Teaching       CV

About Teaching

I was taught poetry at St. Mark's Poetry Project by Paul Violi, Bill Zavatsky, Alice Notley, Ted Berrigan, Jim Brodey with pinch-hitting by Charles North, and Tony Towle. The approach there which was entirely moving to me was the idea of the poet as working artist and the idea was that these people were "in the world" and not in any institution. I think part of this was about the summer of love (the year I graduated from high school) invading the East Village from '67 on and the govt wanting to do something for and about these kids. So workshops for alienated youth were set up at that time at what we called "The Church." Now I notice people call it "The Project." There was a great sense of satisfaction in having such a historic and well-positioned building to revel and be poets in. It felt like it was ours and I definitely grew up there and was honored to be its director by the time I was in my 30s. I guess it was an institution but it didn't feel that way for a long while. But that's where I learned abt poetry, seeing about 1-2000 readings there in my first ten years in New York.

Also I went to Queens College briefly to get an MA. I was in a workshop w Stephen Stepanchev and he turned me on to James Schuyler who I didn't know at all and O'Hara who I knew a bit. I've detailed everything I'm saying here much better in my novel The Inferno which I think will be out in about a year.

So I began teaching for a second in 1980 but then in '87 it took up speed and kept doing adjuncting around New York (see cv) but mostly independent workshops in and around NY usually in a gallery or a loft of someone in the workshop, and rarely in my home which felt much too personal. These were great and for me most felt like they carried on the model I received at St. Marks which was the poet kind of passing it on without having a job except this.

In 2002 I went to UC San Diego to be a Professor. Tenure, everything. I was directing the writing program there and even wrote a proposal to start an MFA. I couldn't stay long enough to see it happen. Since a UC professor is "vested" in five years after tenure, I in effect retired and UC is now contributing to my poethood, a great gift.

It was terrific to be hired, loved teaching there a lot, especially the massive poetry lectures which bumped up my workshop teaching skills in scale into a performance. It was maybe a little lonely in San Diego to live there but I made some good friends who I miss in the extreme and for instance will see some of them when I read at DG Wills in LaJolla.

Next spring, excitingly, I will be the Hugo Visiting Writer at U. of Montana, Missoula. I'll be teaching poetry and nonfiction.

I'll post in other short and long visiting teaching gigs down here.

Sept. 12, 2009