Suzanne Gardinier

Are you going to ask where I am? I'll tell you—giving only details useful to the State... —Pablo Naruda, Letter to Miguel Otero Silva, 1948.

What might it mean for a writer to be useful to a state? How have states used writers, witting and unwitting, in projects aimed at influence and hegemony? How might a state make use of language as a weapon? How might a state inflect and influence the intimacy between a writer and what they may write? What might it mean for a writer to attempt to avoid being useful to a state? In this class, we’ll discuss an array of choices that writers have made in relation to state power, focusing particularly on the United States from just after World War II until the present. You’ll be asking to read excerpts from four books: Joel Whitney’s Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers; Frances Stonor Saunders’ The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters; Eric Bennett’s Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War; Peter Dale Scott’s long poem, Coming to Jakarta; and Dionne Brand’s Inventory. This is not a history or literature class: Our lens will be that of a writer, using deep study and playful practice to figure out the dilemmas and best practices of the present. Although this is a lecture class, with a limit of 30 students, you’ll be asked to participate, improvise, and do some class reading and writing, work with a partner, as well as participate in one group conference a week often focused on in-class writing exercises. The only prerequisite is the courage to think out loud with other people; aka, the courage required to learn.

This class combines Sarah Lawrence students and students from the Bedford Correctional Facility and takes place at Bedford one night a week. Acceptance into this class is via interview only. Interviews will be held during the fall term of 2023. In order to interview, you must be 21 years old on or before January 20, 2024.

“There is nothing like a zuihitsu, and its definition slips through our fingers. It is a classical Japanese genre that allows a series of styles, and everything can be constantly reshuffled and reordered in every conceivable way,” according to Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Following Millenium. (The name zuihitsu is derived from two Kanji: “at will” and “pen.”) In this class, we’ll explore the poetic form of the zuihitsu as readers via three required texts—The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon and two versions of Narrow Road to the Interior, one by Bashō and one by Kimiko Hahn—and, as writers, using the materials of haiku, lists, interviews, dialogues, travelogues, monologues, letters, maps, orts, scraps, fragments, and poems of all varieties. You’ll be expected to attend class, engage with assigned and suggested readings, and participate in discussions. Participants will also be required to make an individual zuihitsu and to contribute to the making of a collective one. In conference, we’ll discuss your reading, which may or may not overlap or coincide with class readings, and your drafts. In class, we’ll discuss readings as a way of guiding our own makings. The only prerequisites are to be 21 or older, as indicated above; have a desire to be challenged and a thirst for reading that equals your thirst for writing; have the courage to give up spectatorhood for active participation; and have a willingness to undertake whatever labors might be necessary to read and write better on our last day of class than on our first.

There is nothing like a zuihitsu, and its definition slips through our fingers. It is a classical Japanese genre that allows a series of styles, and everything can be constantly reshuffled and reordered in every conceivable way. —Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Following Millenium

The name zuihitsu is derived from two Kanji: “at will” and “pen.” In this class, we’ll explore the Japanese poetic form of the zuihitsu via six required texts—The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon; Kenko’s Essays in Idleness; Chomei’s The Ten-Foot-Square Hut; two versions of Narrow Road to the Interior, one by Bashō and one by Kimiko Hahn; and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee—and, as writers, using the materials of haiku, lists, interviews, dialogues, travelogues, monologues, letters, maps, orts, scraps, fragments, and poems of all varieties. Participants will be required to make an individual zuihitsu and to contribute to the making of a collective one. The only prerequisites are a desire to be challenged, a thirst for reading that equals your thirst for writing, the courage to give up spectatorhood for active participation, a willingness to do in-class writing exercises, a willingness to work with a partner, and a willingness to undertake whatever labors might be necessary to read and write better on our last day of class than on our first.

Are you going to ask where I am? I’ll tell you—giving only details useful to the State... —Pablo Neruda, Letter to Miguel Otero Silva, 1948

What might it mean for a writer to be useful to a state? How have states used writers, witting and unwitting, in projects aimed at influence and hegemony? How might a state make use of language as a weapon? What might it mean for a writer to attempt to avoid being useful to a state? How might a state inflect and influence the intimacy between writers and what they may write? In this class, we’ll discuss an array of choices that writers have made in relation to state power, focusing particularly on the United States from just after World War II until the present. You’ll be asking to read four books: Joel Whitney’s Finks: How the CIA Tricked the World’s Best Writers; Frances Stonor Saunders’sThe Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters; Eric Bennett’s Workshops of Empire: Stegner, Engle, and American Creative Writing During the Cold War; and Peter Dale Scott’s long poem, Coming to Jakarta. This is not a history or a literature class; our lens will be that of a writer, using deep study and playful practice to figure out the dilemmas and best practices of the present. Although this is a lecture class, with a limit of 30 students, you’ll be asked to participate, improvise, and do some class reading and writing work with a partner, as well as to participate in one group conference a week. At the end of the class, you’ll be asked to lecture in teams, addressing some of our questions and your responses to them. The only prerequisite is the courage to think out loud with other people—a.k.a. the courage required to learn.

The known universe has one complete lover, and that is the greatest poet. —Walt Whitman

This class will aim to provide a writer’s introduction to poetry, as seen through the cultural lenses of what’s been called the “East” and what’s been called the “West.” While keeping faith with the sacred jazz ethic of improvisation, we’re likely to spend our class time: (a) discussing questions like what is a poem, what is taste, what is the “East,” and what is the “West,” and how have those constructs influenced writers and readers; (b) getting to know each other as readers and writers and working collaboratively; and (c) doing writing exercises as practicum. In weekly conferences, we’ll discuss college and look at your drafts—mostly of poems, along with some critical writing about our shared texts—particularly Edward Said’s Orientalism and Dionne Brand’s A Map to the Door of No Return. Along the way, I’ll ask you to participate in readings at each term’s middle and end; compile an anthology and a chapbook; work with a partner and introduce his/her work; and contribute to a collective zuihitsu, a Japanese form combining what's been called “poetry” and what‘s been called “prose.” (We’ll be reading two versions of Narrow Road to the Interior: Basho’s from the 17th century and Kimiko Hahn’s from 2006.) The only prerequisites are a passion for reading that equals your passion for writing, the courage to give up spectatorhood for active participation, and a willingness to undertake whatever might be necessary to read and write and think better on our last day of class than on our first.

This class will explore the mysteries of reading and writing what has been called “nonfiction,” focusing on questions around what has been called lying and what has been called telling the truth. Was Toni Morrison right when she said our minds have an “antipathy to fraud”? Does lying have a syntax? What are the cultural contexts, nourishments, and manipulations that may affect what happens between a writer or a reader and a drafted or published sentence? Is it possible to identify a lie in print? When you write, is it possible to lie less? What does a writer’s voice sound like when it’s lying? Is it possible to “tell the truth”? In conference, we’ll discuss your reading, your research, and your drafts; in class, we’ll discuss readings—likely to include the work of James Baldwin, Teju Cole, Dionne Brand, James Bamford, June Jordan, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alexander Chee—in light of the questions above as a way of guiding our own makings. You will be expected to attend class, engage with assigned and suggested readings, participate in discussions (maybe more actively than usual; see note, below), and write 15 pages of publishable nonfiction. The only prerequisites are a passion for reading that equals your passion for writing, the courage to give up spectatorhood for active participation, and a willingness to undertake whatever might be necessary to read and write better on our last day of class than on our first. NOTE re spectatorhood: In our world of screens, it can be easy to think of an education as something you watch vs. something you do. To try to avoid this, I’ve decided to decrease the number of pages I’m asking you to read and increase the number of minutes I expect you to discuss them. In most classes, I’ll ask you to talk with me for 10 minutes or so, with classmates chipping in or not, about your thinking in relation to what we’ve all read. This will mean substantially more than throwing in a brief comment or listening attentively, although both of those are still important. This will be done with respect and care; but if you know that it will be excrusiating or impossible to talk for 10 minutes in a row about what you think, this class may not be the right one for you.

In this class we'll discuss how to draw on the inspirational powers of other poets: the living, as proposed by you, and the dead, as proposed by me. Each week, someone in the class will assign, present, and suggest an exercise based on the work of a living poet—and each week, I'll do the same based on the work of someone dead. Our choices will be made after our introductory discussions to figure out the powers, needs, and interests of the poets in the room. Along the way, we'll develop a critical language together in which to talk about poetry of any description, acquire tools of our own inspired by the inventions of others, do some in-class workshop discussion of drafts (but not too much), and broaden our sense of the range of what poetry is and can do. Drafts will be discussed in detail in conference. You'll get experience in teaching a class as well. The only prerequisites are a desire to be challenged, a thirst for reading that equals your thirst for writing, and a willingness to undertake whatever labors might be necessary to read and write better on our last day of class than on our first.