Finally we round out our celebration of the UR creative writing faculty, who gave a reading of their work last weekend, with this piece by Sam Miller (UR Take 5 2012) on the teaching of James Longenbach. To read the previous posts in this thread, click “Miniseries: Meliora!” in the Blog Series menu to the left.

Poet, mentor, musician and human being James Longenbach once told his students that the process of writing the poem is the process of becoming. Followed, of course, by: “What is this thing? A carnival ride or an aardvark?”

The Plutzik Reading Series exists to honor some of the most extraordinary contributors to the literary canon. Longenbach exerts an uncompromising devotion to promoting the best of this art form—just as Plutzik himself did. As a professor of Modern Literature, Modern Poetry and several poetry workshops, Longenbach only assigns readings by people whom he believes to be the most skillful and effective poets (such as Pound, Eliot and Stevens). His curriculum wraps itself around these works as a way of engaging students in the difficult beauty that poetry is.

It is through Longenbach’s indisputable passion for art and the unbelievable care and energy that he pours into his lessons that his students come to feel fundamentally changed. He’ll say it once, he’ll say it twice: you must read a thousand poems to write one good poem. But not only does he say it—he lives by this, and whenever he isn’t teaching, Longenbach is learning. As a result of this philosophy and drive, he is constantly “reinventing” himself; pushing himself to know more, shown clearly by the fact that he’s always buried in a new book.

Students in poetry workshops inevitably experience moments of self-doubt and uncertainty—good, necessary signs, according to Professor Longenbach. In the end, he reminds us that all we can do is try to write a better, cleaner, more vigorous sentence than the one we wrote yesterday. As hard as it is, try not to have “ideas” about that sentence. Longenbach pushes us towards precise, clearer diction and more muscular syntax—that’s what matters; it doesn’t matter if the poem is wild and weird or calm and quiet.

Longenbach’s dedication is also shown through his uncompromising efforts towards promoting artists who are fulfilling the form of poetry to its utmost potential. This year’s Plutzik Series includes readings by Eavan Boland, Yusef Komunyakaa and Poet Laureate Philip Levine. Longenbach knows that his students can use these experiences to strengthen their own skills as thinkers and writers; he has committed himself to providing students with the best resources and opportunities that he can. As a poet, he has published four books: Threshold, Fleet River, Draft of a Letter and The Iron Key. It is a privilege to sit in his classes, absorb his advice, and read his poems.

Sam Miller

Welcome to the Meliora Miniseries, which celebrates the University of Rochester’s creative writing faculty. In this third segment, Julia Winer (UR Class of 2010, English) reflects on the poetry and teaching of Jennifer Grotz. Click “Meliora Miniseries” in the list to the left to read the previous posts.

“Don’t use your superpowers all the time–just to save someone’s life.”

Professor Grotz’s humble wisdom fell on twelve sets of ears as her students nodded around the workshop table. Do not prostitute your talent, I scribbled in my notebook. A young writer can seldom anticipate the depth of a mentor’s impact until after the moment of learning has passed. For this former student, the outgrowth of Jennifer Grotz’s mentorship resurfaces again and again. The intentional humanity through which our professor presented herself and received her students was, in itself, a lesson on creative humility and placement of the ego.

Both in and out of the classroom, Professor Grotz reminded us that this literary world was as much our world as anyone else’s. Visibly a great among greats, Grotz lived the lesson that, student or master, pieces of this world were all to be held in equal regard.

She liked to claim that she was rather regular, reminding us of her Texan roots and preference for wrestling. However, it only takes a few moments with her work to know where sits the modest giant in the room. In her most recent collection, The Needle, the talented Grotz lends a mind’s eye and poet’s ear in her astounding attention to detail and fluidity of language, so masterfully spare inside each tiny moment, as particulars in her poems resound in the universal.

It’s hard to believe that the author of these poems is the same woman who said to her students on the last day of class, “Writing is the hardest damn thing in the world.” Grotz’s piece-by-piece execution of the moment feels just so; the contained, fluid voice of her speakers doesn’t shout at us “shut up and listen”—it doesn’t need to, the reader can’t help but do just that.

Jennifer Grotz’s selfless contributions to the academic and literary communities are unending. An accomplished poet and educator, Professor Grotz devotes a rare spirit of openness to the education of her students, reminding us continuously of the immensity of small things through her own nourishing humility and gentle brilliance.

Julia Winer

Second in our Meliora Miniseries, here’s Leah Squires (UR Class of 2010, English and Ethnomusicology) on Joanna Scott. This Miniseries started here.

“What is your earliest memory?”

The taste of skim milk and stale Cheerios. I can still recall the sound of the plastic spoon scraping against the side of the styrofoam bowl and how it felt when the spoon’s rough edge cut the inside of my cheek as I took a bite. This was the breakfast served at my preschool; I must have been two or three.

Professor Scott asked this question when she gave a guest-lecture during my Honors English Senior Seminar: “Poetry and Memory.” I shared my little Cheerios anecdote. Another student told us that when she was younger, she was convinced she had regurgitated her heart. True story. Every classroom experience I shared with Professor Scott ultimately revolved around storytelling. She demystified the creative process by telling tales or eliciting them from her students.

Her enthusiasm for storytelling was palpable in every discussion. Even her lectures felt like stories. In “International Literature: Twentieth-Century Fiction” she brought authors to life everyday. I never missed that class. I even went with a fever once; there was no chance I would miss Nabokov. You didn’t have to be a twentieth-century literature fanatic to be carried off to an invisible city or become lost in a labyrinth. Professor Scott took you there.

It’s not surprising that storytelling is so vital to Professor Scott’s teaching method. She is the author of 10 novels and short story collections and she has been recognized for her literary achievements as the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the Lannan Award, among others. Her latest achievement, though, reflects her accomplishment in the classroom: she is being honored as one of this year’s recipients of the Goergen Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. In my opinion Professor Scott’s defining strength as an educator is her ability to foster creativity among her students; her imagination has inspired and will inspire many of us. All you have to do is listen—she’s telling a story.

Leah Squires

In the spirit of Meliora Weekend, and to honor this Saturday’s readers (see the previous post), we invited recent graduates from the U of R to write reflections on the classroom experience with each of the four members of the creative writing faculty. To start off this little mini-series, here’s John Amir-Fazli, Class of 2011 (English and History), on Stephen Schottenfeld.

A classroom scene:

A professor is lecturing on J.M. Coetzee’s The Life and Times of Michael K. He starts off with the mention that Coetzee’s title is an allusion to Kafka’s The Trial. The students, suffering various ailments from lack of sleep to hangover to what must be—judging by the decibel rating of the cough—a new virulent strain of H1N1, nod and somewhat-drearily jot this somewhat-interesting but assuredly unimportant factoid down in their spiral notebooks (or, for the graduate students, their iPads). The students expect the professor to continue on into the main text. He doesn’t.

Instead, the students are barraged by a rapid-fire series of questions, not about the book, but about the damn title: Why Kafka? Why The Trial in particular? What is the difference between this use of a single initial in Michael K. versus Josef K.’s own single initial? Are both initials significant of the same things? Does Michael K.’s own initial signify anonymity? Could it also be synecdoche?

And it goes on: Consider the phrase, “The Life and Times of.” What does this tell us about the book? Is it a biography? Could it be seen as irony, given that when we think of biographies it is usually chronicling someone to whom history has paid attention? What is the significance of including both “life” and “time?” Is it truly a narrative about Michael K., or an examination of the world surrounding him?

In the midst of this fifteen-minute excitable diatribe, the students have collectively raised their eyebrows. Some are shocked, others are fascinated, others have filled five entire pages with one-line questions and are now wincing and massaging their wrists, but they are all engaged. They are now seeing what the professor sees, which is—if you’ll pardon the cliché—that everything means something, and that something can mean nearly everything.

This is a true story. It is also a typical scene in the classroom of Stephen Schottenfeld—an author-cum-professor who is not so much a lit-crit guru as a proselyte to human complexity. As an author, Schottenfeld has received one nomination and two Special Mentions for the Pushcart Prize, and was recently given a “Distinguished Short Story” nod in the Best American Short Stories Anthology. He has been an artist-in-residence at Interlochen Arts Academy, and has been published in over ten different quarterlies and magazines over the past fifteen years. As a professor, he puts his creative endeavors to good use, using his unique insights about the absurd complexity and oft-contradictory nature of life to force his students to not simply know answers, but ask complex questions. His emphasis on the labyrinthine versus the linear makes the entire classroom a vibrant environment, where students often find they are arguing amongst themselves for ten or so minutes at a time without their professor saying a word; where the atmosphere wavers seamlessly from a philosophy seminar to an informal discussion of how cool “The Graduate” was, all the while bringing these ideas back into near-perfect alignment with our discussion of the book; where a 15-second introspective pause after a well-placed idea can be as useful and revelatory as a 30-minute, OCD-specific PowerPoint presentation. All of this would proceed regularly as soon as Schottenfeld scrawled the name of the title across the board.

To sum up, I believe I speak for many other students as well when I say that Professor Schottenfeld forever altered my approach to literature. His insight and energetic fervor gives us the perfect example of what can occur when creativity enters the classroom.

John Amir-Fazli