1989-90 › Cynthia Macdonald
12th Farfel Recipient
Department of English - Creative Writing
Professor of English
College of Humanities, Fine Arts, and Communication
Cynthia Macdonald never imagined she would
work for the University of Houston. She was an established poet
and tenured professor at Johns Hopkins when she consulted for UH
in establishing its graduate Creative Writing Program in 1978. At
first Macdonald turned down the offer to direct the program and
move to Texas, so far from the known literary world. When she finally
relented and joined the program in 1979, her writer-colleagues on
the east coast offered her their sympathies, assuming shed
failed to get tenure at Johns Hopkins.
Its hard to imagine such a prejudice
today against the program, now ranked second in the nation and home
to numerous established and emerging authors. She considers herself
a literary Joanna Appleseed, creating a community for
her students and for the literary life of Houston. The community
at the Creative Writing Program has had a tremendous impact both
locally and nationally. Former students and faculty are widely published,
teach classes in Houston and at institutions throughout the country,
and participate in numerous reading series.
Macdonalds work draws from the
world around her: stone yielding/ the language everyone understands/
but cannot speakpoets carve what/ they are not allowed to
say. Still, she cautions that all writing and all creative
endeavors must come from the self, though they need not be about
the self. As a teacher of new writers, she encourages voices
that diverge from her own. I am not enthusiastic about students
who write the way I do. They have to find their own voices and their
own sensibility, their own way of making a poem. They
must remember that poet means maker.
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