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Linnea Nelson ENGL 358 Mr.

Brady Burgeson 05 February 2013

The Year of Simplicity: Rhetorical Trends in Poets and Writers Magazine in 2012 Poets and Writers is a six-issue-per-year periodical targeted at readers and writers who are seeking publication and/or further education in the field of writing. Its major areas of focus are advice in the form of personal stories from writers, and advertisements for book awards, writers workshops, MFA programs, and books. While visual design and topical content suggest the publication is meant for a relatively sophisticated, driven, and probably degree-holding reader, the power of emotional appeal is heavily relied upon to communicate the magazines messages. Among the most frequently offered messages is that writers must slow down to write successfully. The model reader, then, ought to be ambitious and sincere, but also easily susceptible to the weight of encouragement from accomplished writers. Poets and Writers can thus cater effectively to writers at nearly any place in their careers, from those just beginning to pursue publishers attention, or even just starting to write sincerely, to much more seasoned practitioners who may have their eyes on a Pushcart Prize and spend every summer at a writing workshop. An analysis of several issues from 2012 suggests that a less hurried approach to the literary life is the most beneficial to the writers career. The appeal to writers to decelerate their lives as a means of gaining access to the muse is captured in Frank Bures article Inner Space:

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Clearing Some Room for Inspiration from the January/February issue of 2012. He urges, the ability to control ones attention is perhaps the single most important quality of the creative mind, and warns against the perils of spending too much time on the phone, writing emails, or surfing the internet (Bures 48). Bures sympathizes with his audience, claiming to be a victim of the same distractions, with many of us have felt this [technological] strain, and references our lack of downtime (48). He further mentions feeling overwhelmed, less and less able to control what I thought about (49). Kevin Nances article on Ben Fountain in the May/June 2012 issue is titled, When Patience Pays Off, and stresses, again, the importance of taking ones time in order to write with inspiration (33), and Arnie Cooper captures the topic perfectly with his January/February 2012 article called, In This Moment: Slowing Down to Open Up the Writers Mind. Still, it would be dangerous to risk alienation in the form of suspected judgment towards readers who may depend upon, or actually enjoy, the fast-paced push of technology. Once in a while, the benefits of having an online presence are not just acknowledged in Poets and Writers, but given some thoughtful consideration and points for ways to improve. In the section called The Practical Writer, the November/December 2011 edition features an article on Networking, titled How to Use LinkedIn to Connect With Your Community. Occasional mentions of using other social media for publicity are made, and the magazines website gives its users a tremendous amount of information related to contests, grants, MFA programs, archived writing, and even chances to connect with prolific and successful writers. Still, Poets and Writers misses few opportunities to present its readers with indications that, as a rule, simpler is better. The magazine is appealingly tidy, with articles in small, black

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serif font and printed in three columns per page. The design in general is neither flashy nor bold, and little is eye-catching or surprising, beyond the frequent pastoral advertisement for graduate school or unimaginably stress-free writing contest. Pictures included in the actual articles are relatively scarce; but, if present, typically of the writer in question pleasantly situated in an admirably developed library or perched on a fence and gazing into a field, as if writers block has been conquered forever. The publication overall is reminiscent of a simpler time, and, in many ways resembles the layout of a newspaper (the circulation of which, in the wake of instaeverything, is hitting record lows). Despite these hints that writing can or should be orderly and calculably simple, the opposite is certainly acknowledged as well, even if the reader has to dig pretty well into an article to come to that realization. In the July/August 2012 issue, the cover of which promises the tantalizing feature article, What Todays Agents Can Do For You, editor Kevin Larimer vehemently resists the notion that effective writing boils down to ignoring every other demand on ones time and totally abandoning oneself to the call of creating literature (8). The May/June issue from the same year, in anthologized author Chris Huntingtons column article Why We Write: You Are Not Alone, comforts the reader with assurances that any kind of writing, even if its the sort that gets scribbled in a journal no one else will ever read, is good writing (29). As if his impressive career were not enough to take these words seriously, he quotes Jack Kerouac, who replied to the question, Which is more important: the ideas or the prose? with, Ideas are a dime a dozen (29). The publication as a whole indicates that writing is enough, that the process can take as long as it needs to, that life will always get in the way of writing, and that good writing is a result of dealing with life. Articles commonly speak of the difficulties of

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pitching books, getting stuck, the enormous pain of novel-writing, and, a very frequently used word, failure. One could thus safely assert that Poets and Writers is a publication dedicated to consoling people who are grappling with their inability to write the way they want to write. As it not surprising, the problem isnt acknowledged without a solution being offered. An ad for the University of British Columbia MFA program in Creative Writing from the July/August 2012 issue shows a young man backed by an idyllic landscape at dawn, with the testimonial, I live on Gabriola Island in a rambling old log and frame house. I have a veggie garden and some fruit trees (UBC). The March/April edition of the same year includes ads for both Chatham University and the University of Tampa which display women with laptops in hand, sitting on beaches, apparently immersed in fruitful solitude. These are but two of the many ads which use beaches, mountains, fields, lakes, and other pastoral scenes to illustrate the seemingly essential escape from the fast pace of the imagined readers lives. A full-page ad for the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas in Austin even places a signpost reading Eden next to a windswept sepia landscape. It can be gathered, then, that these programs offer an unencumbered, uninhibited, and gently-paced easing into the world of literary success. Poets and Writers works effectively on a number of levels, some more subtle than others. Its readers, who may likely be drawn in by the timelessly literary appearance of the magazine, are urged to take a step back from the hectic battle between writing and the demands of every other element of their lives. They are taken by the hand, and assured that feeling exasperated, overwhelmed by the distraction of the media and technology, and a general lack of inspiration,

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are not just understandable, but common even among professional writers (who eagerly claim this kinship with their audience). Whether or not pursuing a Masters degree in Creative Writing is likely to prove the Eden that Poets and Writers advertising suggests, the magazine, as a whole, is genuinely encouraging, and a refreshing break from technologys rather oppressive presence in most writers lives.

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Works Cited Bures, Frank. Inner Space: Clearing Some Room for Inspiration. Poets and Writers Jan./Feb. 2012: 48-52. Print. Huntington, Chris. Why We Write: You Are Not Alone. Poets and Writers May/June 2012: 29. Print. Larimer, Kevin. Excuses, Excuses. Poets and Writers July/Aug. 2012: 8. Print. Nance, Kevin. When Patience Pays Off. Poets and Writers May/June 2012: 33-38. Print. UBC Creative Writing MFA. Advertisement. Poets and Writers July/Aug. 2012: 14. Print.

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