Lay off the Motherf$%ing MFA Students
by Joyelle McSweeney on Dec.02, 2010, under Uncategorized
Can we just get one thing straight: MFA students are NOT pampered pigs, particularly not in today’s academic/economic environment. The majority are in very precarious financial situations—fellowships have been cut or reduced, travel funding is not existent, they don’t teach, or if they do teach, they are underpaid or not paid at all (with a tuition waiver, for example—try taking that to Food Lion), they don’t have insurance, they have no security from semester to semester or year to year. Granted, some MFA programs have one or two fellowships to award; one or two out of twenty or so students have a little more stability. A handful of MFA programs have plenty of money and can provide better for all their students and if you want to know which ones they are look at the ads in the Writers’ Chronicle—but if you go, double check with the department secretary first, people, because past results do not predict future outcomes. Deans can cut lines and stipends from year to year, or ‘redistribute’ formerly secure fellowships to other departments or even other degree programs within the same departments.
So this idea that MFA students are in some way ‘pampered’ or ‘insulated’ from economic reality is just false on its face and, I believe, pernicious because it masks another assumption that people have adopted but are less willing to voice: that there’s something wrong about wanting to be a writer and wanting to take 2 or 3 years of your life and focus on your writing.
THAT’s what’s really unacceptable, and I believe that’s what MFA students are continuously flogged for, even by other writers, even by fucking FACULTY MEMBERS of MFA programs! Other writers flog the MFA’ers to keep that charge from coming back to them. It’s the capitalist culture at large that wants us to think Art is unjustified, or must be justified, and that to spend a few years on Art is somehow evidence of sloth, indolence, or unacceptable self-indulgence.
Don’t do those assholes’ work for them by shitting on MFA students whose commitment to writing and Art is simply the most visible and measurable.
Do you know who ARE the pampered pigs? Kraft food executives. Insurance agents execs. I can’t understand why someone deserves a fucking medal (literally) for holding down a white collar job while writing poetry (Dana Gioia). How many figures was DG’s salary all that time, vs the average MFA student at a state or private school who can barely eke it out for 2 years? And anyway, why is it honorable to be a Kraft food General Foods executive? Medical problems of this country such as the obesity epidemic can be in fact directly linked to Saturated Fat, AKA Velveeta cheese nation. (Cease and desist me, Dana Gioia!). [Note: I was wrong about Gioia-- he was the man behind Jello jigglers, not Kraft Velveeta. He is apparently not singlehandedly responsible for the obesity epidemic. Apparently neither is corporate cheese food, so I'm told in the comments. But he is still my chief example of a writer celebrated for writing despite the "adversity" of being extremely gainfully employed.]
Finally, by point of comparison: I was reading the New York Times Sunday Magazine about the private jet industry. In 2008, when the economy was beginning its ‘nosedive’, Gulfstream Aerospace introduced a new model of private jet which costs $65 MILLION DOLLARS and they have so many orders for these planes they have a seven year backlog. The intrepid reporter was a little aghast at this list price but realized it was his ‘assumptions’ about wealthy people that was causing his resistence so in the interest of being fair and balanced he went and toured some of what he refers to as this ‘rarefied and complicated’ product (good fucking grief. this is while organ transplants are being cut by the Arizona state government as being not cost-effective). Finally he concludes
“I was assured by my hosts that Gulfstream customers aren’t looking to loll about in a posh environment for kicks — the payoff comes in the form of productivity, efficiency and so on. […] most of us consider the G650 and its ilk in symbolic terms: a thing that greed-head executives fly to Congressional bailout hearings or that supposedly populist politicians flashily eschew. […] And Gulfstream itself doesn’t exactly reject the private jet’s symbolic weight: “Ownership is not for everyone,” brags a promotional piece for the G650. But I get [the Gulfstream's] point: buyers of private jets do not warehouse or display the things; they use them. Makers of and shoppers for all sorts of objects almost always insist that they care about form and function, not symbolism. It may be that for Gulfstream and its customers, this is actually true.”
So that’s ok then. Because these are executives, productive members of society, interested in “productivity, efficiency”, ‘actually using the things’, “care about form and function”, then the emperor in fact has clothes, $65 million dollar clothes, and this patently unjustifiable luxury is not just justified but part of the ideological base of capitalism itself—that its about markets, utility, functionality, exchange value, and not exorbitance, rapacity, debt, and inequality.
That insistence on ‘productivity’, ‘efficiency’, ‘use’, and ‘care for form and function’ is exactly the kind of capitalistic/industrialist language which erects a mask of ‘positive’ ‘values’ around a rapacious system and against which the so called indolence and narcisism of the Artist—as emblematized/scapegoated by the MFA student—revolts against. In which case I say, let’s not let these assholes set us against each other and shift the attention off their own always justifiable ‘values’. All writers, all Artists, those in academia and those outside, should all stand shoulder to shoulder in pursuing the useless expenditure of Art, whether that uselessness takes the form of MFA studies, or community workshops, or slams, or presses, or Youtube reading tours, or anarchic in-house performances, or library reading series, or self-published blogs,or just writing a poem in your notebook, crumpling it up and trashing it, if $65million dollar jets is what ‘productivity’ and ‘efficiency’ and ‘usefulness’ and ‘care for form and function’ look like.
December 2nd, 2010 on 5:08 pm
And to answer a charge floated on facebook, there isn’t anything ‘wrong’ with white-collar working (I’m a white-collar worker) but there is something ‘wrong’ with acting like there’s something ennobling about that, that it keeps you ‘in touch’ with the people to have such a position vs. work in academia, or that you are less insulated/pampered in such a position than a graduate student. That’s just bullshit and part of a series of bait-and-switches by which capitalism justifies itself by making justification itself seem all important.
December 2nd, 2010 on 5:26 pm
i thought most of the MFA trash talk was directed at MFA programs–not students–for this:
“precarious financial situations—fellowships have been cut or reduced, travel funding is not existent, they don’t teach, or if they do teach, they are underpaid or not paid at all (with a tuition waiver, for example—try taking that to Food Lion), they don’t have insurance, they have no security from semester to semester or year to year.”
i got too tired of keeping up with trash talk anyway, so i didn’t read the whole MFA vs. NYC article, but the system still sucks! thus my distaste is still present, particularly when i recall my lukewarm workshop experiences, which i don’t even want to think about anymore, so ugh at everything sometimes
December 2nd, 2010 on 6:02 pm
What’s a Dana Goia?
December 2nd, 2010 on 6:06 pm
a kind of toy
December 2nd, 2010 on 6:11 pm
I’m going to make an entirely useless gesture. I’ll copy and paste the last sentence of this post here.
All writers, all Artists, those in academia and those outside, should all stand shoulder to shoulder in pursuing the useless expenditure of Art, whether that uselessness takes the form of MFA studies, or community workshops, or slams, or presses, or Youtube reading tours, or anarchic in-house performances, or library reading series, or self-published blogs,or just writing a poem in your notebook, crumpling it up and trashing it, if $65million dollar jets is what ‘productivity’ and ‘efficiency’ and ‘usefulness’ and ‘care for form and function’ look like.
December 2nd, 2010 on 6:14 pm
Also the great thing about Dana Gioia is that it doesn’t need to be translated, because it already means something in every language; it means ‘father’ in baby-babel, ‘hobby=horse’ in french, nursemaid in Italian/Swahili… like ‘blurb’ or ‘snark’.
But to respond to Vicky’s serious point: your critiques are sadly correct from the POV of too many MFA graduate students (disappointing curriculum, bad financial support), but the point of my post is to defend MFA students themselves against those who would critique them as being isolated, pampered, not experiencing the ‘real world’.
December 2nd, 2010 on 6:53 pm
Wow, a lot of funny stuff in that screed.
1. “that there’s something wrong about wanting to be a writer and wanting to take 2 or 3 years of your life and focus on your writing.”
- Nothing wrong with it. You could take 2 or 3 years to learn to skateboard and that is fine too. But does that mean we need 854 graduate degree programs in skateboarding?
2. Insurance agents are not “pampered pigs”. That’s a tough gig and the average salary is something like $45,000. Not sure about Kraft execs.
3. “against which the so called indolence and narcisism of the Artist—as emblematized/scapegoated by the MFA student—revolts against.”
- MFA students are revolting against capitalism? Really? By paying a capitalist institution to teach them to be Artists? Ok, not exactly the Weather Underground but whatever.
4. “I can’t understand why someone deserves a fucking medal (literally) for holding down a white collar job while writing poetry (Dana Goia).”
-Dude, try working 60-80 hours per week in a high stress industry and still finding time and inspiration in the evenings to write a meaningful poetry collection. Now try doing it while raising kids. You may think you deserve a medal afterward.
5. I’m not sure the choice is between being an MFA student or a corporate pig in a $65M jet. Bukowski worked at the post office, Robert Frost worked in a lightbulb factory, Walt Whitman was an apprentice printer, etc. They weren’t MFA students, but I think their commitment to writing and Art was pretty “visible and measurable.”
If MFA students are anti-capitalist martyrs for Art (capital “A”), this capitalist system is sure producing a bumper crop of them.
December 2nd, 2010 on 6:59 pm
Thanks, Ms. McSweeney. That needed to be said, and you said it well.
December 2nd, 2010 on 7:13 pm
Your argument devolves into, “How can you criticize a poor MFA student when there are nasty people out there who have the nerve to fly unnecessarily private jets?”
That argument undermines your whole point as there are plenty of people out there who criticize MFA students AND think private jets are ridiculous.
Moreover, there are plenty of people who work terrible, entry-level jobs that provide about as much security and as many benefits as MFA students receive (none and noner) and don’t have the luxury of sitting around dedicating their lives to “art” (see? I can use scare quotes too, and I only have a BA), instead soothing themselves with the idea of free pretzel day.
Arguments like the one you just made are why people think MFA students are pampered pigs.
December 2nd, 2010 on 7:15 pm
Not to mention that by joining an MFA program and paying $20,000-$40,000, you’re not exactly fighting the capitalist pigs you seem to detest so much.
December 2nd, 2010 on 7:24 pm
hot damn!
December 2nd, 2010 on 7:31 pm
thank you, sister. seriously. whenever artists carve out artistic time–time that gives us back the body, the mind, humanity, connectivity, that tugs and waylays on the teleology of capitalist allotments like a mofo freak wave–they are castigated, or in worse times, persecuted. which is all the more reason artists should, whenever possible, turn this shit inside out.
Žižek ::: “we are approaching a situation [. . .] that no longer needs democracy. [. . .] Capitalism functions inherently not as private egotism and greed but almost as a kind of religion: profit matters, things must expand, things must develop, and even if we all go to hell it has to reproduce itself.”
December 2nd, 2010 on 7:40 pm
Yes and yes, but one quibble: The “obesity epidemic” can’t be directly linked to saturated fat. Not at all. Humans have been eating saturated fat for like, ever. Also most cultures eat more saturated fat than us and aren’t nearly as fat.
Just, you know, trying to keep the fallacies to a minimum. But I agree, we should stop acting like art is a shameful act.
December 2nd, 2010 on 7:47 pm
hopefully FW will show up and talk about how these poets SHOULD be poor, they SHOULD be suffering, only REAL artists suffer, only REAL artists live isolation: the SINGULAR GENIUS. suffer for your craft! a lack of healthcare is GOOD for your poetry.
December 2nd, 2010 on 7:52 pm
MFA students are insulated and do not experience the “real world”, if by this one means the market. They aren’t living in luxury, but the opportunity itself, in a market-driven economy, is a luxury, is it not? The ability to be immersed in a community of kindred souls, pursuing something which holds no inherent monetary value. You bring up the Kraft executives, but what about the guy who owns the dry cleaning business and works 80 hours a week to keep his doors open? That’s the real world for a lot of people who aren’t buying Gulfstream jets. Who can’t afford health insurance. By comparison, the lucky few writers talented enough to spend a couple of years writing, working closely with noted authors on their manuscripts, immersed in a culture they love and receiving any kind of financial assistance to do so, seem a bit pampered and isolated to me.
December 2nd, 2010 on 7:54 pm
Who bashed MFA students on the grounds that they’re pampered? I’ve read lots of MFA program bashing, much of it ill-informed, but I’ve never read anything bashing the students as pampered. Who’s the asshat?
Bob
December 2nd, 2010 on 8:00 pm
I’m a Ph.D. student, but many of my colleagues are MFA students who teach, take out loans, and work any number of other gigs in order to dedicate themselves their craft or art or whatever you want to call it. So, for the most part, spot-on.
But also: come on. You must know (because I certainly know) there IS a certain kind of MFA student in it for reasons ranging from boredom to the cosmetic value of an MFA, for reasons have nothing to do with the laudable qualities you list. Yes, fuck capitalism and its sponsors, but the cosmetic MFA is conspicuous consumption for those who can afford it.
$65 million for a jet is only appalling when that jet is basically just there to lug some CEO’s ego around the country – it might be well worth it if the jet were, say, shuttling antibiotics to Haiti. Just so, MFA’s should defend themselves and what they do – it IS vital, important, great, and so on. But for some (and really just a few probably), an MFA is just another overpriced accessory, the purchase of which devalues the enterprise for those who’ve staked the rest of their lives on it.
December 2nd, 2010 on 8:07 pm
A lot of rambling here and I don’t know how you got to the end from where you started. As a former MFA student myself laden with debt, all I can say is, MFA is useless.
December 2nd, 2010 on 8:13 pm
Whoa! Big dustup on this at Rumpus.
http://therumpus.net/2010/12/lay-off-the-motherfing-mfa-students/#comments
December 2nd, 2010 on 9:01 pm
Aaron, I think I said this to you somewhere else, but by the magic of cut-and-paste, here it is again!
Aaron:
Most universities and colleges are nfp, not capitalist institutions. Many MFA programs are at state institutions, which by law cannot turn a profit. I’m not sure if Phoenix University offers an MFA in creative writing, emphasis poetry or fiction!
But going on from that, this blog post may have meandered a little from the point. I think the main take-away here (and I’m probably taking liberties in this interpretation) is that there’s nothing wrong with pursuing one’s art in academia. A student’s life is not luxurious; any college student (grad, undergrad) could tell you that. Tuition is high and growing, jobs one get on campus are low-paying, and fellowships are very few. Many students have to supplement their education with (dare I say it?) a white collar job. Or a pink or blue collar one.
Our education system, overall, has turned into a goal-driven system–I’m here to get a job in X, instead of a system where it is education for the sake of itself. I know I may be idealistic when saying that one can be in college, or grad school, or whatever, for the love and interest in a particular subject and that the university–especially the liberal arts education–has been and is moving away from this recently (ahem: how much does a philosopher make? How about a classicist? Not everyone can be on a PBS documentary as a scholar!). Yes, many of our schools are not profit driven, but so many endowments and monies are lost, many schools are seeking money to help continue to bankroll their institutions. But many university and college departments are holding on to their “useless” programs for dear life, for the love of the subject. And many “pampered” writers and other artists and scholars keep going to school because they have to. They, like me, need more knowledge come Hell, high water, or student loans.
December 2nd, 2010 on 9:37 pm
Thanks, Joyelle; lots of good points here. Re Gioia: he was at General Foods, where he worked (I hear) on Jell-O. Cholesterol free!
The sanctimonious denigration of MFA students by a PhD student for “cosmetic” degrees is hilarious. MFA students still have their arts (or have been disabused regarding their abilities), whereas PhDs are a bit more bereft in this job market. 300 applicants for our current American Literature position, for example. Just sayin’. Good luck, everyone.
December 2nd, 2010 on 9:39 pm
LF: and don’t have the luxury of sitting around dedicating their lives to “art”
Score one for Joyelle.
December 3rd, 2010 on 12:59 am
“MFA students are insulated and do not experience the “real world”, if by this one means the market. They aren’t living in luxury, but the opportunity itself, in a market-driven economy, is a luxury, is it not? [....]
By comparison, the lucky few writers talented enough to spend a couple of years writing, working closely with noted authors on their manuscripts, immersed in a culture they love and receiving any kind of financial assistance to do so, seem a bit pampered and isolated to me.”
Horse shit.
Likewise: “an MFA is useless.”
Any opportunity is useless for someone who engages it passively, without intent. For others, who have diligence, an MFA can be a high-octane event.
December 3rd, 2010 on 2:18 am
Calling an MFA useless is a compliment; art is useless. Anyone who gets an MFA thinking it will earn them anything tangible deserves all the disappointment & bitterness they’ll soon encounter. If you earn 1-2 trusted readers out of the whole thing you made out like a bandit, count your blessings.
RE: all that stuff Joyelle said–yeah, basically. Though I think most MFA students are fine with people shitting on them, it’s sort of a requisite talent for any artist to have, I think. If our parents love us they’ll try and dissuade us at least a little, and the rest of the pragmatic world couldn’t care less about us past unimaginative and usually brief mockery, which we’re used to & bored by anyway.
All that said, I’m down for this & any other anti-Gioia rhetoric to be had.
December 3rd, 2010 on 3:58 am
I never knew how totally anti-capitalist “high-octane” mfa programs, and voting for Obama was (citation needed).
dana goia is bad!
y’all are crypto-fascists. I might respect you more if you just rolled with it.
hey thx for letting me contribute nothing to this conversation except my total contempt. bye!
December 3rd, 2010 on 4:50 am
Janet – I thought I went out of my way to stress how much I respect people who are going for/have received their MFA. Sorry if that came off as sanctimonious. Though, I have met plenty of pretentious, talentless hacks who think their MFA entitles them to something. Again, this doesn’t denigrate the degree itself, but I wouldn’t conflate “having an MFA” and “being an artist” just as I wouldn’t conflate “having a PhD” and “being a scholar.”
And while I’m here, I love this idea that, while MFAs “have their art,” which they’ve honed in their program, a critic or scholar who comes out of a PhD program comes out with nothing.
December 3rd, 2010 on 4:53 am
Thanks Joyelle! It’s encouraging to hear someone speak with compassion about MFA students for once.
I think those who delight in dragging MFA students through the mud are deeply uncomfortable with the democratization of art-making. There shouldn’t be so many programs. It shouldn’t be so easy to learn. It shouldn’t be so easy to get published… give readings, be read, etc. They are nostalgic for a world that had less writers and less books. When only a few extremely privileged or lucky people could become artists.
But instead of saying this directly, or attacking the college administrators who form MFA programs (or those writers who teach in them), the haters go after the more vulnerable group: the students who have the gaul to attend these classes. Students who threaten the world of letters simply with their passion for literature and their stubborn optimism about building lives for themselves that include art-making.
I am bored with attempts to intimidate, humiliate, discredit, and silence would-be writers. Surely these energies could be put to better use elsewhere.
December 3rd, 2010 on 8:23 am
Ian:
“As a former MFA student myself laden with debt, all I can say is, MFA is useless.”
The MFA is designed to give you time to apply yourself to your craft. If you found it useless, then you fall into one of three options: 1) you didn’t have the work ethic required to take advantage of the opportunity; 2) you didn’t have the talent required to take the next step; or 3) both.
An MFA is not about the degree…and for that matter, writing is not about the end product. It’s about the work. And if you paid attention to your MFA, and didn’t either a) drink yourself into a stereotype, or b) play XBox into oblivion during your years, you’d probably have picked that up.
Are there superfluous programs out there? Sure. Are there bad instructors out there? You bet. Are state universities in the business for the money? Oh, hell yes. Just because a state university is “legally prevented from making money” does not mean they don’t. Hello…endowment funds, anyone?
God I love capitalism. And I mean that. Because in the end, the superfluous programs will fall by the wayside. Those programs that cannot showcase their value will go away; those that can will thrive. It’s as simple as market pressures. Those apply to MFA programs, too.
My advice to future MFA students, as I graduate this spring: Work. Push the envelope of your program and refuse to take ‘no’ for an answer. Do what the other writers won’t do to make yourself better. Seek out the best professors, the best writers for you to learn from, and suck their heads dry. Put fingers to keyboard, pen to paper. Write. Create. You’ll never get this chance again, so make the most of it.
MFA worked for me. I’m a playwright, and I’ve seen a tremendous increase in my staged productions, I’ve seen my work go up from East Coast to West; I’ve been lucky. But I’ve also earned my luck. And tomorrow, I’m going to get up and earn it again. And I wish all of you the best possible luck for you to go out and earn in your programs as well.
Keaton
December 3rd, 2010 on 4:01 pm
Great post. The argument most often levied against MFA students is that they aren’t producing good work because they are pampered/over-taught/under-taught/etc. In point of fact, I’ve known many students and visited multiple programs, and nobody has ever had any illusions about the difficulty of this endeavor. Whether their goal is to “make it” or to simply attend the program and see where it takes them (a “cosmetic” degree, as someone called it), it’s equally difficult either way. I’m currently enrolled in an MFA program, and I was extremely fortunate to get enough financial assistance so that I could cover tuition. Beyond that, I teach comp classes and make about 10k a year (teaching 2 classes per semester). I consider myself very lucky in comparison to the other people in the program, who didn’t get tuition money. Many don’t have the opportunity to teach, and I have no idea how they pay for everything. Others have to pay their tuition and live on 10k per year. These people have to make time to create lesson plans, teach, grade papers, hold office hours, attend their MFA classes, and (oh yeah) write. It’s actually a little unbelievable to me that we all do this, but many of us do it pretty well. We are underpaid, overworked, and very happy with it all. We’ve chosen this life, we knew it when we applied and accepted, but it’s really nice for someone to say something on our behalf. After all, we are (as Joyelle indicated here), the largest identifiable culture of artists in America, but we so rarely stick up for ourselves, knowing that there will always be so many voices telling us we don’t know enough/aren’t good enough/haven’t accomplished enough to know what we’re talking about.
December 3rd, 2010 on 5:21 pm
I must be the most out-of-the-loop guy on earth, in that I still don’t know who the “haters” are who have bashed MFA students. Seriously: can someone give me a name? Before I join in hating the haters (which I’m willing to do) I’d like to actually see one of their arguments. Otherwise we’re just setting fire to a straw man, right?
Bob
December 3rd, 2010 on 5:30 pm
Bob, I refuse to believe you’ve never noticed this. There’s even some of it in the comment field here!!! Just read just about any article on the MFA.
Johannes
December 3rd, 2010 on 6:02 pm
[...] McSweeney at Montevidayo, “Lay off the Motherf$%ing MFA Students,” here, and which I appreciate for her fierce defense of students who have prioritized in their lives [...]
December 3rd, 2010 on 6:25 pm
The self-perception of MFA students as evidenced by this article and its comments is hilarious. A sampling of quotes:
“MFA students are continuously flogged for, even by other writers, even by fucking FACULTY MEMBERS of MFA programs!” – McSweeney
“they are castigated, or in worse times, persecuted.” – Lonsinger
“sanctimonious denigration of MFA students” -Janet
“most MFA students are fine with people shitting on them” -Smith
“the haters go after the more vulnerable group: the students who have the gaul to attend these classes.” – Meryl
“attempts to intimidate, humiliate, discredit, and silence would-be writers.” -Meryl again
“These people have to make time to create lesson plans, teach, grade papers, hold office hours, attend their MFA classes, and (oh yeah) write.” – Ron
Gee, you MFA students are pretty much the most persecuted, put-upon group in the world. You sometimes even have to teach AND attend classes. Does the UN Human Rights Commission know about this?
December 3rd, 2010 on 6:28 pm
Over on Facebook you steered me to two piece, one by John Barr and one by Dana Gioia (http://www.danagioia.net/essays/ebohemia.htm). Neither bashed MFA students for being pampered.
Here are the posts I made on FB:
I just re-read the link to Gioia that Spencer added. The only reference to MFA students in this 16 year old article is this:
“A young poet is more likely than ever to go through a graduate writing program, but MFA’s are less likely than ever to stay there professionally. The question is where will these people go? What will they do with themselves?”
This sounds sympathetic — he’s sad that the job prospects seem limited for MFA students. I mean, there are all kinds of reasons to disagree with Gioia, but this article is not evidence of bashing MFA students for being pampered. I’ll go back to Barr and look elsewhere in Gioia — both of them have issues with MFA programs, but I don’t see the evidence for student-bashing in the piece you mentioned.
I’m just still looking for someone who actually says the things Joyelle implies are being said. I just re-read John Barr’s main salvo into the whole MFA debate (it is up here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=178560). Didn’t find anything much there about students. He says MFA programs can make you a better writer, but that they can also lead people to write in a narrower range of styles. I’m not sure whether that’s true or not, but it is an attack on an institution, combined with praise for that institution, not an attack on students. He does have a bit about professors that can be seen as unflattering — “an academic life removes them yet further from a general audience” — although I know a lot of poets who think of writing for a non-general audience as a good thing. Anyway, still nothing bashing pampered students. I don’t know where I left my copy of “Can Poetry Matter” — is that where we’re meant to find the evidence?
As for bashing in this thread — well, that can’t be what the main post is responding to. Or do you mean you hear stuff like that all the time? I’ve been looking for a piece of writing that bashes the students for being pampered pigs and I keep coming up empty handed.
I’d actually like to see Gioia or Barr saying something about the pampered students. I’ve disagreed with them both about MFA programs in print, and I’d like to have them made a move as dumb as attacking the students — it’d make for an easy target.
Bob
December 3rd, 2010 on 6:37 pm
@Johannes re: the goia toy,
Capitalism is not the enemy. These things sell like crazy. Problem is the where proceeds go.
Creative people should have better attitudes about each other. The environment is perceived to be very competitive, so I guess that gets in the way of departmental camaraderie.
Suggestion: give energy to what’s most important, like making imaginative work and helping each other.
Besides, the rent’s too damn high.
Creative headspace gets crowded out by market concerns.
How am I going to pay my bills with this sestina?
Let there be no MFA bashing and no talk of capitalist pigs.
Mostly, let there be no anti-MFA talk.
Is this Poetry v. Market?
December 3rd, 2010 on 7:21 pm
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December 3rd, 2010 on 7:34 pm
I’m confused as to why this rant singles out Dana Gioia, former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, as a foe of MFA programs. Dana hired me in 2006 straight out of the Bennington Writing Seminars to work on The Big Read, an initiative that has provided educational materials and millions of dollars in funding to non-profits across the nation. Several staffers that Dana hired held MFAs, and I know with certainty that he wrote recommendation letters for others. While Dana does not believe that one must have an MFA to learn craft, he respected our commitment to learning and each person’s love of literature. He is incredibly intelligent and well-read. Attacking a fellow writer for having a successful career in addition to creating art makes little sense to me.
The MFA vs. non-MFA argument is silly. One can either write, or they can’t. How they acquired the skill is irrelevant. Attending the Bennington Writing Seminars was the best thing I have ever done for myself. I’m proud of my MFA. Likewise, I will always be grateful to Dana Gioia for giving me the opportunity to work on a program that aimed to restore reading to the center of American culture.
December 3rd, 2010 on 9:31 pm
Hi Molly,
There are some things Gioia’s said that I think aren’t accurate, but I’ve never read anything by him, or heard him say anything, that bashes MFA students. Maybe there’s something out there, but I’m not finding it.
Bob
December 3rd, 2010 on 9:39 pm
“My dear Sir
Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way. It is superbly sterile, and the note of its pleasure is sterility. If the contemplation of a work of art is followed by activity of any kind, the work is either of a very second-rate order, or the spectator has failed to realise the complete artistic impression.
A work of art is useless as a flower is useless. A flower blossoms for its own joy. We gain a moment of joy by looking at it. That is all that is to be said about our relations to flowers. Of course man may sell the flower, and so make it useful to him, but this has nothing to do with the flower. It is not part of its essence. It is accidental. It is a misuse. All this is I fear very obscure. But the subject is a long one.
Truly yours,
Oscar Wilde”
December 3rd, 2010 on 9:56 pm
Bob,
OK, fine, I’ll respond to this. I – not Joyelle – said that Goia and Barr had directly ripped on MFA students, but I’m really using them as tokens of sort of an attitude where ‘real work’ (ie being an executive) is somehow more ‘real’ or worthwhile than MFA programs. I could be wrong but I think Goia has an essay about this in his Can Poetry Matter book. That article is, more importantly, part of an overall rhetorical ambience through which many of these arguments take shape, and that’s the connection Joyelle is drawing here. I’m totally baffled at how pedantic your reading of this post is. And to claim that you’ve never heard anybody rip on MFA students is unbelievable at best, disingenious at worst (or maybe there’s something worse but I dont’ want to go there). You can see some of those sentiments in this very thread. I know you love to play “daddy voice of reason” but it’s really getting irritating.
Johannes
December 3rd, 2010 on 10:21 pm
Just to be clear, do we hate Dana Gioia because he (i) enjoyed success as a poet, (ii) has suggested that poetry shouldn’t be exclusively limited to academia, or (iii) once worked for General Foods?
I want to be specific in the hate mail I am preparing for him.
Thanks!
December 4th, 2010 on 5:21 pm
If my comment is being used as an example of these nebulous mfa student haters, no. No. I will stand with the anti-capitalist students, of course. But to claim that all mfa students are anti-capitalist by virtue of being mfa atudents is idiotic, as can be gleaned during a read through of the comments here in which a least a few of the people who are whole-heartedly agreeing with your rant are saying things such as ‘I love capitalism” and ‘capitalism is not the problem” etc. It would be a good train to jump on, and I do wish you would in an honest way, 100 days of obama stumpers
December 7th, 2010 on 6:21 pm
The smartest thing I’ve heard on the subject in a long, long time, and maybe the most accurate thing I’ve ever heard. So much of the ragging on MFA programs and MFA students, their degrees, writing, lives, clothes, mothers, and just about everything else you can imagine is based on what a few writing programs might have been like 40 years ago. They set these straw men on fire and think they’ve said something. No one with half a brain would get down on a musician for taking a music lesson, no one would get down on a visual artist for enrolling in a school that teaches art, so what gives when it comes to writing as an art? It’s because any dope who can pick up a pencil thinks My kid can do that!–and of course, the dumber your writing, the more likely it is to make money, also know as writing for television, Tom Clancy “novels,” Hallmark cards, etc., etc., and everywhere else where the voice of the dollar is the voice of god. So let’s all just say the hell with it, go write jingles for jello, then do close readings for this poetry for its cultural importance….
December 19th, 2010 on 6:32 am
MFA Programs are needed because they prevent people from writing like The Wolf. What good is trying to sound colloquial if you’re going to botch usage and syntax to the point at which you might as well be writing legalese? More air-quotes and references to Obama, please — and don’t leave out the Glenn Beck reference to “crypto-fascists” — a term used by Beck in the service of John Birch Society theory, but coined by Adorno to describe the very social forces that result in authoritarian industries like O’Reilly and Beck.
“(Citation needed)”? As if this guy has ever annotated his screeds correctly or made a coherent argument in his life! I’ve read smarter generalizations on the back of a Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle.
The wolf opined: “I never knew how totally anti-capitalist ‘high-octane’ mfa programs, and voting for Obama was (citation needed). . . . y’all are crypto-fascists. I might respect you more if you just rolled with it.”
March 5th, 2011 on 5:18 am
kill yourselves
April 11th, 2011 on 2:37 pm
[...] for the world it finds, but this anger has tempered somewhat since I corresponded with Beeny (and found this great little post about celebrating anyone who refuses to sell themselves to the mach…). Even the most narcissistic writers provide space for a modicum of perspective, he implied, making [...]
April 20th, 2011 on 6:13 am
[...] Lay off the Motherf$%ing MFA Students [...]
April 20th, 2011 on 6:15 am
Great post. I just created a small resource for MFA students of Creative Writing. I’m looking for responses and suggestions on how to make it more useful. Thanks.
May 4th, 2011 on 2:52 pm
[...] The antithesis of their populism is of course “academic” poetry, poetry of the classroom. Nevermind the huge irony (or hypocrisy) that their fundamental taste (and to some extent rhetoric) comes from New Criticism, and that a whole lot of their contributors are indeed professor and/or graduates of colleges, PhD and MFA programs. (For more thinking about the anti-kitsch rhetoric of people attacking “the MFA student,” ….) [...]