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Dates are the dates documents were added to the site.
 

This drawer contain essays on creative writing. For the actual thing, look in the Sillies and Works drawer.

 

 

See also:

The Best of the Poetry Daily Critique drawer

Literary Theory & General Criticism drawer
 

• Aesthetic Validity and Ekphrasis
  – posted to the PDC March 14, 2013

  Introducing the concept of validity (being opposed to the idea of art and literary appreciation being about "what it means").

• Aphorisms on the Creative Endeavor
  – last updated April 29, 2014

  And that number will change. On creative writing, yes; but also on the aesthetic. But always still creative writing. If there seems something of a bias for poetry, it is merely because the mood of the moment. They apply throughout.

• A Basic Statement on the Aesthetic
  – February 14, 2013

  An orienting statement, a creed of sorts, the philosophicap first stepping stone for everything else on the site, put here so that I may try to avoid repeating myself.

• The 'Being' of Aesthetic Literature: Theoretical and Mythical Thinking
  – Jan. 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Mar. 12, 2014

  A look at the two modalities of thought, writing, and being, through the engagement of Modernist artists with 'Primitive' art, and through Ernst Cassirer's Language and Myth. This offered in discourse around the idea presented by MacLeish in his poem "Ars Poetica," that a poem "should not mean but be."

• The Burial at Thebes and "Hercules and Antaeus"
  – Jan. 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 27, 2014

  Exploring the prosaic-poetic spectrum through a critical review of Heaney's two texts. Also, a comment on the idea of serious reading versus reading for fun.

• Calculation: Bad Prose Does Not Make for Good Poetry
  – posted to the PDC March 1, 2013

  Playing off of Wordsworth's idea of a poem as something "calculated."

• Close Reading and Aesthetic Sophistication
  – posted to the PDC March 10, 2013

  A short defense of the importance of close reading as regards poetry (and literature in general) and the writing of poetry (and literature in general). Perhaps also comment on the seeming lack of ability at such for most poets.

• Cold Tea Blues: A Demonstration of Poetic Form
  – posted to the PDC blog May 25, 2015
  – added to the Cabinet May 25, 2016

  Using the lyrics of the Cowboy Junkies's song "Cold Tea Blues" to explore the idea of form and how repetition can be used to create highly effective form.

• Ekphrastic Poetry and Ideational Strength
  – Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Apr. 14, 2014

  A look at the relationship between a ekphrastic poem and its subject work of art.

• An Engagement with Strunk and White’s “Approach to Style”
  – Mar. 8, 2023

  Strunk and White is a famous, and greatly problematic book, that seems to want to take the word creative out of creative writing. Here, an engagement, unkind at times, with White's "Approach to Style."

• Entrances into Poems and Poetry
  – posted to the PDC February 13, 2013

  Sometimes a reader has to learn how to read a poem before they can read the poem. And Barthes's idea that an aesthetic text can only be re-read.

• Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings's "the mind its own beautiful prisoner"
  – posted to the PDC, Nov. 14, 2016
  – posted to the Cabinet, Jun. 28, 2017

  The ideas of the prosaic and the poetic explored withn the erotic.

  Third part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Second Order Literature: Lowell and H.D." and "Organic and Mechanical Construction: Stevens and Rich"

• Genuine and Sham Poetics: "Journey of the Magi"
  – Jan 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Nov. 10, 2014

  Eliot's idea of genuine and sham poetry, through an exploration of the poetic line as seen in the opening stanza of his own "Journey of the Magi."

• The Importance of Knowledge to Creating
  – Jan. 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Feb. 13, 2013

  Brief note on the idea of sophistication and its relation to reading and writing; specifically, developing the poetic ear. Also, a look at chiasmus.

• Let's Talk About Grammar
  – June 9, 2013

  An exploration on grammar and language sophistication. Originally a response to Matt Haig's follow up to "30 things to tell a book snob," the lesser attempt of "30 things to tell a grammar snob."

• Not "Write What You Know" But "Know What You Write"
  – posted to the PDC June 7, 2013

  Giving the workshop cliché a hit with the hammer.

• A Note on Sophistication and the Individual Reader
  – posted to the PDC February 4, 2013

  Discussion of the idea of "sophistication," an idea frequently seen on the PDC and this site.

• Notes on the Idea of Organicism, Part II
  – Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC May 8, 2014

  An exploration of the idea of organicism as an foundational idea in the aesthetic, and as a tool in literary criticism.

• An Object Lesson in Brilliance
  – posted to the PDC blog June 9, 2013
  – added May 25, 2016

  Looking at one moment in "Let it Go" as an object lesson in attention to detail.

• On the "Rules" of Writing
  – Dec. 28, 2023

  An exploration of the rules of writing, mostly looking at them from the outside: their sources, their motivations. Includes a quick look at various rules and two digressions, one on how a person learns to write and one on philosophies of writing.

• Organic and Mechanical Construction: Wallace Stevens's "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock" and Adrienne Rich's "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"
  – posted to the PDC, Oct. 5, 2016
  – posted to the Cabinet, Jun. 28, 2017

  Continuing the exploration of the prosaic and the poetic, this time bringing in verseform.

  Second part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Second Order Literature: Lowell and H.D." and "Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings"

• Passing, Clever Phrases: Life on Mars
  – Jan 29, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 29, 2014

  A critical review and examination of the Pulitzer winning, poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith. Also, an exploration of the reading phrase by phrase verses reading a work in its entirety (playing off a moment in Coleridge's Biographia Literaria).

• Poetry in the U.S.: A Response to "Poetry Slam"
  – March 21, 2014

  Essay written in response to Mark Edmundson's article in Harpers.

• Proposing Some Natural Laws of Poetic Sound
  – posted to the PDC February 8, 2013

  A short and wholly taste-testy proposition. Something that will have to picked up again at another time.

• Reading Typography
  – Jan. 27, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Feb. 1, 2014

  A short look at the use of typograpny in a poem, and how it comes off at little more than poppoetic gimmickry. Also, a moment on Cummings's own use of typography to create flatness in his poetry.

• Re-examining the Verse-Prose, Poetic-Prosaic Graph
  – Jan 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 17, 2014

  Returning to a graph presented in the post "Verse or Prose, Poetic or Prosaic" to explore the relationship between the material and ideational axes do indeed intersect, creating a usable '+' grid of literature.

• Second Order Literature: Amy Lowell's "Patterns" and H.D.'s "Garden"
  – posted to Cabinet and PDC, Sept. 13, 2016

  An examination of the difference between the prosaic (the mode of factuality) and the poetic (the mode of symbolism).

  First part of a three part series on the poetic and the prosaic, with "Organic and Mechanical Construction: Stevens and Rich" and "Erotic Literature: E. E. Cummings"

• Sonnet 128: A Study in Unity
  – Jan 28, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Jun. 7, 2014

  A demonstration of organic unity through Shakespeare's sonnet 128.

• The Standard Fare: Ange Mlinko's "Epic"
  – Feb. 5, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Dec. 9, 2013

  Following up on a previous post about the same poem in regards to Poetry Magazine, this time focusing primarily (but not exclusively) on the poem itself.

• Tennyson's "Mariana": Ideation and Factuality
  – Jan 30, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Sept. 12, 2014

  Looking at how ideation and structure work within Tennyson's "Mariana," considered one of his best works.

• Three Comments on Technique
  – posted to the PDC February 27, 2013

  Three thoughts regarding the relationship between technique and the aesthetic work.

• Using the Word Suddenly
  – posted to the PDC April 24, 2013

  Showing the differance between the surface and the depth use of words like suddenly while going into the workshop cliché of "show don't tell."

• Verse or Prose, Poetic or Prosaic
  – Jan 29, 2015
  – originally posted to the PDC Aug. 19, 2014

  Examines the relationship between the four concepts of verse, prose, the poetic, and the prosaic as prompted by a passage in Owen Barfield's Poetic Diction. Barfield recognizes that verse and prose are concerns of the material nature of the text, while the idea of the prosaic and poetic are concerns of the ideational or spiritual nature of the text.

• Why You Learn Formal Before Free
  – posted to the PDC February 20, 2013

  Talking about Eliot's and Pound's understanding that the mastery of formal verse is necessary to any mastery of free verse.

• A Writer's Reference Shelf
  – February 15, 2013
  – Oct. 25, 2023

  A collection of reference books what I think should be the minimum at hand. Here I'll put what I've found to be the best, the most useful, and just plain fun to have around.