Dear Commons Community,
The City University of New York (CUNY) represents many things to many people. Those of us who have had the privilege of teaching at one of its twenty-four colleges and schools marvel at its diversity and the industriousness of its students. However, I don’t remember anyone ever referring to CUNY as Poetry U. The New York Times in a featured article this morning, does just that. Here is an excerpt:
“The City University of New York is many things. It is vast. It is accessible to students without a lot of money. It is exceptionally diverse. It is not, however, particularly fancy, the kind of place that oozes exclusivity or prestige.
And yet CUNY is home to a surprising number of extremely accomplished, recognized — some might even say fancy — poets.
This year, the Pulitzer Prize for poetry went to “Olio,” a book by Tyehimba Jess, an associate professor of English at the College of Staten Island.
Mr. Jess joins an extensive list at CUNY. Ben Lerner, a MacArthur Fellow, teaches at Brooklyn College. Kimiko Hahn, winner of the prestigious PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, teaches in the Queens College M.F.A. program. Grace Schulman is at Baruch College, Patricia Smith is at the College of Staten Island, Meena Alexander and Tom Sleigh are at Hunter College. Billy Collins, the former poet laureate of the United States, retired last year after teaching at Lehman College for almost 50 years.
As it happens, poets at CUNY have won the Pulitzer in two out of the past three years — before Mr. Jess’s award, Gregory Pardlo, a CUNY graduate student at the time, took the prize in 2015. And, in a related category, Sarah DeLappe, a Brooklyn College M.F.A. student, was a finalist this year in the drama category for a play about a girls’ high school soccer team.
“I’m not sure that ‘fancy’ is the key to creativity,” James B. Milliken, the CUNY chancellor, said in an interview. “CUNY has to be one of the most diverse universities in America, and it seems self-evident to me that diversity of all kinds contributes to creativity. Add to that the fact that we’re in New York City.”
It is difficult to overstate the city’s draw for many poets. The expense can be daunting, but it is the center of their industry. It is where publishing happens, and where poets from all over the world come to read their work. And since the number of poets who can make an actual living just by their writing is tiny, many of them turn to teaching — though you wouldn’t necessarily know it to read their work…
… “New York is a city where poets really want to live,” said Cate Marvin, the founder of VIDA, an organization for women in the literary arts, a poet and an English professor at the College of Staten Island. “So at the College of Staten Island, for example, when we run searches and hire people, it’s often really competitive because people really want to move to New York.”
“Poets,” she added, “will kill to live in New York.”
Teaching at CUNY in particular appeals to those who like the idea of teaching students who don’t have access to exclusive, cloistered classrooms, Ms. Marvin said. Many poet-professors said they enjoyed working with students who were new to the country, people with jobs and children and full lives outside of the classroom. Mr. Collins described the system as an “academic version of the Statue of Liberty.”
Ms. Schulman, a much lauded poet and a former Guggenheim fellow who has taught at Baruch College for 45 years, said a few years ago an undergraduate in one of her classes won a prestigious award for a poem she wrote about walking through Chinatown.
“I said, ‘Look, Susan, don’t you think we ought to talk about graduate school?’” Ms. Schulman recounted. “And she said, ‘Oh, no, I want to be an accountant.’”
Even accountants can be poets!
Tony
