Although primarily a Science student, I did take a couple of classes in Creative Writing. In 1972-73, it was the introductory 202 (section 3) with Douglas Bankson (not the evangelist). In 1974-75, 405 (Non-Fiction, only section) with Bob Harlow. The first was a generalized intro course, but since Doug was a dramatist, it made sense that most of the assignments turned out to be scripts.
Everything took place in Brock Hall, a rambling, decrepit, but character-full building not far from the backside of the Main Library. Later the Creative Writing Department moved to the umpteenth floor of a concrete tower. I wondered whether I could work creatively in a place with artificial light and air, had I been born a few years later.
You couldn't just take Creative Writing courses, you had to submit a portfolio. I could only have submitted chess articles or poetry. Let's see, I have a rejection slip from The Fiddlehead somewhere, so it could only have been the chess articles that got me in. Pause on that.
The drill was that you'd submit a piece every week or two. I don't remember if it had to be typed. I had an aqua blue Smith-Corona portable. Was it the present from my parents for graduating from High School? Or maybe for passing an earlier grade? Like a driver's license for writers. If it was anything more involved than typing, they'd give you a stencil and let you cut your way to glory. The organizer and typist was Fran (I almost got my head bit off when I accidentally called her Frances, my aunt's name) Diamond. She was very good at it. Aside from many other duties, she handled I guess 30 pieces (each one from 10 lines to 10 pages) per week. And then literally cranked out about 100 copies of each stack. In the era of the 202 class, I recall that they used an alcohol-based copying process. Had she been named Pamela, would we have called her Diazo-pam? By two years later, my nose recalls that they had converted to real ink on a Gestetner machine.
Being a pack-rat, I preserved about 170 sheets from that 405 class. It is not, nor does it pretend to be, a complete collection of the hand-outs. I wasn't religious about picking them up in the first place, then I discarded some of the writings that didn't pertain to our group.
So, having submitted our undying work, and picked up the handout, we would read the contributions of others in our section. Then once a week, in the afternoon, around a large table in a large room with the door closed, we'd gather to discuss the week's pieces with the instructor. I called Bob and Doug Professor Harlow or Doctor Bankson, of which they were neither. They seemed to regard it as a bad joke, but in fact I didn't know any better. I didn't quite realize that they got their jobs through being good writers and having an aptitude for this kind of teaching. Full stop.
Discussion was egalitarian, though many of us tended to be shy or ineloquent about expressing opinions. The words may be in your brain, but writing and speaking use different areas of that brain. Some of us were supportive, fully of constructive suggestions. I knew that I had submitted a steaming heap if those people kept shtum. Others were forthright, some indeed. I don't remember any knock-em-down arguments--there was one, but I managed to forget it--but I do remember one quieter contretemps from the 202 class. And it happened because I fell in love. Usually love would merely cause unfulfilled longing, but in this case I happened to meet her while walking to a class and somehow dredged up the nerve to tell her that I was fond of her. She was very gracious about it, said she had a boyfriend, maybe with a capital B, and maybe said something like that it was sweet of me to feel that way. Later, at the creative writing symposium, she was sitting opposite me at the table and conspirationally told one of her girlfriends, "That's him." and they both started giggling. My ears turn red at the slightest embarrassment; my whole face must have been the colour of a beet--that's beetroot for British readers. If humour is the art of the unexpected, novelty also has a role in other reactions. I don't think I was angry, but in the middle of my remarks on her piece, she burst into tears and ran out of the room. Was what I said so upsetting? Or was she simply expecting something different?
It looks like Glen is both the singer-songwriter and the family lawyer. A busy life! Lots of names missing from the above roster.
Scans of the 170-odd pages that I preserved were offered to the Creative Writing Department, but after some cogitation, they declined. Sensitive to the concept of copyright, I figured that I could distribute what I have (all or nothing!) to the same people who might have picked up the handouts way back then. Then in this case is 1974-75, and I made a list of people whose works are in the handouts. So if you are one of these people, drop me an email and I will email (from a gmail account to which I've already uploaded the stuff) all 170 pages, in two emails, a day or so apart. Each of the two emails will be less than 10 MB.
Here--with some section notes--is the list:
Penny Forster (405) (also 401???) Nettie Wild Sheonaid Ursan (409 sec 2) aka S. Ursan Sandra L. Hasmann aka Sandra Hasmann aka Misty Hasmann aka Misty L. Hasmann Zoran Jungic (409 sec 2; poems) aka Zoran Jugic Gail McKay (409 sec 2) (410 sec 1) Gordon Roback (409) Dona Kraintz (405) John Firth (405) A. J. Francis (405) Jill Pangman (405) David W. G. Mackenzie (409 sec 2) also (405) also (410 sec 1) Tom Harrison aka Tom A. Harrison (405) aka Tom Harrisson Surjeet Kalsey A. Delaney Walker Andrew Wreggitt (409 sec 3) (410 sec 1) Leslie Hobbs (poetry) Susan Clark (poetry) Morris Panych (poetry 410 sec 1) Joanne Ames (poetry) John Wood (poetry) Terry Ades (poetry) Eric Ivan Berg (405) Glen Sherman (poetry 410) Joyce Meyer (405) Michael G. Emery (409 sec 1) Jane Munro (poetry 410, sec 1) Sandy Lamb (sec 1) Kelly Robinson (409, sec 1) Bill Whitaker (410, sec 1) Leslie Mobbs (poetry 410) Jill Mandrake (poetry 410) Ted Baker (poetry 410)
You may also email me to complete or correct the rosters, or for no good reason at all. Warning: even if you don't email me, I may post some of my poetry. Even the worst. That's right, life isn't fair.
Sept 2010: I received emails from Zoran and Delaney. Thank you both!
URL: This web page is: http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/poet.htm Last modified September 18, 2010