the rix mix

College creative writing classes can be peer pressure cookers, espcially with an inept or careless teacher. I know, I was in a few that broke down into cliques, & one in which the teacher incited terrible arguments between the male & female students while she sat cross-legged on the desk impassively munching trail mix. I dropped that course & filed a complaint with the Dept. Chair. Apparently I wasn't the only complainer, since her contract wasn't renewed. The good writers I studied with were good teachers, too, once I got used to their eccentricities. It was reported that Cho, an English major, had faced a concerned English teacher. The identity of that teacher was revealed as Nikki Giovanni, who had near pop star status in the late Sixties when poets could be celebs (She was billed as "The Princess of Black Poetry," a typically absurd conceit of the era - only "Godfather of Soul" went unchallenged), is so much shorter than me that I noticed, indomitable spirit, & managed in her younger years - not always convincingly - to negotiate a tricky path between the competing rhetorics of Black Power, feminism, & populist idealism, yet keep the "confessional" voice college kids liked in their poets. How many large schools have their famous poet teaching an undergrad Intro to Creative Writing? Just passing that course means you get to put it on your resume same as an MFA student. I heard Giovanni read a number of times when she was teaching at Rutgers, didn't care much for her early poems generally, enjoyed her views & attitude, have no idea what she's writing now, but that's neither here nor there. It's good - empowering even - to see a self-assured poet commanding a bard's role on behalf of her Virginia Tech community in a trying time; "witnessing" was the catch-word for it a few years back.

Labels: education, Rutgers