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Richard Hoffman
Richard Hoffman (Creative Nonfiction, Poetry) was awarded the Boston Athenaeum Readers' Prize in 1996 for his memoir Half the House, newly reissued by New Rivers Press. His most recent book is a collection of poems, Without Paradise (Cedar Hill). Richard's prose and verse have appeared in many journals, including Agni, Harvard Review, Hudson Review, The Literary Review, Marlboro Review, Poetry, and Witness, as well as in numerous anthologies. He has twice been a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellow in fiction and recently won the Charles Angoff Prize from The Literary Review for his essay "Pictures of Boyhood." He is currently Writer-in-Residence in the Department of Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College.
Without Paradise (San Diego, Cedar Hill Books, 2002) Teaching Philosophy: I agree with the poet Theodore Roethke who wrote that teaching is one of the last sacred relationships in a crass, secular world. Especially in a low-residency graduate program in which instruction gives way to mentoring, this relationship is mainly a conversation that allows me to consider, in an ongoing way, what this one unique student needs right now. I've been known to lend students books, send articles and essays from websites, suggest readings and events I become aware of, all as a part of this one-to-one conversation. In practical terms, I tend to write a lot on manuscripts. Because I come to prose from poetry, I am especially concerned with the prose itself, phrase by phrase, sentence to sentence. Not all poetry exists in verse; prose has its own prosody, its own sonic, imagistic, dramatic, and persuasive strategies, its own ways to engage readers at the deepest level. Generally I respond to a monthly packet with a long email, the equivalent of 2 or 3 pages, responding to the work in substantial but mostly macro ways, leaving micro matters for my marginal commentary on the manuscript itself. This is the heart of the conversation, this correspondence. I generally concern myself with the direction of the student's work as the semester unfolds. I make reading suggestions. I critique the larger presentational strategies of the work: beginnings, middles, and ends; the balance of scene and narration; the creation of character; the use of dialogue, etc. This letter is not entirely limited to examining the student's work; rather, it discusses issues the work raises, framing questions I believe are useful to the student's development as a writer. I may refer the student to a particular essay on craft if it addresses a move the student has made in the composition under consideration. Usually once the student has both my email and the returned manuscript, we have another brief email exchange to clear up anything the student doesn't understand about my response. Phone calls can be very helpful. I only ask they be by arrangement, not spur of the moment. I have often enjoyed getting together with students to discuss the work over a meal (how civilized!) when geography permits. I tend to give more specific assignments to students in the first semester, but exercises are a great way to stay limber or break through resistance. I have many many of them after decades of teaching, and I'm happy to be more directive in this way if that¹s what a student needs. When it comes to annotations, I do not have a rigid set of expectations; however, I do want the student to be able to both respond to the work and articulate something she or he has learned from the reading and how it is likely to be of use. I am especially interested in nonfiction that asks hard questions, including hard philosophical, socio-cultural, and political questions. While I am myself a memoirist, I do not believe that telling your story is the most important thing a good memoir accomplishes. I also believe that political inquiry and lyricism can and should coexist: look at the works of Camus, Baldwin, Orwell, and others. My over-arching goal is to turn my students into my colleagues. Roethke said it plainly: Teaching is the last of the professions to permit love. Homepage
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