Friday, April 3, 2009

Workshopped to Death

In honor of National Poetry Month I offer this bipolar post.

Manic

An article on the benefits of workshop, gleaned from Glimmer Train. During my Montana MFA, I sometimes grew frustrated because I felt as though I spent more time critiquing others' work than producing/revising my own. But then this phenomena occurred after my first year, where I began to understand the divide between talented student writing and publishable work. Snap! In many ways this was the beginning of my real work as a writer.

Depressive

Link to a site called Dead At Your Age, which searches for historical figures born on your birthday, and compares your longevity to theirs.

My results:

You've outlived Massillon Coicou by almost a month. He was a novelist, playwright, activist and one of Haiti's greatest poets. He died by execution on March 15, 1908, 61 years before you were born.

1 comment:

Bsquared86 said...

The article was very interesting, I never thought of workshopping in that way. Thanks!

The second link was a bit less morbid than I thought it would be. The offer to email me a congratulations when I outlive one of the people mentioned was kind of wierd, lol.