Category Archives: Education

Talking to tomorrow’s writers at Priory Academy.

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poet visit (1)

I recently spent an amazing two hours with some sixth-formers at the Priory Academy (LSST) in Lincoln. They’ve just embarked on the first year of their A-Level in Creative Writing.

While I was there I talked to them about the creative writing options available on the English degree at the University, told them a bit about my own career as a poet, read some of my poems and answered some very probing questions. Then I set them to work writing something of their own.

The results were very impressive – great ideas, real creativity and bags of enthusiasm. Not bad considering I gave them less than half an hour to do it in!

Many thanks to Sarah Oliver for organising the session (and to the other members of staff who came along). And special thanks to the writers themselves.

The Black Path free literary event, Wed 23 October.

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Don’t forget that there will be a free reading of work from The Black Path by last year’s students on the MA Creative Writing course.

The reading will take place in MC0025, 12.00 – 1.00, Wednesday 23 October (2013). Work will include poems, flash fiction and extracts from longer pieces.

Everyone welcome.

Poetry & Audience: 60th birthday at Leeds University.

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Prof John Whale holds sculpture by Hubert Dalwood bequeathed to P&A in its early days.

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Saturday, 19 October, 2013

Editors past and present, together with various poets, magazine editors and current students gathered at the School of English at Leeds University to celebrate 60 years of Poetry & Audience.

Poetry & Audience is one of the longest-running poetry magazines in the UK and owes its longevity as much to the frequently crisis-driven student-owned nature of its existence as to the commitment of the School of English. It also forms an integral part of the strong literary tradition of Leeds, which includes JRR Tolkien and poets such as Geoffrey Hill, James Kirkup, Tony Harrison, Ken Smith, Jeffrey Wainwright, Jon Glover, William Price (“Bill”) Turner, Paul Mills and many others.

The anniversary involved a roundtable discussion of poetry magazine publishing, readings by P&A poets and editors and individual accounts of the history of P&A (Michael Blackburn, Elaine Glover, John Goodby, Emma Must, Chris Nield, Antony Rowland, Jeffrey Wainwright).

The event was hosted by Prof John Whale, with sessions chaired by Fiona Becket, Hannah Copley and Emily Timms (who also arranged an exhibition of P&A materials). Many thanks to all of them and anyone who I’ve forgotten to mention.

Participants: Michel Blackburn, Carole Bromley, Elaine Glover, Evan Jones, Paul Maddern, Adam Piette, John Goodby, Jay Parker, Christie Oliver-Hobley, Sarah Webster, Amy Ramsey, Mick Gidley, Elaine Glover, Emma Must, Antony Rowland, Jeffrey Wainwright, Hannah Copley, Eleanor Ford, Daniel Boon.

Current and former students of Lincoln may want to submit work to P&A, of course.

Creative Writing MA students publish their first anthology.

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Students on the 2012-2013 year of the MA in Creative Writing have published an impressive paperback anthology of their own work.

The Black Path 1 (a second collection is nearing completion) comprises poems, flash fiction, short stories and novel extracts written by the students during the course of their studies.

What’s special about the book is that the students took the publishing initiative themselves, building on what they had learned during the MA. All the writing, collation, editing, design, typesetting and marketing is student-driven. Overall Editor is Shirley Bell, already a well-published poet.

The Black Path 1 is 132 pages long and can be bought from Amazon at £6.58.

A reading by contributors to the anthology will take place in the University on Wednesday, 23 October, 12.00 – 1.00 in room MC0025. More details to follow.

Contributors: Shirley Bell, Cassandra Cash, Stephen Blessett, Laura Clipson, Tina Daley, Stewart Norvill, Muayyad Elwaheidi, Jennifer Fytelson, Joel Leverton, Ian Turner, Matt Ellis and Rosemary Temple.

Publishing success for two of our MA Creative Writers.

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Two of our students, Jennifer Fytelson and Shirley Bell, have had poems accepted in magazines.

Jennifer recently had a poem in The Mitre, North America’s oldest literary magaine, published by Bishop’s University in Canada.

Shirley has a poem in a forthcoming issue of The Rialto, one of the UK’s top poetry magazines and publishers.

Congratulations to both of them!

What case for the Humanities?

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Dante

Stanley Fish:

Humanists are advised “to apply their work to the great challenges of the era as well as pursuing basic curiosity-driven research.” “Curiosity-driven” means driven simply by the desire (often obsessive) to determine the truth of a matter, independently of whether it is a truth that will rise to an era’s great challenges.

That of course is precisely how the academy, and especially the humanist academy, has traditionally been conceived — as a cloistered and separate area in which inquiry is engaged in for its own sake and not because it yields useful results. It is the rejection of this contemplative ideal in favor of various forms of instrumentalism that underlies the turn away from the humanist curriculum. The rhetoric of the report puts its authors on the side of that ideal, but when push comes to shove, they are all too ready to dilute it in the name of some large abstraction — democracy, culture, social progress, whatever. They are, in short, all too ready to depart from the heart of the matter.

Read on at NYTimes Opinionator.

Fay Weldon speaks up for creative writing.

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I would like to see a new discipline, called simply Literacy, taught in our universities and schools, so that the current outpouring of muddy texts can be replaced by a flow of elegant, informative and crystal-clear information – to the benefit of our national pride and dignity. In the meanwhile employers should note that an employee with a qualification in creative writing can be trusted not just to write simply and well, but to be empathic (the fiction writer spends a lot of time pretending to be other people) so is less likely to write tactless emails and cause a scandal unless intentionally. Creative writing is a degree in the effective management of words and emotion and an understanding of how they relate, and yes, it can be taught. And if I might add, should be.

Source: Fay Weldon in Times Higher Education.

 

Read some old books and do yourself a favour. My ancient classics reading list.

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Odysseus resisting the Sirens.

Odysseus resisting the Sirens.

Having posted a couple of reading lists recently I thought I’d compile one of my own.

The list forms an easy introduction to some of the classic works of western civilisation. “Classic” here refers to ancient Greece and Rome plus the Bible, which was produced in the same period.

I’ve put it together partly for my own benefit, to prompt me to do some re-reading but partly in the hope that others will use it. I’m thinking particularly of students of English literature, since an acquaintance with these and other works will prove invaluable in understanding and appreciating many of the texts they’ll be studying.

The texts have been spaced generously over a 12-month period so they can be easily accommodated in other reading.

The video The Essential Value of a Classical Education by Jeffrey Brenzel is a great intro to the whole area.

If anyone finds the list useful or wants to discuss any of the works included, please get in touch. You can always join me on Google+.

CLASSICAL FOUNDATION READING LIST/SCHEDULE

Month 1: The Theban Plays, Sophocles*

Month 2: The Iliad, Homer

Month 3: The Oresteia, Aeschylus**

Month 4: The Odyssey, Homer

Month 5: The Last Days of Socrates, Plato***

Month 6: Metamorphoses, Ovid

Month 7: Odes, Horace

Month 8: The Aeneid, Virgil

Month 9: The Nature of the Universe, Lucretius

Month 10: The Bible (King James Version only).The Old Testament: Genesis; Exodus

Month 11: The Old Testament: Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes

Month 12: The New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, plus Revelation.

* The Theban Plays: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone.

** The Oresteia: Agamemnon, The Choephori (The Libation-Bearers), The Eumenides.

*** The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo.

NB I haven’t specified which translations or versions of the texts. Most of my copies are old Penguin editions, but I will be buying newer ones and perhaps comparing different versions.

The only book where I have specified the version is the Bible. The King James (Authorised) version is important because the language itself has had such a powerful and lasting influence on literature in English.

UCL student wonders if English undergrads are getting a rotten deal?

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lsh

The other day I sat in a two-hour seminar on an 800-page novel and began to despair about studying English. The novel was a set text for an exam and that seminar was the only one we would have on it. I decided, yet again, I’d probably have to turn to SparkNotes.

When I applied to read English at UCL, I wish someone had told me I’d spend the next three years predominantly on my own. As Oxford student Anna Tankel puts it: “Sometimes I feel like I’m paying £9,000 a year to sit in a library with fancier desks than my public library.”

Read the article for yourself (source: Guardian).

Many students arrive not realising that studying at university is not the same as it is at school. If you’re studying English Literature then by definition you’ll be spending a lot of time on your own – reading books.

I’m sure the writer of the article is an assiduous student who turns up for all the lectures and seminars on her timetable. A lot of students don’t, though, which rather suggests they’re not bothered about having more contact time.