[Cwgrad-announcements] FW: New Job Listings on AWP eLink

Thu Sep 7 08:10:24 PDT 2006

Dear All,

In order to access the AWP Job List, you're welcome to use my user I.D. and
password: MSimon92521 and 3477.

See AWP announcements below, plus the diatribe from John Barr, the President
of the Poetry Foundation.  Send him your humorous poems!

Welcome to all our incoming MFA students!

Best wishes,
Maurya Simon

Dear AWP Member,

There are new job listings available on AWP eLink!  To view the new
positions, visit www.awpwriter.org. <http://www.awpwriter.org. />  Your user
name and password are
included at the end of this email.

A new online issue of the Job List is published the first week of every
month‹twelve online issues a year on AWP eLink. We will add new jobs, the
same week we receive them, to the monthly issues on eLink.

If you have any questions about AWP eLink, please contact our membership
services department at (703) 993-4301, or email services at awpwriter.org.

AWP 2007 CONFERENCE & BOOKFAIR IN ATLANTA!

Registration for AWP¹s 2007 Conference is open! AWP¹s 2007 Conference &
Bookfair will take place February 28March 3, 2007, at the Hilton Atlanta.
AWP¹s 2007 Conference will offer over 300 events, with presentations from
Barbara Kingsolver, Lee Smith, C.D. Wright, John Barth, Michael Martone,
Anne Beattie, Charles Wright, Kay Gibbons, Terrance Hayes, Elizabeth
Spencer, Les Murray, Tayari Jones, Coleman Barks, and many others. For more
information, visit us online at:
http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2007headliners.php

To register today and receive AWP¹s Early-bird registration rates visit us
ONLINE: http://storefront.awpwriter.org/

Or to register by phone you may contact us at 703-993-4301!

Book your hotel room today. This year, the Hilton Atlanta, our official
Conference site hotel, is offering a discount rate of $139 a night, for
single or double occupancy rooms. AWP's Conference hotels typically sell out
of rooms months in advance; so reserve your room soon to avoid
disappointment. To make your reservations today, please visit our online
Hotel & Travel page: http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2007hoteltravel.php

Discount travel through Northwest airlines will be available shortly.

AWP ELECTIONS

The individual members of AWP will elect, this fall, two candidates to
represent the needs of individual writers and teachers on the AWP Board of
Directors. To stand for election, a member of AWP must be nominated and
seconded by other members of AWP. Letters of nomination and seconds must be
signed hard copies, sent to AWP via U.S. postal service or another courier.
Letters of nomination and seconds must be received by AWP no later than
Friday, October 6th, 2006. Please see AWP eLink for more information. Go to:
AWP eLink >  AWP News > Governance.

GEORGE GARRETT AWARD

September 16th is the deadline for submitting letters to AWP to nominate
your favorite literary mover and shaker for the George Garrett Award for
Outstanding Community Service in Literature. Please visit our Web site for
criteria by which the AWP Board of Directors selects the annual recipient of
the award.

PRESIDENT OF POETRY FOUNDATION IMPLIES THAT MFA GRADS ARE REMOTE, DULL,
MOROSE, ARTISTICALLY IMPAIRED, SPIRITUALLY STAGNANT, AND POLITICALLY INERT
CARRERISTS AND MONOMANIACS

The following excerpt is from the September, 2006 issue of POETRY,
''American Poetry in the New Century,'' by John Barr, President of the
Poetry Foundation and investment banker for SG Barr Devlin:

     ''More than a decade ago, Dana Gioia recognized poetry's disjunction
from public life, in his seminal essay, ŒCan Poetry Matter?¹ The question
still pertains.  Lacking a general audience, poets still write for one
another. (Witness the growth of writing workshops and the MFA program.)
Because the book-buying public does not buy their work, at least not in
commercial quantities, they cannot support themselves as writers. So they
teach. But an academic life removes them yet further from a general
audience. Each year, MFA programs graduate thousand of students who have
been trained to think of poetry as a career, and to think poetry has
something to do with credentials. The effect of these programs on the art
form is to increase the abundance of poetry, but to limit its variety. The
result is a poetry that is neither robust, resonant, nor---and I stress this
quality---entertaining; a poetry that both starves and flourishes on
academic subsides.

     ''Not surprisingly, poetry has a morale problem. A few years ago I read
a review, in the Sunday Times, of three books of poetry. One was about the
agonies of old age, one about bombed-out Ireland, one about the poet's dead
father. The question arises: how does one rouse an entire art form out of a
bad mood? Of course the tragic has a place in poetry. Indeed one of poetry's
jobs is to descant on the worst that life can hand us. As Yeats said, let
'soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing / For every tatter in its
mortal dress.' But art should not be only about malfunction. Poetry need not
come only from impairment. To the extent it does, it makes for a poetry that
is monotonic---mono-moodic, if you will. . . . Poetry's limitations today
come not from failures of craft (the MFA programs attend to that) but from
afflictions of spirit. American poetry has yet to produce its Mark Twain.

     ''The combined effects of public neglect and careerism, then, are
intellectual and spiritual stagnation in the art form. Although poets pride
themselves on their independence, when did you last read a poem whose
political vision truly surprised or challenged you? Attitude has replaced
intellect.''

Clearly, Mr. Barr needs some cheering up. Send your favorite, humorous
contemporary poem to: The President, Poetry Foundation, 444 North Michigan
Ave., Suite 1850, Chicago, IL 60611.

Thank you for supporting AWP.

YOUR USER NAME IS:  MSimon92521
YOUR PASSWORD IS:  3477
YOUR MEMBERSHIP EXPIRES ON:  9/2/2007

Maurya Simon

Professor 
Department of Creative Writing
University of California Riverside
900 University Avenue
Riverside, CA 92521-0318

TEL. (951) 827-2006 (office)

FAX: (951) 827-3619 

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