfully stopped, and those who will be scapegoated for most of the ills in America.

And in a country where few are trained in or possess critical thinking skills, Satan would appreciate the ultimate effect of such billboards: They work.

America's Dysfunctional Soul

2010-10-31T08:41:00.000-07:00

With each election cycle, the American populace is literally pummeled by political advertisements that often promote greed, hatred, selfishness, and xenophobia--and done so with ever-increasing degrees of mean spiritedness. We've strayed so far from John Kennedy's inaugural plea for altruism ("Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country") that many people don't even know what the term altruism means.

When I consider another term that is bandied about by political candidates and pundits like a beach ball, Christianity, I fear for America's soul, for our public policies at times are antithetical to any of Christ's teachings. Of course, the founders of this country wanted a separation between church and state, but that doesn't prevent politicians from espousing so-called "Christian values" even though one would be hard-pressed to find any reference in Christ's teachings that greed is good, that one should promote hatred for those who don't share your opinions or who are different or "illegal," that selfishness is better than selflessness--I'm puzzled as to which New Testament some politicians supposedly adhere to when they claim to be Christians. I do know that the Bible has over 3,000 references directing us to help the poor, but I can't find any stipulation that corporations and the wealthy should receive corporate welfare or "subsidies."

If the poet John Keats correctly noted that the world is a "vale of soul making," America is in a vale of soul destroying.

For example, some want to overturn what they call "Obama Care" as if Congress' constitutional duty to care for "the general welfare" of the populace doesn't include health care. Most industrialized nations of the world provide public health care just as they provide for police and fire services: They are public goods that benefit all and aren't driven by a for profit ethos. In contrast, wealthy people throughout the world can always afford quality health care regardless of the countries in which they live; they can always fly to the best clinics with no concern for costs. Imagine, for a moment, if health care was paid for by our taxes in the same way we collectively pay for police and fire services. Imagine how much less our health care costs would be since the profit motive to provide such services would no longer exist. Let me use an analogy: Which are more expensive, public schools or private schools? Most private K-12 schools require at least $500 a month in tuition ($5,000 a year in tuition--some charge far more) per pupil, yet no one pays $5,000 a year in federal and state taxes just to send one child to a public K-12 school.

When costs for public services--with no for profit emphasis--are widely distributed and shouldered by everyone, costs go down, not up. For example, the city of Los Angeles has a city-owned utility, The Department of Water and Power (DWP); municipal bonds are the primary resource to pay for its operation. Los Angeles residents uniformly pay less in water and power costs when compared to those who pay Southern California Edison (SCE) or Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) companies, which are for profit entities, for their water, natural gas, and electricity needs. If Los Angeles' DWP raises its rates, it does so because of rising costs necessary to provide services; as for SCE and PG&E, they must raise rates in part because their stockholders want to make more profits.

Even if we eventually have publicly funded health care, insurance companies will never go away, so one need not worry about them; they'll always do business insuring lives, homes, automobiles, and personal property. And what about medical professionals who want to earn as much money as possible to provide for their families? Hopefully, those who become medical care-givers do so because they have a personal desire to care for others, just as many police officers, firefighters, and educators look to their professions as a means of aiding others. If one is truly motivated by greed, Wall Street brokerage firms and banking institutions are notorious magnets for those so inclined. (Imagine if the recent bailouts went to pay off late mortgage payments and high interest credit card balances instead of providing financial conglomerates the ability to hand out huge bonuses that are often larger than the incomes many people earn in a lifetime: That kind of individual citizen-centered bailout would have truly stimulated our economy by reducing individual debt while still helping financial institutions that issued those mortgages and credit cards.)

Many spiritual texts emphasize love and compassion for fellow human beings, and one way societies have implemented such a directive is via communal programs paid for by taxes. Taxes pay for a myriad of things we take for granted: roads and highways, public schools, college and vocational student grants, housing loan programs, traffic control and street lights, flood control systems and sewage treatment facilities--even the electricity we get from private companies could not have become a commonplace phenomenon had it not been for electrification projects paid for by tax dollars (any good American history text will make clear how various government-initiated, tax-payer funded programs have resulted in the nationwide infrastructure we use on a daily basis).

Nevertheless, politicians have promoted the notion that taxes are evil and hinder your ability to live a fruitful life. Consequently, the common mantras are "no new taxes" and "tax breaks for all." But what if you had to build or repave the roads you personally use because substantial tax reductions wipe out funds for such improvements? What if you had to pay for every time you needed police service or fire department help? What if you had to pay 50% down to buy a home and had only 5-10 years to pay off the remaining mortgage? (Historian and author Stephanie Coontz notes in her essay "A Nation of Welfare Families" that this was the standard home purchasing protocol prior to the creation of the Federal Housing Authority, Fannie Mae, and Ginnie Mae when the federal government went into the business of insuring and backing housing loans.) What if you had to pay for tuition to send your child to a private K-12 school because public schools could no longer accommodate all school-age children due to reduced tax revenues?

Taxes might make us wince when we see the net results of our take-home earnings, but taxes also insure that we can expect certain public services that we wouldn't want to be denied. More importantly, those who make millions each year should pay a minimum amount of taxes every year despite all of the loopholes they currently utilize: Who would feel sorry for someone who makes millions of dollars a year--or even one million dollars a year--and would have to pay at least half of his or her earnings in taxes? I wouldn't feel sorry for someone who would have to live on $500,000 a year--who would? If I were in a position to make millions each year, I wouldn't feel somehow less of a human being if half of my income went to help the general populace; if anything, I would feel good that I'm helping to reduce the taxes of those whose incomes are far less than mine (remember "Ask not what your country can do for you..."?) while improving and sustaining the country's infrastructure.

Keats was right: The world is a "vale of soul making." Instead of scapegoating the poor, the undocumented, and the unionized workers in this country (unions came about largely because of greedy business owners who didn't care about the working conditions, health, and welfare of their poorly paid employees), we need to realize that our country's soul depends upon our collective ability to integrate our spiritual awareness into our public policy awareness. If we're truly committed to "acknowledge Him in all thy ways" (and I'm fairly sure all means all), we must incorporate altruism in every aspect of our lives, including our political lives and our public policies.

Notes on Writers and the Teaching of Writing, I.

2010-08-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

I.

Those of us who've been formally trained as writers, who've been the beneficiaries of writing workshops taught by respected practitioners who discuss issues of craft line by line, syllable by syllable, often have to witness or tolerate naive notions about writing and the teaching of writing; such naivete is a constant emanation from colleagues in the teaching ranks or from administrators or even from students who "profess" to know what works best to help students become better writers.

But that last word, writers, is a major irritation because of its broad umbrella, for those of us who've spent a large part of our student and adult years actually working at becoming writers--to the point of publishing, winning awards, and/or accepting visiting or tenured positions as writers in academe--are quite different than the majority of students and composition instructors whose formal coursework didn't help them become writers who publish or win acclaim as poets, fiction writers, or non-fiction writers.

The vast majority of composition instructors aren't trained as writers per se; rather, they are trained either as literary theorists/historians/critics or as teachers of composition (they take courses mainly in composition pedagogy and theory: they learn certain protocols or methods to utilize in a classroom, such as peer-editing, holistic grading, computer-assisted instruction, journal writing or "free" writing exercises, and other non-craft-oriented teaching methods and theories). True, they do write papers, but so do students in sociology, history, and math classes. To use an analogy, music appreciation or art history instructors are trained in specific histories or theories that correspond to various musical pieces or artworks or composers/artists, but they aren't trained to become creators of music or art. But when educational institutions look for faculty to teach piano or 2-D/3-D art classes, they don't look for music appreciation or art history degree holders; rather, they look for well-educated practitioners who've dedicated years to learning their respective crafts. In short, they look for people who can do and teach.

In fact, English departments rarely require composition applicants to even demonstrate their writing skills, let alone require in-depth training as writers. For most faculty members on hiring committees, the only document they look at to determine if one has some facility with written discourse is the dreaded letter of application--not the best piece of evidence when one considers how such letters must address various job announcement criteria, and I wouldn't be surprised if some composition applicants seek out the help of professional resume writers and services to help them fine tune such documents.

As a result, teachers of composition often aren't publishing, award-winning practitioners in any genre, yet they supposedly can teach writing despite their relative lack of training as craftspeople. No wonder some institutions rely on group portfolio programs, holistic grading, and "norming" sessions for their composition faculty--which is quite unheard of among those who teach creative writing workshops: I've yet to come across a well-trained, publishing poet or fiction writer who says he or she needs norming because he or she has doubts about "standards" or "learning outcomes" or "craft concerns." How absurd! I can't imagine Phil Levine or Pete Everwine or Mike Ryan or Terry Hummer or Jim McMichael or Ken Fields or Cynthia Huntington or Simone DiPiero or the late Denise Levertov saying to themselves, "Gee, I don't know what to say about this piece of writing--I should ask my colleagues for help!" Of course,
I wouldn't expect them to hold the same opinions about different pieces of literature, for art by necessity constantly evolves; to paraphrase Terry Hummer, purity in art simply doesn't exist: all art is impure. Writing, like painting and music, is not a hard science, yet the communal need for "norming" sessions among some composition teachers illustrates a definite communal lack of expertise. And that lack does not bode well for composition students.

When we use the term writer, we should delineate between academic, non-publishing, temporary "writers" found in most classrooms (most students and, sadly, many teachers fall into this group) as opposed to writers like William Carlos Williams or Octavio Paz or Cynthia Ozick; the former as a group generally writes for a grade or a position and often does so in a rather hurried, mechanical manner, whereas the latter and their peers, past and present, write for eternity--and eternity is the harshest of critics and isn't pressed for time.

Elizabeth Bishop's "Filling Station": Word Choices, Sounds, and Silences

2010-08-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

Filling Station

Oh, but it is dirty!
--this little filling station,
oil-soaked, oil-permeated
to a disturbing, over-all
black translucency.
Be careful with that match!

Father wears a dirty,
oil-soaked monkey suit
that cuts him under the arms,
and several quick and saucy
and greasy sons assist him
(it's a family filling station),
all quite thoroughly dirty.

Do they live in the station?
It has a cement porch
behind the pumps, and on it
a set of crushed and grease-
impregnated wickerwork;
on the wicker sofa
a dirty dog, quite comfy.

Some comic books provide
the only note of color--
of certain color. They lie
upon a big dim doily
draping a taboret
(part of the set), beside
a big hirsute begonia.

Why the extraneous plant?
Why the taboret?
Why, oh why, the doily?
(Embroidered in daisy stitch
with marguerites, I think,
and heavy with gray crochet.)

Somebody embroidered the doily.
Somebody waters the plant,
or oils it, maybe. Somebody
arranges the rows of cans
so that they softly say:
ESSO--SO--SO--SO
to high-strung automobiles.
Somebody loves us all.

--Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems: 1927-1979

I've always been struck by Bishop's craft expertise in her work, and "Filling Station" typifies her attention to not only what a poem means but how a poem means something.

For instance, most of us would probably not begin a poem with the exclamation "Oh": Bad poems often start with such ohs that signal to the reader the speaker's emotional and possibly spiritual state: "I'm in a state of rare sensitivity; I've reached the sublime and I want you to be ready for my oracular exhortations." But Bishop's use of "Oh" is quite the contrary: the speaker is a snob whose initial reaction to the scene at hand is one of disgust. Consequently, Bishop's word choice from the very first phoneme is an apt one. And, luckily for the poem and for us, the term "filling station" was a commonplace during Bishop's and even during my childhood; "gas station" wouldn't have the same effect that "filling station" can and will have in the poem. (And I'm old enough to remember that Exxon was once Esso: the penultimate trope in the last stanza wouldn't have the same soothing effect with the term Exxon.)

And I love how Bishop repeats various sounds for evocative reinforcement of the speaker's experience: Oh, oil-soaked, oil-permeated, and over-all echo the first utterance so that when a reader actually reads aloud the poem, the vowels harp upon each other just as popular songs dig into a listener's cognitive awareness that can't literally be defined but can be mouthed over and over. Music has that effect: certain vibrations in the air hit the eardrums and work their magic. (Was it William Carlos Williams who said that prose is written to be read whereas poetry is written to be heard?)

Such repetitions of words and sounds seamlessly work throughout the poem, and Bishop also utilizes modifiers in a masterly manner. For example, in addition to the hyphenated adjectives, she expertly inserts adjectives that some MFA graduates would never do (a certain "school" in the Midwest comes to my mind): the sons are "quick," "saucy," and "greasy"; the station is "quite thoroughly" dirty; the wickerwork is "crushed" and "grease-impregnated"; the doily is "big" and "dim"; the begonia (one of my favorite plant names) is "big" and "hirsute"; the automobiles are "high-strung." One might associate such adjective usage with Southern poets like Robert Penn Warren and James Dickey, but, in fact, Bishop's contemporaries were not shy of modifiers: Robert Lowell's For the Union Dead and John Berryman's Dream Songs have a multitude of modifiers that, if deleted, would be similar to taking out certain notes in Muddy Waters' music or limiting Georgia O'Keefe's palette to just blues and greens. Does this mean one should go adjective and adverb crazy? Of course not, but Bishop's craft awareness illustrates what's possible when one uses great care when writing and revising one's work.

And another craft element that's noticeable in Bishop's poetry is her awareness of the length of her utterances and where the pauses, the silences, occur. Look at the third stanza: She starts with a heavily end-stopped line; the second line has a natural caesura at the end; the third line has a medial caesura but ends with a run-on which lends a greater emphasis to the beginning of the fourth line; within the fourth line, a ever so soft caesura occurs after "crushed" and then the line utilizes enjambment like the previous one; the fifth line is heavily end-stopped; the sixth line is enjambed; the seventh line, like the third line, has a medial caesura. Bishop's utterances combine repetition and variation, the corrective push and pull of well-crafted lines; as Donald Hall notes, such tension is similar to what corrects one's teeth: "Damn braces."

Craft in the hands of someone like Bishop can make us all the more appreciative of what's possible when one hammers away until the result shimmers and eternally breathes.

Proposition 8 and Constitutional and Historical Awareness

2010-08-04T23:41:00.000-07:00

Months of the year have unique historical or emotional associations for some of us. For example, ever since I was an elementary school student, August is the month that forever mushrooms over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a young boy in Fresno, I would connect such incredible, world-ending heat to the wilting August temperatures outside our swamp-cooled house on Poppy Street. Of course, no amount of my imaginative powers could ever come close to the reality that hundreds of thousands of Japanese experienced on and--for those who survived the blasts--after those two infamous days in August 1945. History often has that effect: Our human brains strive to make connections to what can seem almost as abstract and as memorable as a Pablo Picasso painting.

Today is one of those days in history that will be added to my August consciousness: A federal court judge struck down California's Proposition 8 as unconstitutional.

Some might ask, "Why is this ruling so important to you, especially if you're not gay?"

I'm a believer in the Constitution of the United States and in The Bill of Rights, and I've always considered the Fourteenth Amendment and its "Equal Protection Clause" as crucial for people who are not members of "the majority." We have a history of the majority wanting to place restrictions on various minority groups; for instance, at one time we permitted slavery and we denied women the right to vote. And just because we have a U.S. Supreme Court doesn't mean inequalities can be quickly ended; past Supreme Court decisions led to various "Jim Crow" laws that manifested the so-called "separate but equal" mentality that I'm certain some people still crave (the Tea Party's mantra, "Give us back our country," strikes me as dangerously nostalgic for what were ugly times for people not in the majority). The 1954 Brown v. The Board of Education Supreme Court ruling still bothers some who don't want their children to attend integrated schools, and the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling, which put an end to anti-miscegenation laws, must still bother those who think that whites should not marry blacks for whatever sad, ill-conceived reasons.

And such people who don't like interracial marriages, integrated schools, or homosexual marriages have every right to hold such views, but today's ruling reinforces what we all must remember: Constitutional rights can never to be denied simply because a majority of voters deem them as deniable.

The United States of America was and still is an ideal on paper that with the passage of time struggles to become a reality, and today's decision is just one more step toward that reality.

Illness and Love

2010-07-13T02:38:00.000-07:00

I've been ill lately; my body at times seems to belong to someone much older (at least in my head I'm still an awkward teen who longs for love but will settle for groping in a darkened theater--the prose of B movies swirling about private parts slightly tinged with the odor of moldy linen).

And, becalmed even at this hour of the morning as my dog sleeps on without me, I somehow know my health will come back, like the old French cinema classic where the boy approaches the sea, looks out, and turns back toward land, toward the humans despite the additional blows that await him.

I am in love, actually; no, not with another human, though she is nearing me just as deliberately as I swerve her way, but with this hour when the blood can't seem to fall asleep but nudges me: "Go ahead, it won't hurt, really."

Clearly, I'm strung out just as the heavens do their sleepwalk over my small rooftop; the hunter Orion has no choice but to clarify this dark patch of sky, for we all hunt for what we need, cleansed by God knows what, spurred by ill health and the promise of jam and cookies and a cool hand on our foreheads.

If I say, "This might be poetry," I would not win my case in court; if I say, "This is love," I would not win your heart. But why say anything at all if meaning is just subjective spark plugs firing in our brains; why say "I'm in love" if it matters, at best, only to me?

My doctor wants me to take tests that require induced sleep, a temporary "death," so to speak; a machine would breathe for me, but would a machine also dream for me? And in the tunnel that would surely guide me back, would I linger if only to scrawl on the walls just how much I love what can't be seen?

Arizona: The New Nuremberg

2010-05-03T21:37:00.000-07:00

In 1935, Nazi Germany instituted the Nuremberg Race Laws that basically deprived German Jews their rights as citizens and demoted them to "subjects." Jews were banned from marrying anyone of the "Aryan" race; even young non-Jewish women age 45 and under weren't allowed to be employed by Jews as housekeepers. German citizenship would only be granted to those who were of Aryan, non-Jewish ancestry and such citizenship could only be proven by actual documents that German citizens had to carry. The Nuremberg Race Laws set into motion a legal ethos that would ultimately spur Hitler and his minions to embrace the "Final Solution": the extermination of all Jewish people within the Third Reich.

Hitler understood that the majority of non-Jewish German people would accept such laws and the resulting crimes against humanity if they could rationalize to themselves, "It's the law: We have to follow it." More importantly, the rest of the world idly sat by and did nothing to combat the Nuremberg Race Laws; in America, a number of states had anti-miscegenation laws, and the U.S. Supreme Court did not uniformly ban anti-miscegenation laws until 1967 in the Loving v. Virginia decision.

Arizona's new immigration law (that gives non-federal Arizona law enforcement agencies the power to stop, question, and arrest potentially undocumented, "illegal" immigrants) takes it cue from Hitler's Nuremberg Race Laws. Numerous Arizonans and others across the country see the law as something they must accept; after all, it's a legal proclamation that was ushered in with an unusual amount of fanfare (most laws enacted by state legislatures don't receive such media attention); those who support the law say it's necessary to stem the influx of undocumented workers from other countries--namely, Mexican laborers.

Of course, supporters of the Arizona law would be terribly angered to be placed in the same catergory as supporters of the Nuremberg Race Laws and the National Socialists of the Third Reich. But the Arizona law has the same effect: Certain people will be targeted by law enforcement and the justice system and others will not simply because of their appearance, their physical surroundings, and their names. (Remember, often before police stop a vehicle, they call in a vehicle's license plate to get a tentative identification of the registered owner's name.)

In Germany, if one was blond, light-skinned, and blue-eyed--and didn't have a Jewish surname, one was above suspicion. In Arizona, if one is blond, light-skinned, and blue-eyed--and doesn't have a Spanish surname, that person can walk, work, and drive in Arizona without any fear of being stopped and questioned by local or state police about his or her legal right to be in Arizona.

And like the Jews in Nazi Germany, mostly Mexican undocumented workers are blamed for a host of ills: they're killing citizens; they're lowering the standards of living for citizens; they're taxing our educational and health systems. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Reich Minister of Propaganda, made similar complaints about Jews. And this weekend, I heard radio talk show "personality" Bill Cunningham make similar complaints about mostly Mexican undocumented workers (and he's not alone; just listen to almost any radio talk show host on so-called "conservative" radio or on Fox News and you'll hear the same message).

Goebbels knew that the airwaves and print media had to be controlled and deluged with negative propaganda about Jews if Hitler's dream of an all Aryan society was to become a reality. Likewise, in America today one rarely hears a radio or television talk show host note how we benefit daily from undocumented workers: they harvest, pack, and ship our inexpensive food, they bus our tables in restaurants, they mow our lawns, they build our houses and replace our roofs and remodel our kitchens, they fix our cars and recycle our old tires, they take care of our children in daycare centers, they attend to our elderly in rest homes--and I never hear people complain about the money they routinely save when they benefit from undocumented workers' labor. Just as the Jews were scapegoated for most of the societal problems in Nazi Germany, so are undocumented Mexican immigrants scapegoated in the United States.

What can we do to combat this terrible return to a Nuremberg-like mentality that has been codified by an Arizona law? We can boycott Arizona; we can refuse to buy anything that comes from Arizona, especially things bought online, and we can refuse to visit the state to add to the state's coffers as tourists. Will this boycott hurt Arizonans? Yes, but Martin Luther King, Jr., realized when he organized the Montgomery bus boycotts that those in power will be more eager to rectify a wrong when they hurt financially.

On May 1, 2010, Cardinal Roger Mahoney of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles said to a crowd protesting the Arizona law that no one is "illegal" in God's eyes. Amen.

Are We Writing Toward Memorable Words?

2009-12-30T18:41:00.000-08:00

As 2010 approaches, I realize that my main goal as a poet hasn't changed at all: I want to write memorable words.

And that's a difficult task when "po-biz" looms over many poets and writers. Often, without realizing it, we might think of ourselves as failures if we haven't published X amount in a year or haven't won an award recently. I remember one former creative writing teacher of mine who said the lines someone writes at this hour might be "the best lines written on the planet, but po-biz doesn't exist for such lines," and he might very well be right.

Imagine, for a moment, if Emily Dickinson had diminished her poetic ambition because she could only publish a half dozen poems and wasn't encouraged by the powers that be during her lifetime; the world would be diminished if we didn't have her verse that she wrote for the dresser drawer--and for the ages. Although Dickinson wrote approximately 1700 poems, at least two dozen of those poems would easily qualify as memorable words; others might find three or four dozen poems by Dickinson that are indeed memorable to them.

But even those who bask in "po-biz" can find themselves wondering about their accomplishments. Robert Frost, probably the most heralded poet in the 20th century, had misgivings about the quality of his work; one need only read Donald Hall's fine pieces on Frost to discover that even multiple Pulitzer prizes couldn't keep Frost happy. And that's probably why Frost never let up on the ambition he had for his poems even into his old age--he wanted his work "to last."

How does one know if one's words will last? Well, one will never know; that's history's business, but it's still a good thing to nudge one's self when revising (when the real writing begins) and to step back and ask (especially after months have passed during a poem's creation), "Are those words still as interesting as they were when I last inspected them?"

If poets routinely asked themselves such a question, the world would be an even finer place than it already is.

Let us start 2010 by asking ourselves such a basic question every time we think a poem, a short story, a play, or a novel is ready to be let loose upon the world.

What's the Appeal of AMC's Mad Men?

2009-11-02T22:41:00.000-08:00

I've viewed AMC's Mad Men for at least a few episodes (partly because of the success the show had at the latest Emmy's), and I think I've ascertained the series' appeal: Like most 1950s fare, people of color aren't visible or viable as equals, and homosexuality exists elsewhere.

The series certainly has a lot of sex appeal, for one aspect of the so-called Eisenhower years is the mistaken belief that sexual lust and longing didn't exist (even Eisenhower had a mistress, a female soldier who was his aide during his military years). The women on Mad Men wear those bullet-shaped bras that remind me of those worn by my second grade teacher, Mrs. F, who always struck me as a sexy witch of sorts (yes, little boys do have sexual fantasies). I was--and probably still am--in love with Mrs. F partly because even then I sensed she represented the "ideal" woman of that era: physically beautiful, well educated, and white.

But, I suspect the series' main attraction is the viewer's ability to immerse one's self into a world that must seem simplistically nostalgic: The main actors and actresses are all white. If one were to complain about such an apartheid-like series, those in control could use history to validate the cast: "Why, people of color rarely worked in the advertising arena back then."

And there's the main appeal of Mad Men: It allows viewers to remember--and vicariously participate in--a simplified existence that wasn't complicated by difference other than the eternal tensions between genders--heterosexual tensions, that is, which also reassures those who voted for Proposition 8 in California.

The series should be titled Mad White Men, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Lou Dobbs are ardent fans of the show, for I can't imagine those men and other like-minded individuals to even be aware of the negative effects such "nostalgia" television might have on all viewers: Does it help us minimize the importance of race and diversity in our lives? Does it reinforce heterosexuality as the "norm"?

Will I continue to view the show? I doubt it, for I ultimately find it boring because of the stereotypes and the blandness of the world depicted. But I'm sure others will look forward to each episode precisely because of what it doesn't depict: The world we live in.

How to Select an M.F.A. Program

2009-10-08T03:12:00.000-07:00

An ambitious creative writing student recently asked me to give my opinion about a specific creative writing program. Instead of giving information that might not be useful, I passed along advice given to me (by someone whose opinions matter to me) some time ago when I was nearing the end of my undergraduate years.

First, he suggested that I ask myself one very important question: "What do I want from a graduate creative writing program other than an M.F.A.?" (I had already decided that I didn't want to pursue an M.A.; such degrees generally don't meet the minimum requirements for tenure-track positions in creative writing at most four-year colleges and universities.)

I wanted a mentor whose work and personality appealed to me. When Richard Hugo was alive, I had decided to make the University of Montana my ultimate destination; he struck me as not only a wonderfully talented poet but also as a very giving human being, someone I wanted as a mentor (I fell in love with the guy after he gave a reading at Fresno State). I had already studied with Phil Levine (and I think I hold the record for taking Levine's poetry workshops: five semesters over a number of years). Hence, I was lucky to have had one great teacher, for Levine was great (and Hugo's great teacher was Roethke and, as Hugo noted, such a claim is impossible to prove--so be it), and I had heard that Hugo was Levine's equal in the workshop: tough to please, incredibly well-read, and a blast to be around. But when Hugo died, my desire for another mentor like Levine diminished (this isn't to say that great mentors aren't out there; nevertheless, greatness in any discipline is a rarity).

In addition to a mentor, I wanted training and experience in teaching composition. Most M.F.A. degree holders often have to teach composition simply because there's more need for composition instructors than creative writing instructors. Consequently, I made sure that the program I attended had to give me at least an opportunity to teach composition: The University of California at Irvine requires all M.F.A. candidates to not only take the seminar in rhetoric and the teaching of composition but also to teach composition for several quarters. That training (which also involved weekly meetings with various composition course directors) has been an invaluable aid to me over the years.

But I also wanted experience teaching creative writing. And, lo and behold, the program I attended also expects all of the M.F.A. candidates to teach creative writing in their specific genre. Fortunately, I got to teach beginning poetry writing for two quarters (and I was not alone: the majority of my fellow M.F.A. candidates taught such workshops for at least two quarters). I couldn't imagine earning a terminal degree and not get some teaching experience within my area of specialization.

Of course, a number of schools offer mentors, composition training, and opportunities to teach creative writing. But I was also given advice about how to distinguish a college from a university: "Your seminars should be geared toward Ph.D. candidates: You want the level of rigor to be worthy of a terminal degree." And, I must admit, the graduate literature seminars I attended were valuable to me partly because I knew I was competing--yes, graduate school is a form of competition: You're trying to distinguish yourself from and among your peers--with Ph.D. candidates at a school known for its critical theory emphasis (sadly, poets and fiction writers are stereotyped as "not scholarly" or as "non-academics" by some professors of literature).

And most universities (and not simply colleges renamed as universities) require teaching loads of no more than five courses a year; some more enlightened universities require their tenure-track faculty to teach only four courses a year. In contrast, most state colleges (regardless of what they call themselves) require their faculty to teach six or more courses a year. Lighter teaching loads result in more time for faculty to do research (which benefits students) and to meet with students.

True universities offer terminal degrees in numerous disciplines. Hence, if you're contemplating getting an M.F.A. from a school that does not offer a Ph.D. in English, that school is probably a state college, not a true university. As a result, the faculties at such schools often have trouble securing positions at Ph.D. granting institutions for a variety of reasons: They haven't made names for themselves in their areas of expertise; their publication records or awards often aren't as impressive as their peers, etc.

Paul Fussell, author of the humorous yet insight text Class, notes that very few universities actually exist; one sign of "normal" schools posing as universities involves their departments of education: If the greatest number of graduates leave with single or multiple subject teaching credentials, the school is definitely not a university.

If this all sounds somewhat snooty and downright snobbish, the harsh reality is that hiring committees often interview--and ultimately hire--applicants who attended prestigious graduate schools.

No wonder various publications that rate graduate schools (such as the guide published by U.S. News and World Report) sell in the thousands each year and for good reason: Graduate students want the best educations they can afford. And that means some will have to attend a nearby Podunk U. or Ag Tech out of sheer financial necessity--not the worst thing in the world, for such schools (like the one I attended as an undergraduate) just might have a Phil Levine or a Richard Hugo (I think of the University of Montana at Missoula as an Ag Tech--forgive me former and current residents of Missoula).

However, exceptions exist that might cause us to ignore such advice.

Considered by many to be one of the best schools in the nation, the University of California at Berkeley doesn't even have an M.F.A. program in creative writing. Hence, if I were considering M.F.A. programs, UC Berkeley wouldn't even rate a look. But I do know that Bharati Mukherjee teaches at UCB; she's one of the best contemporary fiction writers in the world (I'm waiting for her to win the Nobel, just as for years I waited for J. M. Coetzee to win--and he finally did), so if I were a potential graduate student, I might postpone my need for an M.F.A. until after I've studied with Mukherjee (I'm a greater fan of her short stories than of her novels, though this is quibbling on my part: She has the "right stuff" regardless of the length of her works).

No matter what criteria we utilize to guide us, if we consider our uppermost needs, we can make the right decisions.

Writing is Craft and Craft is Discovery

2009-08-23T21:01:00.000-07:00

As I begin another semester and tackle, among other things, a new group of students in a creative writing workshop, I have to remind myself how many aspiring poets and writers often have "important things to say" and proceed to do so--and often at the expense of their work.

I think it was W. H. Auden (forgive me if I'm wrong) who, when querying prospective students who wanted the opportunity to study under his guidance, would ask students why they wanted to take his course; if one said, "I have important things to say," Auden noted that such students would probably not become poets and writers. However, if one said, "I like playing with words," that student had a good chance of becoming a writer of worth.

I don't think I teach "creative writing" per se; rather, I think I teach experimentation with words. Even if these words often don't make literal, dennotative sense, I do know words can have a wonderful impact on us as readers when we consider the connotative, emotional sense of certain vowels and consonants hitting against each other in varied linguistic utterances.

The late Jacques Derrida made one crucial error when espousing Deconstruction: Writers actually like the fact that their works don't literally mean one thing. Consequently, Derrida's emphasis on the intertexuality and the interplay between words and meaning--signs and signifiers--certainly shines a light on what most poets and writers love: Like gophers, they dig their way through a rather dark world toward some destination that, with luck, will prove fruitful.

Supposedly Derrida put to death Structualism (and those binary oppositions--and for some reason I'm attracted to Structualist approaches to literature), but he didn't; he simply realized that meaning is indeed a mystery and that texts have built in contradictions upon contradictions; as Whitman said, "I contain multitudes."

That multitudinous-ness is so appealing, and some--not all--students eventually come to appreciate letting go of their "important things" so that they write something they didn't know existed at the end of their literary tunnels. As a result, whenever my assignments harp on using a certain number of syllables or stresses or the need for medial caesuras and run-ons, I remind myself that I'm giving students requirements that take the pressure off of their imaginations--and, ironically, their imaginations begin to flourish as they dig toward the unknown.

Obama and the Politics and Poetics of Interrelatedness

2009-01-28T22:21:00.000-08:00

With President Barack Obama's election, the country (and the world) has witnessed a transition to a new paradigm: the politics and poetics of interrelatedness.

What do I mean by "interrelatedness"?

Obama successfully utilized a strategy of connecting different groups (whites, Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, biracial/multiracial Americans) by underscoring what they have in common: They all need better-paying jobs, less costly health care, greater educational opportunities, etc. In short, Obama emphasized the interrelatedness of their respective needs and wants as communal needs and wants: Obama would often say, "We are the United States of America." One might speculate that a biracial person such as Obama would be especially sensitive to our need for community.

In an analogous manner, many contemporary poets of color have been utilizing the same ethos of interrelatedness in their art. For example, Alberto Rios' poem "Seniors" brings together a collection of characters whose ethnicity or racial backgrounds do not take center stage; rather, the poem focuses on the speaker's omnipresent longing to connect these disparate individuals (William who exposed himself in class; Konga who did a rubber band trick; Maya's pride in the family's ability to afford a refrigerator; the "hot girl on a summer night" who was "all water") with a universal desire to love them all "in some allowable way," and that human instinct to love, whether it be religious, romantic, or platonic, or a commingling of all three, is reaffirmed by Rios' ability to see these characters as universal archetypes: One does not have to be a Latino to enjoy or empathize with Rios' speaker. Hence, Rios' poetics of interrelatedness does what Obama did: People from different backgrounds can appreciate the poem as a united readership.

But interrelatedness is not an easy task for any writer or poet to achieve; for example, many white poets and writers have taken the "interrelatedness" of their works for granted.

Whenever I enter a movie theater, I'm always struck by the overwhelming whiteness of the cinema and literary works that inspire them. For instance, I've been a fan of Woody Allen's films for decades; however, I've never understood why Michael Caine's character in Allen's Hannah and her Sisters had to be a white male: Couldn't the character have been a Latino? And when I consider the Raymond Carver-inspired, Robert Altman-directed Shortcuts, I can't help but think that many of those characters could have been played by actors and actresses of color; after all, Carver spent a lot of time in the San Jose area of California, and I just can't imagine (if Carver were still alive) that he would stipulate that all of the characters in his stories must be played by white actors if his works are adapted to film.

Obama achieved interrelatedness in his political campaign to garner the votes of a heterogeneous populace, but many of us who write might not be able to claim such success (and, I suspect, some of us might not even value such interrelatedness: "I know my audience--and so does my publisher--and I write for them!").

"Our Schools are the Back of the Bus!"

2008-03-30T21:09:00.000-07:00

In Edward James Olmos' film Walkout, Paula Crisostomo, played by actress Alexa Vega, astutely utilizes an interesting and cogent analogy to spur her fellow students to action; she notes that the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott that Dr. King led is similar to their collective plight in East Los Angeles high schools in the late 1960s: "Our schools are the back of the bus!"

Many community colleges are "the back of the bus" when it comes to creative writing. Unlike most four-year institutions that routinely demand graduate degrees in creative writing from their tenure-track faculty (in addition to substantial publications, honors, and awards--the "publish or perish" axiom has merit), many community colleges allow their rank-and-file English faculty to teach any courses offered in their departments.

Thus, creative writing workshops taught by untrained faculty have detrimental effects on students. For example, almost universally, students in workshops taught by such unknowing mentors focus mainly on the themes and subject matter of their peers' works and rarely, if ever, receive training in terms of craft. "I think this poem is about man's inhumanity to his fellow man," or "I like the subject; I can relate to the feelings"--in short, unqualified creative writing instructors focus primarily on what a poem or short story means or says, not on how a poem or short story means or says something. Craft awareness and instruction is crucial for all fine arts instructors and their students; craft expertise largely defines and delineates those who ultimately can make names for themselves as practitioners and those who can't.

If students can't get craft instruction in their beginning workshops, they'll have a far more difficult time once they enroll in intermediate and advanced workshops. Those who have become publishing practitioners need only remember their student days in workshops: Remember the student poets and fiction writers who seemed destined to drop out simply because they were out of their depths? Some of us felt pity for them, for we ascertained that they were victims of previous mentors who were also out of their depths:

"I studied with Professor X at Acme Community College."

"Does he publish? I've never come across his name in periodicals or in bookstores."

"No, but he shares his poems with students and always has positive things to say about students' poems. He's wonderful, not like our creative writing professor who never seems to be happy with my work. I mean, do you understand all that technical stuff he mentions in the workshop?"

To use a personal anecdote, I first took creative writing workshops at a community college taught by someone who possessed an MFA from a highly respected university. Although he hadn't published a book-length work, he did have a fair amount of work published in various literary journals and anthologies. More importantly, he had studied with numerous mentors who were--and are--well-known practitioners, and he made a point to note his training on the first day of instruction: He wanted us to know that, although we might disagree with him on certain points or matters, we should understand that his criticism is informed by his many mentors--and their mentors. Essentially, he passed along what he learned from his mentors; he wasn't interested in merely saying, "Well, I would delete this adjective and I would move this noun to this position." He wasn't interested in self-aggrandizement by suggesting that we write like him; rather, he was interested in passing along the craft knowledge and concerns that his mentors took from their respective mentors. I studied with that first creative writing instructor for three semesters; I didn't even receive credit for my third semester of creative writing workshop attendance at that community college, but I wanted to be prepared for my next mentor, Philip Levine, when I transferred to complete my BA in English at Fresno State University; through Levine, I benefited from what he received from his mentors, including Yvor Winters, Robert Lowell, and especially John Berryman. After Levine, I studied with many other impressive, talented writers: I spent approximately 300 weeks in creative writing workshops as an undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate student.

For one of the best things students in the literary arts can do for their work is to study with skilled, well-trained literary artists.

But we do great harm to those with literary aspirations if we don't give them properly trained creative writing instructors; we're relegating them to "the back of the bus."

And four-year institutions might very well decide, just as Dr. King did, that supporting the status quo isn't beneficial for them too since they will have to deal with underprepared transfer students in their advanced workshops. If they revoke creative writing course articulation agreements with community colleges, such action might spur community colleges to do the right thing since tuition without instructor qualifications is just as harmful as taxation without representation.

"Qualifications? What Qualifications? We Don't Need No Stinking Qualifications!"

2008-03-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

As some of you know, not long ago I spearheaded a petition, with the official sponsorship of the 28,000-member Association of Writers and Writing Programs (long live the AWP!), to add creative writing to the California Community Colleges' (CCC) Disciplines List. Although that specific petition failed to garner enough votes at the statewide Spring Plenary session in 2007, the status quo still negatively affects thousands of creative writing students in the CCC system.

Currently, the overwhelming majority of California community colleges allow any English instructor regardless of his or her documented area of expertise to teach creative writing workshops as well as any other highly specialized course offered within their respective departments. And some CCC campuses and their English departments utilize seniority as the sole or ultimate criterion to determine faculty teaching assignments.

This mal-ethos is beyond logical comprehension, for I know of no four-year public institution that essentially says (by policy or procedure), "We don't care what your degree says; anyone can teach anything he or she wants that's offered in his or her department."

Yet, most community colleges officially pronounce via college catalogues and websites that "the students come first." (Was it P.T. Barnum who mentioned something about a "sucker is born every minute"?)

Any novice of critical thinking can quickly surmise that a profound contradiction subjects California's community college students to academic pot luck: "Maybe this semester I'll finally get a well-trained poet or fiction writer as my creative writing instructor." CCC students depend on us to look out for their welfare; they automatically assume that their creative writing instructors know what they're doing; sadly, many of these students aren't aware of some of their instructors' shortcomings until they get to a four-year institution (that is, if they can survive and prosper in those advanced workshops, for some fail because they didn't receive the kind of informed training their student counterparts commonly benefit from on CSU and UC campuses).

However, even more disturbing is the nonchalant ability of far too many English department faculty members in the CCC system, most of whom are white, to be overly generous when it comes to their own qualifications. One would think that community college faculty members would have learned from their own experiences as undergraduate, graduate, and even post-graduate students that they benefited specifically because their colleges and universities did not allow anyone to teach anything in the curriculum.

Should four-year institutions and universities administer a simple exit exam to correct such nonchalance? "Once you receive your degree, will you be qualified to teach anything as a professor in your respective department?" The results of such exams could save the public millions in salaries, health benefits, and pensions by denying degrees to those who answer in the affirmative: potential employers would receive exit exam results with official transcripts. As for those who pass the exit exam but do otherwise once they gain academic employment, their degree-granting alma maters should have the ability to legally revoke degrees just as state motor vehicle departments can revoke drivers licenses from reckless drivers: "We've received evidence that you're teaching creative writing even though your graduate degree is in composition; therefore, unless you can prove possession of a graduate degree in creative writing or "equivalency" in creative writing within 30 days, we must revoke your degree in composition and notify your employer that you no longer hold a graduate degree from our university."

For those of us who are people of color, such academic self-generosity on the part of some white English faculty members in the CCC system is just one example of institutional racism. If one queries many white English faculty members in the CCC system who've sat on hiring committees as to why they didn't hire any people of color, they'll often cite "questionable qualifications" to justify their hiring results. But the issue of qualifications is quickly minimized--it vanishes outright for some--when it comes to who should teach creative writing: "Oh, I want to teach creative writing. I took a creative writing class or two during my college days and I even had a poem published in the local Penny Saver! And our contract says seniority rules, so there!" Comedy has its uses, but when community college students pay tuition for workshops taught by unqualified faculty, their daily reality is anything but humorous.

California's community college faculty members who don't possess graduate degrees in creative writing (these degrees have been available since 1942; over 300 graduate creative writing programs currently exist in the U.S. alone) or who don't have "equivalencies" in creative writing should not be allowed to teach such workshops if CCC articulation agreements with the California State University and University of California systems are to have any worth--and if our creative writing students' welfare actually matters.

Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union on C-SPAN

2008-02-25T14:14:00.000-08:00

For the last two years I've been fortunate to watch Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union meetings on C-SPAN, and just this last weekend I again had the great pleasure of viewing Smiley's remarkable forum that's a stark contrast to what's normally offered over the public airways. (C-SPAN will rebroadcast the event this Friday, Feb. 29, 2008; please check your local listings for exact airtimes.)

Such programs are inspiring for one simple fact: People rarely get to hear so many leaders of color take center stage and comment at length on important issues. In contrast, if these men and women appear on CBS, CNN, or MSNBC, they're often presented via an edited, ten-to-twenty second sound byte on a program most likely moderated and controlled by white people. (If any Caucasians are uncomfortable with the previous sentence, they should ask themselves this simple question: Would you be happy if the overwhelming majority of news and informational programs--and print media--were moderated and controlled by people of color?)

Tavis Smiley's annual event is sponsored by some major corporations (their names appear on the backdrops behind the participants) whose largesse must be commended; such sponsorship illustrates these corporations' commitment to promoting diversity: They "walk the walk."

I encourage everyone regardless of color or ethnicity to watch the rebroadcast of Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union this Friday, Feb. 29, 2008, on C-SPAN; the participants' diverse comments (for such events dispel the mistaken notion that all people of color hold the same views) are engaging and thought-provoking.

Making the Visible Invisible

2008-02-13T14:11:00.000-08:00

Fellow poet Sheryl Luna (her wonderful book Pity the Drowned Horses won the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize and was published by the University of Notre Dame Press, and the UND Press will publish her next collection titled 7 by 2010--kudos to the people at Notre Dame) brings up some valid concerns in a recent entry on her blog (http://sherylluna.blogspot.com/) that warrant echoing.

Although various creative writing programs are attracting and graduating more poets and writers of color each year, including women of color, their increasing numbers don't seem to be mirrored in the empowered "literary circles and academic circles" that angers Luna and many like her. Another recent and similar complaint about the exclusion of Latino/a poets in a December "Poetry Marathon" held in Chicago also notes a similar frustration (see Francisco Aragon's December 20, 2007 entry at http://latinopoetryreview.blogspot.com/): Even though 75 poets were contacted to suggest readers for the event, "not a single Latino/a poet was named." Considering the number of graduate creative writing programs in the Midwest, one would think that at least a dozen or more names would quickly come to mind to those solicited, but that was not the case.

Let's be frank: Poets and writers of color don't dominate or control most creative writing programs or organizations; on the contrary, if anything, diversity is often just a word in a slogan noted on academic and professional websites or printed on job announcements; diversity rarely manifests a physical reality in those "circles" other than nine letters on a bumper sticker. Rather, many Anglo poets and writers who are fortunate enough to be within those "circles" routinely use their power to promote others like themselves via tenure-track hirings, visiting professorships, and endowed reading series--but they want people of color in their classrooms as students as proof that they're "serving all communities." Hence, people of color count if we can bring in more revenue for departments and programs, but we don't seem to be as vital a component when it comes to deciding such questions: Who should we hire? Who should we publish? Who should we invite to read?

I used to be a member of a literary "association" in a California town that had a wonderful founding director whose generous spirit spurred him to promote diverse poets and writers; however, once that association's readings gained prominence and steady funding, the founding director was stripped of his position. What came afterwards was predictable: Mainly Anglo poets and writers were invited to give readings. Not surprisingly, I eventually ceased being a dues-paying member; I felt the association's leadership was not interested in inviting or promoting truly diverse authors who do indeed exist in America. According to the latest Bureau of Census report, over 50% of the population in the county in which the association thrives consists of "Spanish surnamed" people, but any year-long roster of the association's invited authors has yet to reflect such diversity.

Poets and writers of color readily support those in "literary circles and academic circles" by paying their salaries and NEA/NEH grants via our taxes, attending their readings, and buying their books. Is it asking too much that the patronage we've given be returned in kind?

Author Paul Kivel, whose book Uprooting Racism is a valuable contribution to us all, asks white people the following questions: "What do you stand for? Who do you stand with? What are you going to do about it?"

If we humans actually "do the right thing," to borrow from Spike Lee, the visible frustration that haunts Luna, Aragon, and others will eventually become invisible.

Influences

2008-01-30T12:45:00.000-08:00

A former student was--and probably still is--an ardent fan of a contemporary poet to the point where he wrote poems infused with the same subject matter and even similar stylistic mannerisms of his role model. At first, the class, including myself, praised him for his desire to learn from a practitioner whose works have a so-called "signature style"; however, instead of searching out other practitioners as additional role models, the student poet was vocal in his decision: "He's the best poet I can find, so I'll stick with him as my main influence." But his peers' praise began to dwindle with each new poem. Most memorable, one of his fellow students said, "You've already written this poem--and so has X (the name of his main influence). Why not try something else? Or, better yet, why not read someone besides X?"

Influences can help and hurt us: They can enrich our poetry when we utilize the best of what they have to offer, but they can hurt us if we only have a few influences.

We all have influences that are both visible and hidden. I can remember the first poets whose works I intentionally imitated, for I yearned for such a connection. Consequently, because I knew little of prosody, I initially devoured poetry by poets known for their use of form and meter: Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, Shakespeare, Coleridge, Keats, Yeats, Owen, Edward Thomas, Dylan Thomas, and Auden (all English poets--and, yes, I know Yeats was Irish and Dylan Thomas was Welsh--though Auden did become an American citizen) were my guides. But I soon discovered others who added their own examples of "closed" or "received" forms on this side of the Atlantic: Frost, Wilbur, Millay, cummings, Lowell, Berryman, Schwartz, Roethke, and Bishop. But I then got to the point where "free" verse was a mystery to me, and so I sought out poets whose varied lines, turns, and measures were just as fascinating to me as Vaughan's decision to write a poetry that had more variations than his hero's verse, namely George Herbert. Hence, I drenched myself in the works of poets like Whitman (his "open" verse is far more interesting than his "closed" verse), Williams (though much of Williams' verse has formal patterns), Bly, James Wright, Warren, Dickey, Hall, Strand, Hugo, Walcott, and Kinnell (and, as the astute reader knows, most of these poets started out writing "formal" verse before they began writing what could be termed "hybrid" verse). Finally, I became enamored with poets via translations who wrote in languages other than English: Rilke, Paz, Borges, Neruda, Pavese, Lorca, and Transtromer.

But the post-war generation that includes Kumin, Ashbery, and Snyder is probably the most recent generation of poets that I consciously chose to influence my work in terms of craft: They are my diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. As for the poets of the Matthews, Hongo, and Dove generation, I greatly admire and value their works, but they still seem to be finding their way: their generation seems just a bit too close to my generation (I was born at the end of the Baby Boomer years; the Vietnam War was winding down when I became eligible for the draft in 1973 but wasn't inducted into military service). This isn't to say that the poems of the Levis, Komunyakaa, and Rios generation aren't precious gems--they are wonderful gems I treasure. Still, I simply want the various poets from the 17th century to the post-war era to be my main craft influences. (As for subject matter influences, that's entirely another topic.)

Why all of the personal history? I used my own experience in that workshop to illustrate to all of my students the need for numerous influences in young poets' works. As one of my mentors used to say, "Why settle for rhinestones when you can have diamonds, emeralds, and rubies?" Young poets should indeed take advantage of those who have created poems that will live for as long as humans value written and spoken words.

As for the poets in the present, we strive to find our diverse ways with the help of those who went before us and--as Ringo Starr and Joe Cocker once sang--"with a little help from our friends."

Adventures of the Letter "I" (Part II): Revision

2008-01-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

Revision, for many poets, especially those just unfurling their wings, often involves editing, not true revision. For art's sake, for eternity's sake, poets at times should seriously consider the first twenty or even fifty drafts of any poem as not acceptable, especially if for them revision comes down to shifting a word or inserting or deleting an adjective.

The term revision literally means to "re-see" something, whether it's a poem, a puzzle, or a mathematical problem. If one investigates the writing habits of some exceptional poets, one will realize that many didn't stop working on their poems prematurely. For example, the late James Dickey noted during the years that produced his wonderful book Buckdancer's Choice that he wrote with the conviction that the first one hundred drafts of any poem wouldn't satisfy him. Sadly, after winning the National Book Award, Dickey floundered, for his poetry seemed to diminish in ambition (an all-too-common result when the spur for fame loses its sharpness). Only late in his life did he seem to regain some of his youthful fire and once more gave us some lovely poems.

But the Ronald McDonald-like belief in numbers alone won't necessarily have memorable results; in fact, a few drastic revisions can be fruitful. For instance, William Butler Yeats often wrote only four to six drafts of his poems, but they were remarkable revisions: Rarely did one draft even remotely resemble the successive drafts, for he wasn't committed to the notion that his initial tropes required survival.

Both Dickey and Yeats understood that, for the imagination to flourish in conjunction with what's called craft, one must put pressure on one's art--on one's self--and re-see where a poem steams at full power and where it merely idles with unlabored puffs.

Of course, young poets sometimes can't recognize such moments, which is where honest criticism from mentors and fellow bards in workshops or Starbucks can lessen such poetic myopia. Not surprisingly, the best reason for anyone to take a creative writing workshop is to expose him- or herself to the heated, at times painful comments offered by mentors and friends (and these should be friends in the truest sense and not enablers: The workshop should never adhere to the Zenith Chamber of Commerce's motto: "Don't knock! Boost!"). And such harsh criticism should always be concerned with what's on the page, not with authors' personalities or the latest "schools of poetry." Therefore, each workshop participant should be free to eavesdrop, a wonderful gift even if the recipient can't initially appreciate it as he or she winces or groans--and resists the urge to defend his or her work. Otherwise, rebuttal might draw those boosters that Sinclair Lewis satirized in Babbitt.

And, dear critic, please remember that merely suggesting that a word should be dropped or a line needs to be repositioned might not be what's needed: Does the poem need editing or revision? Far too often, the latter requires serious consideration.

To withdraw for a moment to the personal, I remember listening to a fairly well-known poet whose work I wasn't familiar with but quickly found to be somewhat disconcerting: His trains of thought in almost every poem he read literally shouted their destinations long before he came to the final, soot-black periods. I turned to my neighbor and quietly remarked, "Why do I get the feeling he doesn't revise his work?"

Afterwards, during the question-and-answer part of the evening, the poet said that he "never revised" his poems: He always went with his first drafts! No wonder I ached to be outside in the November winds; at least the cold air would have made me feel more alive than the expected ruminations that assaulted my eardrums for nearly an hour.

No one likes to be told that his or her poem is a failure. However, analogously, a tennis coach would be far too lenient--and misleading and possibly even harmful--if he or she suggests that a man or woman who just picked up a tennis racket last month--or last year--is ready for Wimbledon.

Adventures of the Letter "I" (a nod to Louis Simpson)

2007-12-06T18:59:00.000-08:00

The poet Louis Simpson has a book titled Adventures of the Letter "I"; furthermore, the title alone makes a much needed critical comment: One should never confuse poetry with autobiography.

Of course, some poets utilize autobiographical elements within their works; however, as a teacher of creative writing, I routinely remind students that they should never assume that the speakers in poems are the authors themselves, regardless of whether the bards are established practitioners or their novice peers.

As one of my old mentors used to rhetorically ask, "Why be yourself in a poem when you can be someone really interesting?" Far too many of us think we live fascinating lives; thankfully, we have written testaments of the power of the human imagination that make our humdrum lives more intense and spiritual because various authors went beyond themselves: they created metaselves that sustain generations of readers like the breathable air.

Therefore, I quickly learned as a student that creative writing was my challenge and new love, not re-creative writing. According to Shakespeare, the poet's task is to "give to airy nothing a local habitation and a name." I can recall the first time I wrote something that came out of that "airy nothing" at the tail end of a semester of trite, expected doggerel (humankind is bad, nature is good; she did me wrong and now I'm sad; I took drugs and saw God, etc.). I discovered my subject matter with each successive line; I relinquished the anal-retentive aspect of my education and decided to trust my mentor's advice: I let each poem's voice find me.

And that was quite the opposite of what many urge ("Find your own voice...") in workshops and coffee bars. For I realized that my "own voice" needed to come to me and not vice versa; the imagination, if I gave in to the kind of "total immersion" Elizabeth Bishop believed in, would provide me with both the subject matter and the delight of each new destination. (I've begun to ask waiters and waitresses to "surprise me" with the chef's newest dish or specialty--such requests have yet to displease my tastebuds.)

To have an open palette, whether it's food or metrical feet, means that I'll also be open to revision: I don't take the first draft of anything I write as the gospel. Rather, I find revision to be as intense a joy--and a mystery--as I do foreplay: I'm not interested in quick self-gratification, both in writing and in loving. Therefore, I take my time. Rilke suggests that one should live "a whole life for the sake of a single line." No one will ever accuse me of being prolific when it comes to publishing poetry, and I've yet to find one poet who's valued because of his or her prodigious output. To go back to Elizabeth Bishop, she published approximately 100 poems during her lifetime, which is far less than what some contemporary poets have published even before they reach middle-age (and history tells us they will likely never be Bishop's equals).

When Robert Frost noted that only "old, musty things" should be looked at in workshops, he understood how critically blind authors can be when it comes to their latest creations--or re-creations: "No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader." Yes, I know that Frost was a racist and an egomaniac. But he also wrote "Directive," a poem that illustrates with each turn the speaker's--not Frost's autobiographical self--unplanned journey through wonder and sorrow: "Drink and be whole again beyond confusion."

Each poem's numerous drafts are chances for the "I" to discover wholeness beyond confusion.

A Few Poems from Braille for the Heart

2007-11-05T20:47:00.000-08:00

My chapbook Braille for the Heart (Momotombo Press) is now available for $10. All proceeds will fund scholarships for students at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Pilsen, IL, to attend a creative writing camp at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

Checks should be made out to "University of Notre Dame" and sent to the following Washington, D.C. address:

Francisco Aragon
Institute for Latino Studies/Notre Dame
1608 Rhode Island Ave. Suite 348
Washington, D.C. 20036

* * * * *

California Sonnets: Elegance

Elegance has its lightning too, its jagged
dance that ebbs late in the evening, slightly
vexed by a high-heeled partner and her unrepentant
smoke, her waxed legs ascending like heat.
All night I've wanted to unlock some lost
octave that frets about this and that, mostly
that: the guitar's tightly wound chords
my fingers would register and release. But
this middle-aged campaign for elegance
doesn't pirouette like wind in the orchards;
only the frogs start up in the canal's
orchestra pit. What's left is this stunned
self-portrait, irregular and estranged,
a fifty year old man anxious to tango.

--Robert Vasquez
(from Braille for the Heart)

* * * * *

The Myth of the Happy Family: Yield

Driving back to the L.A. basin,
I see cloud-softened lightning
sluice down to the black

Sierras, and I think of Henry
Vaughan who forever sought out
behind such stony

clouds a 17th-century God,
his haypaths ribboned with belled
roses and poppies,

whereas my asphalt lane divides the
dairies between Goshen and
Kingsburg. Here the dammed

Kings River must give way to cow stench
and burnt ions filling each
car's air vents. Vaughan, un-

like his champion George Herbert, could
never scribble alive a
holy being who dined

and courted you; Vaughan could only "look
and call," the divine hand a
peripheral blur

at best, adrenalin stammering
his heart. Nevertheless, the
rock-faced countryside,

down to the least soybean and wheatflake,
could make Vaughan yield--just as I
have tonight along

US 99, my blinkers on
to scare off help, for I've no
flat to change or plug,

just a dairyman a half-acre
away who closes down the
stanchion lights shed by

shed, his milked guernseys briefly arc-lit
as they all mill and call in
the barn-dark tableau.

--Robert Vasquez
(from Braille for the Heart)

* * * * *

California Sonnets: Discharged

Discharged like smoke or sadness in bars,
I walk the day's remedial structure, terse
as a scrawled fragment, the neighborhoods
planned and proscribed. Mary, you always
asked, "Will you miss me when I'm gone?"
And here's my daily reply, the measured
pain muted with pastels (not obvious
like the rap-swelled Chevys that thump
in my chest thirty feet away)--vacant
as an echoing chamber. Soon the birds
intervene, scoring the Visalia sky.
I'll walk until the sparrows tire and roost,
until the vacuumed harbor of space lists
with stars stalled--like me--in a blue bay.

--Robert Vasquez
(from Braille for the Heart)

Author's note: The Myth of the Happy Family poems are syllabic; the stanzas consist of twenty-one syllables: nine in the first lines, seven in the second lines, and five in the third lines. California Sonnets are neither rhymed nor metered; the poems' main title stems from a review of Charles Wright's poetry: The critic couldn't understand why Wright utilized a certain kind of lineation in his work and surmised that it must be a "California thing."

A Response to a Question

2007-10-25T16:40:00.000-07:00

I received an email from a fellow college professor (anonymous--and that's fine with me) who, in response to my previous blog article ("One Way to Diversify Academe"), asked me the following question: "Is racial or ethnic diversity necessary in academe? All of my former professors were white, most of them men, and as a professor I've been able to help diverse students in their academic aspirations as English majors. They leave my classrooms with a definite appreciation for and knowledge of English and American literature." S/he added, "Although our department doesn't have any faculty members of Hispanic heritage, our students neither complain about the lack of racial diversity among their professors nor do they exhibit any signs of under-preparedness in their studies."

Of course, I take such a question seriously; I don't want to assume that all academics routinely agree that diversity is indeed a vital aspect within any educational institution or as part of anyone's educational background.

But, I must admit that the question itself resonates as an alarm: The professor's cold rationalization is an example of what happens when people don't have diverse teachers.

To illustrate why diversity is critical in anyone's education, I often ask my students (in a course that focuses on institutional racism and social class) the following question: "What would happen if all of your teachers were men?"

Not surprisingly, the female students regardless of color are quick to respond: "Women wouldn't have any role models in the teaching profession." "Women would have an advantage over men when it comes to discussing feminist issues because they've lived their lives as women; feminism would be women's daily reality, not just theory." "In such a world, male professors would favor and promote literature and research written by other men." "Male teachers wouldn't be very sensitive to female concerns and issues--their concerns would be developed, encouraged, and controlled by a male-dominated profession."

And when other students try to minimize such comments, those students are almost always males. Obviously, some males take such comments personally, as if they were being criticized, even though their peers are merely noting what they think would be the effects of an all-male professoriate.

But when I then ask the same female and male students to answer a similar question but change "men" to "white," many of those who are white quickly fall silent. Yet, when I suggest that their previous comments could just as easily apply to people of color (that they too would have few role models, that they too might have certain advantages over whites when discussing issues of race and ethnicity, that they too could be victims of insensitive professors and their curriculums), even some of the women who balked at their male counterparts' objections try to minimize similar consequences: "But...."

I ask the students to examine why they have certain objections: Where do they come from? What's the point of such objections? What, if anything, do they think they've accomplished by voicing these objections? Do they feel better about themselves? Do they feel threatened? And who do they think they're ultimately helping when they minimize possible negative consequences that stem from racial and ethnic differences and concerns?

To help students become more sensitive to institutional racism, I utilize the HBO film White Man's Burden. Writer/director Desmond Nakano literally reverses the power structure in America: Caucasian Americans live in the "inner city" and inhabit mostly menial occupations; in contrast, African Americans live in the affluent suburbs and own or control most private businesses and public institutions. Although the characters are to a degree ethnographic stereotypes, their segregated circumstances amply define the problems that face both the disenfranchised and the empowered. (The students must examine and analyze four situations/conditions/phenomena in the film that illustrate institutional racism.)

In conjunction with the film, I utilize Paul Kivel's text Uprooting Racism (New Society Publishers). Kivel's subtitle (How White People Can Work for Racial Justice) often bothers students initially; however, once they read his text, most students understand Kivel's point: Whites control most, if not all, of America's institutions, public and private; therefore, those in power should always be the focus if we want to change the status quo rather than look to--and unconvincingly blame--those not in power.

Consequently, I too must look to the anonymous professor and ask, "What's gained by keeping academe a segregated realm?" And, more importantly, "Are you truly educated if you only see the world through white lenses?"

One Way to Diversify Academe

2007-09-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

Many of us who teach for a living have sat on hiring committees; moreover, the vast majority of those hiring committees were--and will continue to be in the near future--staffed primarily by whites and not people of color. In English departments and creative writing programs, the overwhelming majority of hiring committees are not diverse in the most basic definition of that term: racial diversity. Of course, some of us have witnessed colleagues who've tried to redefine diversity to rationalize the makeup of such committees: "Well, we do have two women on this committee," or "I'm from Poland, and Bill is gay."

And the results from these countless hiring procedures are often the same: No persons of color are hired.

Some might argue that the candidate pools aren't diverse enough, but this argument appears to be an invalid one: the number of people of color who apply for academic positions indeed increases each year.

Others suggest that the "best qualified" candidates just happen to be whites, though this too has one major flaw: Why did many of us, regardless of race, have to study with mediocre white professors at the community college, state college, university, and post-graduate levels?

This isn't to say that some of us didn't have some excellent professors. For example, I was fortunate to study with Philip Levine (he's in a class by himself--he was my one great teacher, and I know that greatness is a rarity in any discipline). Additionally, I studied with some exemplary English professors: Peter Everwine, Eugene Zumwalt, John McDermott, and Andrew Simmons at California State University at Fresno; Michael Ryan, James McMichael, T.R. Hummer, Renee Hubert, Myron Simon, and John Hollowell at the University of California at Irvine; Kenneth Fields and W.S. DiPiero at Stanford University. (I also had the pleasure of informally auditing courses taught by Marjorie Perloff and the late Gilbert Sorrentino at "the farm," in addition to studying with visiting professors Derek Walcott, the late Thom Gunn, and the late Joseph Brodsky.)

But, like many others, I also had to put up with far too many mediocre professors (approximately 75% of my former professors fit that description I'm sorry to say). For example, one of my former professors in American literature would have been happy lecturing to a brick wall--the students were that inconsequential (he could have easily been on videotape, for the students had no reason to be in the classroom with him or with each other). Another professor of 17th century poetry never uttered one syllable of verse during the entire quarter (his love for his own exegesis didn't require him to recite one line from Donne, Jonson, or Vaughan); to this day I suspect he doesn't like to read poetry even in silence. I could go on and on.

My mediocre professors had one thing in common: They were all white. Moreover, they were likely screened and interviewed by all-white committees and forwarded to and hired by nearly all-white English departments. (I'm not arguing that professors of color can't be mediocre too;
if anything, more diversity within the teaching ranks will prove that no one group has a lock on mediocrity nor on excellence.)

Furthermore, far too many mediocre English professors, past and present, live fairly segregated personal lives. Think, dear reader, of the people with whom you regularly dine, the people you'll query when you want to view a film, the people you cajole to join you on a seven-day cruise through the Carribbean or help you withstand a twelve-hour flight to the promised land of a ten-day stay on the Yucatan peninsula. Think of the voluntary relationships you foster and cultivate even when you live hundreds or thousands of miles from each other: Are any of them friendships with people of color if you're white?

In contrast, are most of your contacts with people of color forced because of employment or other involuntary circumstances? For example, most professors are forced to interact with students of color (which makes me wonder if some whites who enjoy online instruction do so to avoid such in-person contact).

Are your contacts with people of color forced because they're your neighbors? Do they attend the same church or local political club?

How open are we to voluntary differences, not forced differences, in our personal lives? If we answer this question truthfully, we can probably put a finger on the reason for the lack of diversity in academe: The majority of people who hire others often live fairly segregated personal lives. No wonder they hire others like themselves: their business lives are merely extensions of their personal lives. (Wouldn't we be guilty of wishful ignorance if we ignore the personal lives of those on hiring committees? If one responds, "We do have a black person in our department," that would only be evidence of tokenism, not true diversity.)

Therefore, every public educational institution should ask potential hiring committee members to list at least three voluntary relationships with people who come from different racial backgrounds than their own. (Thus, I would be asked to present names of non-Latinos who could vouch for my ability to create voluntary relationships with them.) If those eager to sit on hiring committees can't produce such referees, that might be reason enough to disqualify them from such participation, especially if their educational institutions routinely hail themselves as "AA/EOE" employers. Seriously, does anyone expect people who voluntarily segregate their personal lives to promote--and prove via hirings--true racial and ethnic diversity in their business lives? We need to screen potential interviewers before they screen and question job appplicants.

Would such a requirement to sit on hiring committees spur us to reevaluate our personal lives and voluntary relationships? I would hope so if only for our own sakes--and for the sakes of our students.

What Does "American Author" Mean?

2007-09-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

When my book At the Rainbow was published, I was curious as to how I would be "cataloged" by the Library of Congress (their "Cataloging-in-Publication Data" gives libraries certain information, such as both Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal numbers for storage and shelving purposes, among other things). I'm listed under "1. Mexican Americans--California--Poetry."

But when I look at a book written by Galway Kinnell, The Book of Nightmares (a book I'm quite taken with and have read many times), I don't find any mention by the Library of Congress of his ethnic ancestry (Irish?) or even of the state in which he resides (Vermont back then?). And on days when I'm not too lazy and go into the nearest library and search through their electronic card catalog, I can find Kinnell's texts on the shelves next to other American authors. But why aren't white authors given ethnic identities to go along with their American citizenship? Wouldn't such information be just as important to the Library of Congress as my ethnic ancestry and state of residence?

I decided to look in a local library's electronic card catalog for my book under "American poets" in general: It doesn't exist. When I conducted another search under "Mexican American" poets or "California" poetry, my book eventually came up on the computer screen.

Now, don't jump to conclusions: I'm not embarrassed by my Mexican ancestry (though I am bothered by the fact that I've lost my North American/Aztec ancestors' indigenous language and dialects: Spanish, like English, has European roots; it's the language of my European ancestors, those who used miscegenation as a means of conquest and erasure; I can only imagine my Aztec ancestors' cosmic yearnings that spurred them to create magnificent temples and pyramids, the construction of which still baffles a multitude of Ph.D. holders; the Mel Gibson version of Aztlan with its video game-schlock of human sacrifices doesn't bother me as much as Bush's allegiance to the altar of oil and multinational greed). Rather, I'm concerned by what's meant and reinforced when we identify certain authors with just one adjective: American.

Institutional racism has many facets, one of which is evident whenever we refer to someone as an "American" author; literally, we're referring to an author's citizenship, but we're also reinforcing a communal nod: He or she is a white author; he or she fits the norm of what we imagine when we say the word American. In contrast, when we refer to Rita Dove as an African-American poet, we're also noting a difference, one that's important to the Library of Congress and every other major institution in the United States: She does not fit the norm of what we imagine when we say the word American.

In other words, an American author might not threaten or challenge the white reader in the same way that a so-called ethnic author might via his or her subject matter, cultural references, or bilingual/multilingual/dialectical use of language(s). (I use the word might because not all poets and writers of color are alike, just as not all white authors are alike.) The term American says, "He or she is one of us," and this adjectival connotation has far-reaching implications beyond simply allaying readers' fears or fulfilling their expectations.

For example, the vast majority of literary journals and magazines, from the biannuals at various universities to the monthly magazines out of Boston and New York, publish mostly American (meaning white) authors; indeed, most journals and magazines have mostly American (meaning white) editorial boards. In our most populated metropolitan city, with well over a million people of color living within its limits, one would be hardpressed to find an author of color in that city's most well-known magazine (it's title refers to an inhabitant of that city). Of course, one might argue, "People of color aren't the magazine's main readers." Yet, I read that magazine (it's in our campus library), and I know of many writers of color who peruse its pages--some buy copies at their favorite bookstore or even subscribe!

Essentially, the lone adjective American can be a blessing for those whose ethnographic adjectives aren't deemed necessary anymore: "Why, he's an American author!" Anglo-Saxons aren't afraid of the Irish anymore; those of German ancestry no longer have to live in Germantown; Swedes are accepted and at home in the Sunbelt as they are in Minnesota.

But being an author of color can be a hindrance when he or she tries to enter the "American" literary world. When I was sending out At the Rainbow to various publishers, a reader for one San Francisco Bay area publisher wrote back to me that I should "get rid of the white angst" in my poetry. You can imagine my angst when I read her comments, for I never thought that only whites suffered from angst. More importantly, she had a business concern: How could they "market" me? My poems weren't filled with ethnographic markers or identifiers that she expected from a Chicano. I didn't write about being in prison (I've never been arrested, and I suspect that many of you haven't been arrested either); I didn't write about slaving under a hot sun and picking grapes (even though I worked in agricultural and factory settings until my late twenties, I've never had a desire to write about or romanticize such tiresome realms--probably because I worked in various low-paying jobs for well over a decade, something I wouldn't wish upon anyone--and poets like Soto and Levine have expertly and thoroughly mined those veins); I didn't sprinkle Spanish words in my poetry (although my mother and father are fluent in Spanish, they talked to me only in English during my childhood: They didn't want me to have the same problems that my older, Spanish-speaking siblings had when they entered the English-only classrooms and schools of west Fresno; moreover, that part of town was--and still is--populated mainly by African Americans: I was more comfortable saying to my friends "Blood, check this out" instead of "Ese vato"). I didn't fit her stereotype of a Chicano poet. And I'm sure some editors, judges, publishers, and academicians are just as puzzled today by my work as that woman was in the mid 1990s.

Let me come back to the beginning: What does "American author" mean? With talk of the United States building a fence on our southern border and shipping mostly Mexican people back to Mexico (even though much of the southwestern United States is their ancestral homeland, for Aztlan extended to present day Utah), we haven't travelled very far down the road of enlightenment when it comes to institutional racism, which should never be confused with personal prejudice. When I read most journals or magazines, I'm always struck by the lack of ethnic diversity among the authors (one or two poets or writers of color doesn't define diversity, only tokenism), which is all the more maddening to me: I know that many people of color hold graduate degrees in creative writing and have manuscripts that attest to their hard-earned skills and merits as poets and writers. When I look at the latest winners of countless literary awards, I'm puzzled as to why people of color rarely win (though one look at the judges or the makeup of the committees hastens me to make a quick judgment of my own--fallibility is as common as sunshine).

Hence, we need to reconsider what's meant when we use certain terms like American: Who are we including, and who are we excluding? What subject matter informs such terms, and what subject matter isn't even considered?

In the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ, Willem Dafoe's Jesus corrects another man who protests Mary Magdalene's presence at a wedding: "What do you think heaven's like? It's a wedding; God is the groom, and man is the bride, and everyone's invited." If we use the term American a decade from now, let's hope everyone in America is included.

Recognizing Creative Writing as an Academic Discipline in California Community Colleges

2007-01-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) has before it a petition to add creative writing to the state-wide Disciplines List. The ASCCC will vote on this petition in April at their Spring 2007 Plenary session. This action is 65 years overdue.

According to D. W. Fenza, executive director of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) which is officially sponsoring the petition, graduate degrees in creative writing have existed since 1942 when Paul Engle started the Iowa Writers' Workshop; soon, other institutions developed similar programs: "In 1946, Elliot Coleman founded the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. In 1947, Stanford University and the University of Denver both launched graduate creative writing programs. In 1948, Baxter Hathaway founded the creative writing program at Cornell University" (Fenza).

By 1984, over 150 graduate creative writing programs flourished in the United States; currently, over 300 programs offer graduate degrees and over 100 offer undergraduate degrees in creative writing (Fenza). The Writer's Chronicle routinely reports that more than 20,000 individuals have earned M.A., M.F.A., or Ph.D. degrees in creative writing in the last two decades. Obviously, creative writing as a distinct discipline has been a reality at hundreds of educational institutions. More importantly, California Community Colleges (CCC) should officially recognize this fact too, for they have done so with other disciplines in the past.

Before English as a Second Language (ESL) and journalism were added to the CCC Disciplines List, courses in those disciplines could be taught by any community college professor with a graduate degree in English. Fortunately for students and faculty, the ASCCC corrected this flaw by recognizing both ESL and journalism as disciplines in their own right; hence, ESL and journalism instructors must possess as a minimum requirement graduate degrees in their respective disciplines "or the equivalent" (for state law gives individuals the right to apply for equivalency in any discipline).

In contrast, English as a discipline in the CCC system currently includes literature, composition, and reading--and creative writing since it's not officially recognized via the Disciplines List. As a result, almost any California community college professor with a graduate degree in English literature or composition can teach creative writing courses even though he or she might not possess any substantial training in creative writing. How can this current situation benefit students?

One could argue, "Aren't ESL, journalism, composition, and creative writing courses the same? After all, don't these students compose?" However, the student compositions in these unique disciplines have different purposes and outcomes: ESL students learn English reading and writing skills as non-native speakers and writers of English; journalism students aim to inform the public by reporting on various facts and events considered newsworthy; English composition students write expository essays controlled by thesis statements and/or research material and utilize non-fiction prose; creative writing students create poetry, fiction, and/or drama. In essence, each discipline requires instructors specifically trained to help students achieve those different purposes and outcomes.

Others could posit, "Shouldn't all English degree holders know enough about literature to teach poetry and fiction writing courses? Don't English majors learn everything related to literature, including creative writing?" By analogy, degree holders in diverse disciplines should ask themselves a similar question: "Shouldn't all nursing degree holders know enough about x-ray technology to teach such courses? Don't nursing majors learn everything related to health care, including radiology?" Hopefully, the absurdity of the latter question will help one understand the flaw in the former question. Students who wish to become radiology technicians must study with experts in radiology who are licensed and recognized by the state, just as prospective nursing students must study with nurses even though radiology technicians and nurses often work on the same patients. The same can be said analogously about English department faculty members: We work with the same students, but we often have different tasks and goals.

And for many decades potential English graduate students have had to make conscious decisions: "Should I choose the literature, composition, or creative writing option in graduate school?" If some complain, "The university I attended didn't have a creative writing program," such individuals must have lived rather academically sheltered lives: For some reason they didn't peruse the various college catalogues in reference libraries; they didn't ask creative writing professors about graduate creative writing programs; they didn't seek guidance from counselors regarding graduate-level creative writing options--in short, they didn't care enough about creative writing to do some simple research.

In California, many CSU and UC campuses offer--and some have been doing so for decades--graduate degrees in creative writing: CSU Chico, CSU Fresno, CSU Long Beach, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Northridge, CSU Sacramento, San Diego SU, San Francisco SU, San Jose SU, Sonoma SU, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and UC San Diego (M.F.A. starting in 2007-08). Of course, several private institutions in California do likewise, including Antioch University (LA), the California College of the Arts, the California Institute of the Arts, Loyola-Marymount University, Mills College, New College of California, Otis College of Art and Design, St. Mary's College, the University of San Francisco, and the University of Southern California.

Still, some might say, "I took a few creative writing classes in college; I even published a couple of poems in my college's undergraduate magazine. I have what it takes to teach creative writing." Again, change the discipline to another: "I took a few painting classes in college; I even had a couple of paintings in my college's student art gallery. I have what it takes to teach painting courses." Nevertheless, if one takes the time to study the various graduate degree requirements in any practitioner-based discipline, one should immediately notice that taking "a few classes" doesn't give one the kind or level of expertise that others achieve when they finally earn such graduate degrees. And publishing "a few poems," often in questionable venues, doesn't make one an accomplished writer. With the advent of the internet combined with vanity presses, people have no problem finding outlets for their works regardless of their skill levels; such non-juried outlets often depend financially on the uninformed and the untrained.

If this petition is successful, California's community college students would have a state-wide assurance that their English professors would possess as a minimum requirement graduate degrees specifically in creative writing (M.A., M.F.A., or Ph.D. "or the equivalent") if they teach such specialized workshops. Of course, these creative writing professors will continue to teach other courses in composition and literature within their respective English departments like their counterparts in the CSU and UC systems.

And those who don't possess graduate degrees in creative writing but have demonstated expertise in the discipline via substantial publications, literary awards and honors, and/or extensive creative writing coursework should have no problem securing equivalency.

Consequently, no community college, large or small, would need to hire any full-time creative writing instructors: Such graduate degree holders already meet the state's minimum qualifications to be hired as English instructors provided they also hold B.A. degrees in English. And probably every community college already employs full- and/or part-time English instructors who currently possess graduate degrees in creative writing (they would be "grandfathered" into the new discipline). Given the large number of graduate degree holders in creative writing, community colleges won't have any problems staffing their creative writing sections with current or future faculty members.

Please support this effort to add creative writing to the state-wide Disciplines List for California Community Colleges by emailing the Academic Senate before April 2007 via the following address: asccc@ix.netcom.com. And please contact your local community college's representatives to the Academic Senate and urge them to vote for this petition. Tuition-paying community college students minimally deserve appropriately degreed creative writing instructors and nothing less.

Works Cited

Fenza, D. W. "Creative Writing & Its Discontents." The Writer's Chronicle. March/April 2000. October 26, 2006. http://elink.awpwriter.org/m/awpChron/articles/dfenza01.lasso.