A poetics of abundance: some adventures in the low-residency format

ABSTRACT

In this pedagogy article, I use my own experience building a brand-new MFA as a test case for thinking seriously about why we grow our apprentice writers how we do, whom we hope to reach by growing writers this way, and how to do it better. My article offers some insight into what it means to grow whole writers with healthy writing lives and why more of us should be engaging in that mission. What we might just end up with – or, at least, what we’ve been able to grow in Central Oregon – is a culture of celebration and difference (as opposed to a culture of competition and comparison) in which together we learn to love this world through art; get messy and make some mistakes; and fly, with our own wings.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum design
• workshopping
• teaching
• pedagogy
• experimentation
• culture

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Emily Carr writes murder mysteries that turn into love poems that are sometimes (by her McSweeney’s editors, for example) called divorce poems. She has lived all over the world and is the author of several collections and chapbooks of poems. After she got an MFA in poetry from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, she took a doctorate in ecopoetics at the University of Calgary. These days she’s the programme director of the low-residency MFA in creative writing at Oregon State University-Cascades. Her newest book, Whosoever Has Let a Minotaur Enter Them, Or a Sonnet – , is the 11^th volume in the McSweeney’s Poetry Series.

Notes

1 The Association for Writers and Writing Programmes hallmarks of an effective low-residency MFA programme are available online here: https://www.awpwriter.org/guide/directors_handbook_hallmarks_of_an_effective_low_residency_mfa_program_in_creative_writing.

2 Ibid.

3 She Flies with Her Own Wings’ was adopted by the 1987 Legislature as Oregon’s state motto. The phrase originated with Judge Jessie Quinn Thornton and was pictured on the territorial seal in Latin: Alis Volat Propriis.

4 C. A. Conrad, who we are fortunate to call our Distinguished Visiting Artist every other fall, inspires us in this very necessary pursuit of loving this world through art.

5 What counts as ‘diverse’ is contentious, and complex, and context-dependent and that conversation is, quite frankly, beyond the purview of this essay. Briefly, diversity is an especially difficult issue here in Central Oregon, where much of our diversity is either invisible (sometimes by choice, and sometimes by circumstance) or gets discounted because it can’t be seen (like an alcoholic in recovery, or someone with a lifelong neurological disability).

6 All C. A. Conrad quotations are taken from the introduction to his A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon. The entire introduction is available for download from https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/right-manifest-manifesto. Conrad’s introduction is short, gorgeous, and necessary. So, in lieu of page citations: read it NOW!

7 The transcript and audio of Brown’s 29 January 2015 interview with Tippett is available online on On Being: https://www.onbeing.org/program/brene-brown--the-courage-to-be-vulnerable/transcript/7257.

8 The blind man in Raymond Carver’s Cathedral makes this statement while helping the narrator draw a cathedral (1989, 172).

9 A recording of Fernandez’ 11 May 2013 commencement address is available on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user231682255/teresitaspeech.

10 In fact, when completing a questionnaire for AWP’s Member in the Spotlight Feature, I answer the question ‘what is the greatest compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?’ with an email my father wrote after reading my first book, directions for flying:

Hi Em,

I hope all is going well in Vermont. We heard a presentation today about coordinated population-based care, with a state wide system of health information exchange and care coordination incentives. Pretty good, not too many places in the US doing that. By the way, how is your foot. I got an email from the Ortho dept. at the U of C saying that they got no answer on your cell phone. I guess they finally got around to you consultation.

I've read Directions for Flying twice. It is a beautiful set of poems. Sometimes a tear came to my eye, sometimes I laughed, mostly I smiled, sometimes I got a lump in my throat. You are an incredible writer, and the praise from the poet from Boston on the back of the book was extraordinary (and exactly correct). Let me know when the book can be purchased. I'm very proud of you.

Give me a call when you have a moment, or I have Skype on my computer. I am in Washington DC, busy pretty much all day until 5pm Eastern, but available in the evening tonight and tomorrow night. Then I go to Vancouver from Friday to Wednesday. I'll talk to you soon.

Love, Dadhop

11 We are working with the definition of ecowellness developed by Ryan Reese and Jane E. Meyers: ‘a sense of appreciation, respect for, and awe of nature that results in feelings of connectedness with the natural environment and the enhancement of holistic wellness’ (400). Ecowellness includes access to nature (exposure to natural environments), environmental identity (development of one’s sense of self), and transcendence in nature (spiritual well-being and community connectedness). What ecowellness offers is ‘a specific focus on the human-nature connection as central to holistic wellness’ (400). Reese and Myers offer a succinct and accessible explanation of ecowellness in “Ecowellness: The Missing Factor in Holistic Wellness Models,” (2012).

12 These questions are excerpted from a handout Reese created as a guide for his counselling students for our November 2016 ecowellness workshop.

13 The transcript and audio of Bolz-Weber’s 5 September 2013 interview with Tippett is available online on On Being: http://www.onbeing.org/program/transcript/nadia-bolz-weber-seeing-the-underside-and-seeing-god-tattoos-tradition-and-grace

14 The transcript and audio of Banaji’s June 9, 2016 interview with Tippett is available online on On Being: http://www.onbeing.org/program/mahzarin-banaji-the-mind-is-a-difference-seeking-machine/transcript/8737

15 The transcript and audio of McFerrin’s 27 February 2014 interview with Tippett is available online on On Being: https://www.onbeing.org/program/bobby-mcferrin-catching-song/transcript/6160.