Pedagogy Forum, Week 3

In an interview with poet/teachers Anna Leahy and Larissa Szporluk, “Good Counsel: A Conversation About Poetry Writing, the Imagination, and Teaching,” the (almost tired question at this point) poets discuss—Can creative writing be taught? Leahy expressed issue with the fact that even as creative writing as a course has grown significantly since the 70s people still seem to be asking that question—the old argument that genius and creativity arise out of nowhere, a vacuum, a muse of inspiration. Simply not true Leahy and Szporluck’s interview argues and certainly our class syllabus would back that statement up as well. I think the fact that is question of teaching creative writing—can it be done?—is still being asked then it is still a myth to a lot of young writers that they can only write when that lightning bolt of ideas hits. The two teachers here hold strong to the benefits of mentorship in a workshop environment and creative writing community—teachers, other poets, simple steady reading of collections, etc. Szporluck asks: “If mentorship can act as a kind of stand-in for talent, what kinds of mentorship activities are especially effective in fostering truly innovative and skillful writers?” This is a very important question for future teachers of poetry and their mentorship with their students. She answers herself in stating: imitation and encouraging imitation—“I find imitation exercises to be fantastic shortcuts to learning. I’ll ask students to imitate a Hopkins poem and suddenly they’re using alliteration and consonance and internal rhyme and performing technical feats and learning much more than they would by just listening to me discuss Hopkins.” This is exciting and encouraging for me as I hope to take on students of my own soon. I plan to teach this way, by way of imitation, as one tool to get students writing, because I have experienced it as a student myself and find it extremely helpful. Our improvs that are part of our weekly routine as a class has become the way in which I start to write. I have produced numerous poems that I am proud through this technique. One comment that Szporluck makes toward the end of the interview that really resonates with me is this: “Imitation teaches you how to be original while using conventional techniques. Invention teaches you how to combine, how to associate, so that when you encounter deep imagination, you trust what happens there. Deep imagination is where you surrender to creative energy; you follow along, and use your skills instinctively, not consciously.”