In his recent article in Poets & Writers, Timothy Schaffert* quotes Jason Sanford as saying that once outsiders succeed in breaking in (the gates of the literary establishment) they become exactly what they were trying to overthrow.
I suppose there are people who fit that description, but they are not who I think of when I speak of outsiders.
Perhaps to Sanford, outsiders are like minor league baseball players, always trying to improve their game enough to get that call up to the majors. That could mean earning an MFA or PHD in English or Creative Writing, finding a teaching post, seeking tenure, searching for grants and stipends, and perhaps, eventually, being appointed to an endowed chair at a prestigious university.
Let me be so arrogant as to suggest that the above-described path may not appeal to everyone interested in writing. Let me be so bold as to infer that some writers might be independent minded enough that they’d rather work for an hourly wage than play the game of becoming a literary academic.
When it comes to the moniker “outsider” there are as many options as there are writers.
There may be multiple career paths for prose writers: Journalism, Technical Writing, Advertising, Travel Writing and so forth. A few persistent writers will pen a successful novel or play. But when one poet meets another, a first query is often “Where do you teach?” This is assumed, because not even the U.S. Poet Laureate can earn a living from writing poetry. But if there is no way around that, what difference does it make whether one teaches or builds houses? Whether one conducts writer’s workshops or works as a debt counselor, a welder, a waitress or a waste water treatment technician?
Now I’ve got nothing against people who have the time and money to pursue a degree in writing. Everyone has to learn certain things one way or another. A university education may be a short cut to that end. But paying tuition so that someone who can’t make a living writing can teach you how to not make a living writing doesn’t seem fiscally prudent in any economy.
The NCAA advertises that most college athletes plan to go pro in something besides their sport. Most have degrees in something besides the sport related fields of study.
I know many fine writers who have gone to school but majored in something besides English. I know many fine writers who went to school while they also worked at something else. And I know many fine writers who have never darkened the doorway of a college classroom. If I listed names I’d start something, either by inclusion or exclusion, so I’m going to refrain and hope you can come up with examples from your own reading.
When I read I’m looking for something that punches me in the face. I am not interested in tired, worn, boring lines. I am not looking for the author’s name, or where he published his last piece. When I write, I’m looking to do the same thing for someone else, punch him in the face. By the nature of our differences, I will not be able to write something that appeals to everyone without thinning it down to something so insipid it won’t inspire anyone. In the end, what we do to pay the bills doesn’t count for anything. Once we put them out there, the words must stand by themselves.
As I grow more critical I am most critical of myself. I find my production of poetry slowing to a trickle, and I’m fine with that. For all his flaws, Bukowski was certainly right about one thing, “Don’t Try.” I don’t. Things come when they’re ready. It’s not like I need it to keep the lights on.
In Latin America everyone is thought of as a poet. That doesn’t mean they think they’re Pablo Neruda or Octavio Paz though.
I will never be a Bukowski, or a Frost. But I’ll always be a poet. And I’m staying an outsider.
*Rank and Slush Pile
by Timothy Schaffert
Poets & Writers Magazine
Volume 37, Issue 3 (May/June 2009)
[This post written by David Blaine and posted by N.O. editor Tim Hall]
“When it comes to the moniker “outsider” there are as many options as there are writers.”
So true, man. Preach on, brother.
“I will never be a Bukowski, or a Frost.”
But you’re a BLAINE, man. That’s all that matters!
Great read, David.
[...] Originally posted here: Outsider Writers Collective » Outsiders: A Na… [...]
An interesting essay.
The problem with MFA’s isn’t the degree per se, but that they’re being used to “professionalize” writing. You know, like needing a law degree to practice law, or a medical degree to practice medicine. Which may be fine for those professions (though the one is undemocratic; the other excludes unorthodox healing practices). For writing it’s a disaster– but said degree will be used– already is being used– as a way to exclude writers from publishing outlets. (The hundreds of university litjournals publish almost exclusively MFA’d poets and storytellers.) Needless to say, of all the greats of American literary history, from Whitman and Mark Twain to Kerouac and Bukowski, or even Fitzgerald and Hemingway, NONE had an MFA degree.
The question of what makes an outsider is one of access. Not solely access of a writer to, say, conglomerate publishing (which in itself is very exclusionary), but access of writers and micropresses to the organs of support and publicity.
There are different ways of becoming a writer, apart from a relationship with a university– which at some point signals a desire to be an Insider. I started writing through doing newsletters, of a couple various kinds, which put me in touch with the zine network of the early 90′s that had centered around the original factsheet five. The relationship TO literature and the means of literature was completely different from the established/accepted mode of being a “writer”: DIY, and by nature more democratic. ANYONE could be a writer, and you learned writing, design, marketing, selling, your product from the ground up, achieving familiarity with all aspects of the art from start to finish. In a very real sense from start to finish.
After pounding pavement going to bookstores etc, and doing ground-up selling, you begin to realize how the deck is stacked against small-scale operations; how corporate media controls so much power, can generate so much noise (“godlike power” Paul Street refers to it), that to have to any chance to be successful– to be profitable, certainly– you have to find ways to level the playing field. I used some unique tactics which did exactly that.
You have to ask yourself: what’s your goal as a writer? To be read by a handful of people? Or to have a real impact on society– to play a democratic role, through your words, your voice, in society?
We can shout all we want about injustice while standing in the middle of a Nebraska cornfield and it doesn’t mean anything.
Just my two cents.
I don’t know if the lit degree will ever be as important to a professional writer as a law degree is to an attorney, but institutions of higher learning certainly are taking advantage of the demand for writing courses to make a handy profit. I can think of several ways to make money from writing and none of them have to do with being a writer. From college courses and writer’s workshops to editing services and professional agents, not to mention vanity publishing, there are people with their hands in the pockets of would be authors.
As for university based lit mags excluding non-degreed writers, that’s an open secret. It may not be universal, but I know of at least one large, prestigious institution where the editors sift through submissions and toss anyone they don’t already know to the side.
In these modern times when the media can influence anything from an election to an epidemic, I think the small press and independent writers must keep an avenue open for alternative opinions and an honest reporting of news events. And a little real entertainment wouldn’t hurt anything either.
Thanks for your replies.
Dave
great article Dave. Do you believe in ghosts? It’s Mister Fizzle from Elite Skills. Just checking in on ya brother.
Peace be with you
KAM
“I don’t know if the lit degree will ever be as important to a professional writer as a law degree is to an attorney”
I think that’s the whole thing, David–credentialism is the first weapon a meritocracy uses to maintain its own status and to stack the deck in its favor. The corporate-university writing complex now exists solely to create higher barriers of entry. At the same time the litocrats covet the idea of “authenticity”, which is why you’ll see a Bissell saying in Harper’s that self-publishers are “destroying what remains of a genuine literary culture” while the New Yorker’s Ben Greenman describes his work as “underground.” It’s a double-sided assault. As for the democratization of publicity that Karl talks about–and he’s certainly a pioneer in that field–I think it is in fact changing through the online world as well as the efforts of people like him and OWC. Those ivory towers hold a lot of bright boys and girls willing to flood the zone, so it’s never going to be an easy fight.
I guess I don’t see it that way, Tim. You need a license to practice law, medicine, or public accounting. You need to be licensed to be a nurse or a teacher, or to babysit. But anyone can write due to that freedom of the press dealio.
Actually, if they tried to make it illegal to publish without a license I’d love to spend some time at the crossbar hotel. Writing, of course.