Proud Papa

Dats me.

I forgot to mention that last month my daughter won the Glascock Poetry Competition prize at Mt. Holyoke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glascock_Prize

Before going, I had no idea what a big deal this prize is. You see, I'm a natural speed reader, which means that I can't stand poetry. Because I don't say the words in my head when I read, poetry drives me nuts!

However, it was interesting chatting with the judges and whatnot. Nobody in the US makes a living as a poet. They are all creative writing professors.

Which led to a whole different topic: Namely, how do you teach creative writing?

For those of you who don't know, in a past life, I used to be a business professor. At one point, I was recruited to teach entreneurship. I didn't impress the recruiting committee when I told them that teaching entreneurship sounded to me like a contradiction in terms. In fact, digging a hole even deeper (which is something that I do quite frequently by-the-way), I said that if you put together a really good program, you would never have any graduates. Anybody with any snap would quit and just go do it.

Back to teaching creative writing. One of the judges blew me away with his answer. He said that it is the difference between art and craft. You can teach the craft of writing poetry, being an entrepreneur, or driving a race car. (I added that last part about drivers.) However, nobody can teach art. At the end of the day, talent is what separates the truly gifted from the rest of us trench diggers.

But, I digress. I really can't say how proud I am. It is scary when your kids are w-a-y-y-y smarter than you are. So, Jess, this one is for you.

Love Dad
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Ah, well, poets don't dig cars.

Besides, she already has a Toyota Highlander.

 

Truth is that she really is a lot smarter than me. Her IQ is somewhere north of 160!

Dale

 

Thanks all. I am indeed one proud daddy. After getting her very expensive poetry degree, Jess plans on going to law school after taking a break and living large in NYC for a year. It looks like she'll be working for a very interesting company called Transperfect. She is also fluent in German.

Dale

 

I know that they'll be published. Her thesis is also a book of poems. I'll check and see.

Thx, Dale

PS The whole thing was eye opening for me. I had heard of people doing poetry readings, but nobody I ever knew ever did such a thing. There are even poetry slam contests????

And, BTW, Carbon, one of the judges was very complimentary about some of MM's rap poetry. He said that rap in general needs more craft. A poet treasures each word in a poem. However, some of what is being done is very creative.

Also, get this. He has started a new form called double exposure where the odd lines are one poem and the even lines are a completely different poem. The trick is to somehow tie them together.

 

Once again, poetry has never been my thang. But, I was very impressed with the discipline shown by all the poets at this event. Just like you can't speed read poetry, you can't speed write it either. It is a craft that transcends itself into art.

One lesson I gained from all this was that your art will always be diminished if you don't hone your craft. What Schumacher does during a F1 race might be art. However, he would not be there if he hadn't learned his craft by doing kart races.

As a capitalist pig, I'm also impressed at the people who will do something like write poety for no money. Oh, there are one or two, or maybe three or four, folks who make pocket change printing a book of poetry every now and then. But as a monetary enterprise, poetry is worthless. Imagine people putting all this work into something that doesn't pay the rent. Imagine that.

Just FYI Carbon, here is the web page of the judge who liked your M&M dude:

http://web.jhu.edu/writingseminars/faculty/williamson/

He and Jess got into a discussion about the literary aspects of one of his "songs." The whole discussion was over my head. I just ain't got no culture, I guess. He is also the one who does the double exposure stuff.

However, as one who highest literary aspirations is to be a paperback writer, I was very impressed with my brief glimpse of the world of poetry. Alas, I'm afraid, though, that there is no hope for me.

Dale