Hanif Kureshi is one of the more celebrated writers in Britain at the moment - and he's known to have a Swiftian urge to his writing. He's been at the Hay festival, sponsored by The Guardian, where he was no doubt encouraged to say inflammatory things, to earn his keep; the rotten truth about the media-literary nexus these days is they make every writer perform like a two-bit Oscar Wilde to oil the wheels of interest. The books, the writing, never enough for them - a story is required. They got one. Just saw this. If indeed Kureshi did make these remarks, it is disappointing. They're just basically silly and counter-factual.I am a visiting writer at Kingston University, where he also teaches creative writing. I know he's inspired a few good writers there since he arrived. These comments - even taken lightly, in a spirit of '68ism - well, they do tend to damage the enterprise of creative writing teaching. His comments boil down to three points: 1) creative writing students are the rampaging killers of America; 2) creative writing is the new mental hospital for our time; and 3) one can't grade creative writing.
Firstly, mass killers in America and elsewhere are not always, or even usually, in recognised creative writing departments; the fact that crazy people leave messages and notes (more and often televisual or digital in nature) doesn't relate to the teaching of writing, so much as the instinctual urge within all persons to want to inscribe their fates into being; 2) the new mental hospitals of our time are more likely literary festivals and junkets for celebrity writers. Most creative writing students are serious, talented people. 3) Creative writing assignments are evaluated, just as all writing work submitted at university is. To suggest it is impossible to grade a creative writing paper is to equate all "creative writing" with some ineffable idea of "genius" - untouchable by consideration, and not requiring improvement. In fact, writing skills can be and are taught, and the workshop environment encourages editing and other skills that every writer can certainly find useful.
Several Kingston students I have taught have been very successful so far, and one, at least, has a half million dollar American book deal - which is not really mental hospital stuff. I suggest that "big name" writers, who don't believe that creative writing "works" should stop taking the money these positions offer - otherwise, they begin to look like Tartuffes.
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I spent three yrs studying a writing and drama degree at the age of 35, after ending up fit for nothing else, and glad to have found a last refuge in which to re-contextualise life long unemployment into the one true cause of Art.
Not that i knew that then of course. my worst case scenario was that i would discover i was conning myself. That i would come across one person who put me off altogether by making me feel an utter fake.
But i was lucky. The college - efge hill - is in my home town of Ormskirk in Lancashire and the head of the CW is robert sheppard, from the Bob Cobbing school, and perfect person for this role, as i am naturally drawn to the lyric measure but three years of poetry modules which started at Pound and terminated at the gates of Langpo, was perfect really, as it forced me to take on a tradition i would not have naturally gravitated towards.
Also, being an anonymous college, there were no expectations that would come with learning under a more famous name.
The part of the course robert reckoned was innovative and got the brownie points of the educator-measurers, was that every piece had to be accompanied by a speculative piece of writing, in the form of a self assessment, which by the thirds yr, had really proved itself, as it lead into the are of discourse-with-self, from which a poetic can firm up.
All in all though, the main demographic of the course was young women wanting to be JK, and i kept notes from the first day to final, and it was very beneficial, gaining the freedom to just write in public, in a space which (though only academic) allowed the neophyte the space and time to get that all important belief, and to see if writing was for them.
That was roberts rational for the course, that it won't make anyone a writer, but they will have a pretty good idea if they want to be one, having got a taste of what the reality involves.
At the final class, we were all asked what we had learned, and the answer i most admired, was a young fella who said he had learnt, that he didn't want to be a wrioter, at least not for now, and had chosen instead to join the army.
By the end, it was clear who in the group had what and how much commitment, and the most important thing i learned, was that writing, really, it doesn't matter who writes what, and all a tutor can do is encourage us, a silent thimbs up and *go on mah sun* the best we can hope for, as one of the worst things is other writer's ego.
The way i see it, if someone wants to write the numer 23 over and over again for the rest of their life, say good luck to them and be supportive. Why slag off the ones with less knowledge and talent than ourselves. And we can do this honestly, as Heaney's prose proves.
He is radically different than most, as i believe towers above other poets in this area of critical intelligence. He said:
"poetry can be as potentially redemptive and possibly as illusory as love".
90% and more of what he writes, seeks out the positive, as he is the best and doesn't have any rivals near him, as he lets the writing do the talking and says good things, as he knows it is a waste of time pointing out what is wrong, but what is right.
At the end of the day, eternity is a long time and all our writing will pass into obscurity, so be happy, or rather, the key to it i reckon, is getting happy and writing in that state. And if it is the writing keeping us going, as RS Graham said "the act of writing poetry is my only salvation"
Or kavanagh, one day we dabble and eventually we wake up realising we are addicted, and my basic philosophy is, to say good things, lead by example and let everyone have their moment being heard, simple democratic humanism, rather than the Leavis inspired side-shows which begin with the obsession of grading talent.
There must be some other way to talk about potential disillusionment for CW students, though.