On Literary Community

At her blog swoonrocket, the poet Juliana Spahr writes, “to let [MFA] degree programs take over those loving institutions of community support that have for so long preserved literatures — such as the literary magazine and the reading series and the small press — is risky. It seems, for instance, that the growth of creative writing in universities and colleges has not lead to a parallel long term growth in the interest in literature. Almost weirdly the reverse. Although there is no evidence yet of a correlation and this is more an idle observation on my part — it seems peculiar to me that as more US citizens study creative writing in the academy that US citizens, as that NEA study showed, buy and read fewer books of literature every year.”

An interesting thought well-put. I've always been skeptical of academic hegemony and particularly of the MFA system; not that I have nothing but antipathy for these programs, only that I waver between accepting and denying their merits. The intrusion of university bureaucracies into literary communities permits a kind of artificial aristocracy, a form of official authority that springs from a title granted but not, necessarily, from respect earned (or work done). This is the reason that U35 POETRY @ The Marliave is an unaffiliated reading series. The series will fail or thrive on its own merit, but it will not be a class assignment, zombie-like and ever-revived by the steady pulse of incoming freshmen.