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A Literary Walking Tour of Eastside Iowa City, Spring 1990

Literary Walking Tour of Eastside of Iowa City Page 6

proved too small the University provided the Workshop staff and students with four additional temporary barracks until 1966 when a permanent home was found in the then "new" English-Philosophy Building, again on the banks of the Iowa Tower. (Stephen Wilbers, The Iowa Writers' Workshop, UI Press, 1980)

In 1939 the UI Writers' Workshop was one of a kind; presently there are more than 250 university based writing programs in the US (J Leggett, Spectator, April '86).

"Writing" at Iowa: "There were writing workshops at The University of Iowa from 1897. The format was basically the same as today: writing, critiques, and the general discussion of artistic questions." (Judith E Green, 10-5-80, Des Moines Register editorial page). The first course in "imaginative" or "creative" writing at Iowa was listed in the Department of English in the University Catalogue for the 1897 spring semester. The title was, "Verse-Making Class: Practice in metrical composition in the fixed forms of verse such as heroic couplet, Spenserian stanza, ode, rondeau, sonnet, ballad, and song. Analysis of the best examples of these forms in English poetry. Informal discussion of artistic questions."

The Iowa Program in Creative Writing, a part of the newly formed School of Letters, was directed by Norman Foerster. In 1931 Foerster announced that a new field for graduate study had been opened. The first guest speaker was Stephen Vincent Benet, followed by Archibald MacLeish and 11 other prominent writers. Among the first five recipients of the creative MA in 1932 were Wallace Stegner, Paul Engle, Margaret Walker Alexander; and among the early recipients of the first creative Ph D were Henry Wilson, Ross Taylor, Helene Magaret; all of whom succeeded in publishing and winning awards and prizes for their work begun or completed while they were at UI. (Stephen Wilbers, The Iowa Writers' Workshop: Origins, Emergence, and Growth, UI Press, 1980, 35, 51).

"...the three of us wanted very much to be Ernest Hemingway, disgraced or not, and though we rarely spoke of our ambitions even among ourselves, late each Friday afternoon we paid a sort of mute tribute to Hemingway..the three of us would put on big 16 ounce Everlast boxing gloves like the ones we imagined Hemingway and Ezra Pound had warn when they sparred in Paris, and then we would flail away just as we imagined Pound and Hemingway must have, jabbing and then trying to hook off the jab and cross off the hook...one time we contemplated asking John Irving if he'd like to come up and box. He was still teaching there then...but there was something about Irving, a certain quality, so that we didn't really want to mess with him....we analyzed other writers not according to their writing, but according to their imagined boxing skills. John Hawkes came to town for a reading...we concluded that he would fight straight up, out of a book, with a clean sharp jab, a good hook and the ability to put them together..not with much power. When Vonnegut came to give a seminar and tell us how hopeless it is to be a young writer in America, we agreed he' d be one of those fighters that like to mix it up inside. He'd be dirty in clinches just as inclined to hit you with his elbows or forehead as his gloved hands. He'd cut easily, though, and bleed profusely, which wouldn't bother him in the least, and finally he'd wear you down, not beating you so much as just making you real tired, taking your spirit from you, so you'd want to be doing something else, anything else but be there in the ring with him...I think though, that Vance Bourjaily loomed largest in our imaginations. There was something about him, the way he could roll a cigarette with one hand maybe. We knew that in the ring he'd be formidable, one of those fighters who'd crunch low, moving sidewise often than not, so that by the late rounds he'd be hopelessly behind on points when he'd decide he'd had enough of this crap, come out of his crouch and take you out with one punch, which he

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proved too small the University provided the Workshop staff and students with four additional temporary barracks until 1966 when a permanent home was found in the then "new" English-Philosophy Building, again on the banks of the Iowa Tower. (Stephen Wilbers, The Iowa Writers' Workshop, UI Press, 1980) In 1939 the UI Writers' Workshop was one of a kind; presently there are more than 250 university based writing programs in the US (J Leggett, Spectator, April '86). "Writing" at Iowa: "There were writing workshops at The University of Iowa from 1897. The format was basically the same as today: writing, critiques, and the general discussion of artistic questions." (Judith E Green, 10-5-80, Des Moines Register editorial page). The first course in "imaginative" or "creative" writing at Iowa was listed in the Department of English in the University Catalogue for the 1897 spring semester. The title was, "Verse-Making Class: Practice in metrical composition in the fixed forms of verse such as heroic couplet, Spenserian stanza, ode, rondeau, sonnet, ballad, and song. Analysis of the best examples of these forms in English poetry. Informal discussion of artistic questions." The Iowa Program in Creative Writing, a part of the newly formed School of Letters, was directed by Norman Foerster. In 1931 Foerster announced that a new field for graduate study had been opened. The first guest speaker was Stephen Vincent Benet, followed by Archibald MacLeish and 11 other prominent writers. Among the first five recipients of the creative MA in 1932 were Wallace Stegner, Paul Engle, Margaret Walker Alexander; and among the early recipients of the first creative Ph D were Henry Wilson, Ross Taylor, Helene Magaret; all of whom succeeded in publishing and winning awards and prizes for their work begun or completed while they were at UI. (Stephen Wilbers, The Iowa Writers' Workshop: Origins, Emergence, and Growth, UI Press, 1980, 35, 51). "...the three of us wanted very much to be Ernest Hemingway, disgraced or not, and though we rarely spoke of our ambitions even among ourselves, late each Friday afternoon we paid a sort of mute tribute to Hemingway..the three of us would put on big 16 ounce Everlast boxing gloves like the ones we imagined Hemingway and Ezra Pound had warn when they sparred in Paris, and then we would flail away just as we imagined Pound and Hemingway must have, jabbing and then trying to hook off the jab and cross off the hook...one time we contemplated asking John Irving if he'd like to come up and box. He was still teaching there then...but there was something about Irving, a certain quality, so that we didn't really want to mess with him....we analyzed other writers not according to their writing, but according to their imagined boxing skills. John Hawkes came to town for a reading...we concluded that he would fight straight up, out of a book, with a clean sharp jab, a good hook and the ability to put them together..not with much power. When Vonnegut came to give a seminar and tell us how hopeless it is to be a young writer in America, we agreed he' d be one of those fighters that like to mix it up inside. He'd be dirty in clinches just as inclined to hit you with his elbows or forehead as his gloved hands. He'd cut easily, though, and bleed profusely, which wouldn't bother him in the least, and finally he'd wear you down, not beating you so much as just making you real tired, taking your spirit from you, so you'd want to be doing something else, anything else but be there in the ring with him...I think though, that Vance Bourjaily loomed largest in our imaginations. There was something about him, the way he could roll a cigarette with one hand maybe. We knew that in the ring he'd be formidable, one of those fighters who'd crunch low, moving sidewise often than not, so that by the late rounds he'd be hopelessly behind on points when he'd decide he'd had enough of this crap, come out of his crouch and take you out with one punch, which he