imaginative writing

When he didn’t get the creative writing teaching gig, the poet asked why: His c.v. lacked imagination, was the response he got.

religious perpetuation

Creative writing teachers who go on repeating the same pieties they’d learned when they were students.

craft spirit

Perhaps we need less of the creative spirit and more of the attention to craft.

oh goody

The covers of the leading magazines for writers have captions like: “More than 100 Opportunities for Grants, Awards & Publication” and “101 Contests with Upcoming Deadlines.”

believable beginning

Advice to the creative writer: Start with the credible.

propped up

One of those books filled with insipid writing prompts for the uninspired.

trading deadline

The MFA program traded its masthead Pulitzer Prize winner, a prima-donna by all accounts, for two poets with Pushcarts and a Lannan fellow to be named later.

higher calling

The poet was not teaching poetry writing, per se, he was teaching poetry.

regurgitative poetics

Too many teachers of creative writing are content with passing on received materials instead of finding their own pedagogical texts and promoting those.

prime directive

If MFA programs in creative writing did nothing else creating life-long readers would be a worthy accomplishment.

masthead

The program hired a masthead name not a poet, and certainly not a teacher.

creative writing

The creative writing professor crafted lovely glowing introductions for the famous visiting writers.

writing and writing about

To write about poetry, I must be writing poetry.