Poetry In Motion: St. John Directs Rare Ph.D. Program
By Nicole St.Pierre
Stacks of books stretch from the floor to the ceiling in David St.
John’s office. “I keep them around for inspiration and to share
with my students,” says the USC College English professor and
accomplished poet.
But in the past few months, St. John admits he has barely had time to
re-read any of the poems in his favorite collections. As the new
director of the USC College Literature and Creative Writing Graduate
program, his free time has been spent reading poems and critical essays
by aspiring writers, who hope to one day have a book of their own
sitting on St. John’s shelf.
The College is one of only half a dozen institutions in the country to
offer a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing. This year there
were 80 applications for the graduate program that admits an average of
only four students per year—two in the genre of poetry and two in the
genre of fiction. The program, founded and previously chaired by
English professor Carol Muske-Dukes, is entering its third year.
“If you are an aspiring English/creative writing professor, having a
Ph.D. makes you far more competitive in today’s job market,” says St.
John. “Each year, the caliber of applicants becomes more exceptional.
About 80 percent of our applicants already have a graduate degree of
some kind and I have little doubt many of them will someday have
books.”
In fact, some students already do. USC graduate student Chris Abani
recently published his second collection of poems, “Daphne’s Lot,” and
has a novel forthcoming next year, to be published by Farrar, Strauss
& Giroux—one of the top publishing houses in the nation.
In Good Company
Students who are admitted to the selective program study under some of
the most distinguished poets and fiction writers of their generation,
including St. John, Muske-Dukes, Aimee Bender, T.C. Boyle and Percival
Everett.
In many ways, St. John has matured as a poet in the public eye, after
his first book, “Hush,” was a huge success. Since then, he has been
honored with many of the most significant prizes for poets, such as the
Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and
the O.B. Hardison prize—a career prize for the teaching and writing of
poetry—from the Folger Shakespeare Library. His work has been
published in countless literary magazines and in 1995, St. John’s
collection “Study for the World’s Body: New and Selected Poems” was
nominated for The National Book Award in Poetry.
The Face
St. John’s eighth book of poetry, “The Face,” will be published by
HarperCollins in May 2004. The poem is about a man who struggles to
reassemble his shattered identity while a movie is simultaneously being
made about his life. In an unusual twist, a female actress is
cast to play him in the movie. The poem ends with the movie
premiere. That’s all the details St. John will give away.
“This book is so nuts, people will either love it or hate it,” he
jokes. But St. John has actually been developing the premise of
the book-length poem for more than ten years. “I’ve always been
intrigued by the connection between cinema and contemporary poetry. In
a very provocative way, I hope, ‘The Face’ brings both of these worlds
together.”
“It’s a wild ride,” he says. “And I’m very excited about it.”
In Tune
Cinema is not the only field intrinsically linked with poetry, St.John
says. Last spring, he taught a pioneering course in conjunction
with Frank Ticheli, a professor of musical composition at the USC
Thornton School of Music, where graduate students teamed up with
budding musical composers to understand how operas are made.
“Fascinating stuff came out of this course. The writers and composers
developed relationships that will transcend their lives as students and
continue into their professional lives as artists,” says St. John.
Because of the course’s collaborative approach, College graduate
student and writer Jennifer Kwon Dobbs is now working with musician and
composer Charles Lee to develop an opera about Korean Comfort Women who
were prisoners of the Japanese during World War II.
In the future, St. John hopes to incorporate more cross-disciplinary
workshops into the College’s creative writing program. “I want to
continue to ensure that our creative writing courses are taught in a
context of other realms, not just of the arts, but also of the sciences
as well. The possibilities are limitless.”
Other books by St. John include, “No Heaven;” “The Shore;” “Terraces of
Rain: An Italian Sketchbook;” “Study for the World’s Body: New and
Selected Poems;” “Where the Angels Come Toward Us: Selected Essays,
Reviews and Interviews;” “In the Pines: Lost Poems;” “The Red Leaves of
Night” and “Prism.”
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