2B — Thursday, January 22, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
On the most blustery of days, I
ventured deep into South Cam-
pus. Tucked beneath the loom-
ing shadow of the Big House was
Wolverine Press. After wandering
through a maze of office cubicles,
I was immediately transported
back into an early 20th-century
factory workshop. Though the
area was austere in nature, Fritz
Swanson was quite the oppo-
site. A man with an orange beard
that matched his neon T-shirt, he
introduced me to the facility that
houses the traditional letterpress
print company that serves the
Helen Zell Writers’ Program.
The Helen Zell Writers’ Pro-
gram is a top-ranked two-year
Master of Fine Arts program in
creative writing, with cohorts in
fiction and poetry. In the program,
students work on their respec-
tive creative writing pieces while
also serving as Graduate Student
Instructors. At the end of the
program, they essentially have
completed a full body of work,
and they proceed to embark on a
third-year fellowship, with goals
of publication.
Swanson, a graduate of the MFA
program and now the publishing
company’s director, takes on five
“Printer’s Devils” from the MFA
program each year as appren-
tices to the art of printing. As the
Devils toiled beside us, Swanson
gave me a tour of the composing
room, where tiny, silver type let-
ters were scattered on the desk in
compartmentalized
categoriza-
tions. For each piece printed, they
must set each individual letter in
place, tighten them into a “chase”
frame and then cast the entirety
in metal. This can be an extremely
tedious and arduous process over
the course of many months.
He shows me a recently print-
ed poem — an inauguration gift
for the new University President
Mark Schlissel — beautifully inked
in a sophisticated maize-and-
blue script. The finished prod-
uct exudes effortlessness at first
glance, but the complexity behind
the aesthetic accentuates the
intellect on the page.
A printing enthusiast since
middle school, Swanson started
the press a year ago in an effort
to salvage materials from a clos-
ing print shop in Muskegon. His
initial intention was to revive the
classic craft — but his lofty aims to
bring back an archaic method of
printing have reasons beyond his-
torical preservation.
“I wanted this shop to be not
just to make pretty things, but to
be a place where all of that his-
tory lives and we can talk about
it, not in the abstract,” Swanson
said. “You sit down and set type,
especially at the speed that we
set at, and you can spend several
minutes with a word. You contem-
plate the language at such a dif-
ferent speed, it changes the way
you write, it changes the way you
think about words, it changes the
way you think about letters … (It’s
an) opportunity for a writer to see
writing from a truly novel per-
spective.”
As I marvel, he tells me the sto-
ries of Mark Twain and Ambrose
Bierce, literary legends who both
started their careers as printing
devils. Swanson hopes to offer the
same humble rooting to MFA stu-
dents who also aspire to become
revered writers in the future. He
has the crucial responsibility of
fostering and furthering their love
for the language and their rela-
tionship with words. He certainly
supplements their graduate expe-
rience, because behind the press
lies a vibrant program of passion-
ate individuals.
I met up with two of these stu-
dents — a tall man with a trapper
hat that covers his eyes and a dain-
ty young woman with a colorful
dress and an even brighter person-
ality. As we sat down, they offered
me a cookie and a half-gallon of
chocolate milk.
They certainly did not have the
high-strung, uptight personas of
some graduate students drown-
ing in their work, especially for
students in the second-highest-
ranked creative writing master’s
program in the country. They
sarcastically taunted each other,
but amid the teasing, it was clear
they held a deep respect for each
other’s works.
Menachem Kaiser graduated
from Columbia University with
degrees in economics and phi-
losophy, and has since published
his work at sites such as the Wall
Street Journal, The Atlantic, Slate
and the New Yorker. Christin Lee,
who started as a studio arts major
at Loyola Marymount University
in Los Angeles, balances Kaiser’s
eccentric nature with her own
quirky personality. Both are first-
year students pursuing fiction
writing.
As we began to talk about their
experiences in Helen Zell, they
very quickly corrected a silly mis-
conception of mine: not everyone
in the MFA has roots in an English
or writing major. The program
allows opportunities for people
from eclectic backgrounds, all
bonded simply by their passion for
writing.
Lee intends to produce a col-
lection of fiction short stories, and
Kaiser, a novel following themes
that speak to his Jewish identity.
However, beyond those simple
descriptors, they confessed that
they did not have much of a direc-
tion. Though initially surprised,
my qualms were assuaged as I
realized that I was not the only
one still figuring my life out. Even
as masters students, their inten-
tions were simply to absorb all
they could and to refine their craft,
all alongside a cohort who were in
the same boat of exploration and
experimentation.
For the writers, the crux of the
program culminates in exclusive,
closed workshops. The MFA pro-
gram has only 22 students — 12 in
fiction and 10 in poetry. Though
they only spend two years togeth-
er, the students foster very close
connections with each other, their
professors and other faculty mem-
bers. In their regular workshops,
each of their peers dedicates a
week to revising each other’s work
and then advising each other on
their progress.
“In the real world, it’s very hard
to find someone who’s willing to
sit down and read and discuss your
6000 words,” Kaiser said. “It’s a
weird family experience in a lot of
ways. But there’s something just
really special just having 11 other
people, just in your corner, who
are really going to give the time
and attention.”
I met up with Douglas Trevor,
associate professor of English and
Creative Writing at the Univer-
sity, later that afternoon. While at
Princeton for his undergraduate
degree, he studied comparative
literature and creative writing
with acclaimed writers such as
Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Mor-
rison. His work has received wide
laudation as well, including the
Balcones Fiction Prize for his
most recent novel, “Girls I Know.”
Though he was not a University
MFA graduate, he is certainly one
of the most popular professors in
the English Department among
both graduate and undergraduate
students. Trevor, like the students
who now look up to him, started
with modest roots — a story writ-
ten at age six about a caveman
named
“Cow-Wow-Bow-Wow,”
sparking his fascination with sto-
rytelling.
“(The MFA community) is very
close,” Trevor said. “The groups
of students who come, they get to
know each other very well. They
spend a lot of time with each other.
We have dinners with the writ-
ers, we spend a lot of time with
the students and we spend a lot
of time with each other as faculty
members. The best thing about the
program is the opportunity to get
to know each other.”
The MFA program is a chain
reaction: the students are fueled
by their professors who are direct-
ed by their administrators — it’s
all one beautifully functioning
system that buttresses everyone’s
efforts.
I met with Michael Byers and
Megan Levad, the director and
assistant director of the Helen Zell
Writers’ Program, respectively, in
the most stereotypical of writer’s
offices — a rainbow array of books
on every single wall, a mobile
standing desk and little Lego figu-
rines on the coffee table. Levad, a
poet and lyricist, and Byers, a nov-
elist with three published books,
consider themselves not only
esteemed writers but also dual
professors and administrators.
In many ways, they seemed to
resemble older, matured versions
of Kaiser and Lee — Byers, whose
gray eyes stared into space while
he joked about his MMA fighter
alter ego, and Levad, donned in a
llama-print shawl and spoke with
a soft, but enthused, tone.
Most people don’t think of
writers as “famous” unless they
have
a
blockbuster
franchise
movie to accompany their novels.
But in writing and higher aca-
demia, Trevor, Byers and Levad
are most admired for their work.
Unlike in Hollywood, they are
not “untouchable” figures of bril-
liance, aloof from the aspirants in
the field; rather, they are eager to
assist budding writers.
Though Levad has her under-
graduate degree from the Uni-
versity of Iowa, and Byers has his
from Oberlin College, both are
alumni of the Helen Zell Writ-
ers’ Program who have returned
now as administrators. They both
spoke to the program as a com-
munity, rather than a hierarchy
of faculty over students. Everyone
is closely knit, and all their work
is pertinent to each other’s. Byers
and Levad note how their admin-
istrative job is threefold, but ancil-
lary to their roles as teachers and
writers.
“I would not be a good teacher of
young writers if I was not a writer
first,” Byers said. “There were a lot
of people that I liked and admired
here. My experience was produc-
tive and crucial to my career, and
I thought (Michigan) was not only
an opportunity to come back and
work with people who I knew
were expert at what they did, but
also a chance to return a little of
the investment that they made in
me to others.”
“Because I went through this
program and because I also teach,
I think that as an administrator, I
can see how what we do in admin-
istration can best serve students,”
Levad adds. “Everything we do in
administration should be aimed
at what’s happening in student
learning and in faculty research
and writing.”
It’s clear that the MFA is a rig-
orous program, but it is one with
a liberating freedom of expression
that the faculty encourages. When
I asked Kaiser and Lee about their
dissertations, they recoiled at the
wording. Not a dissertation, not a
thesis, but rather a creative project.
There isn’t a harsh formality to
the program that requires the aus-
tere terminology of “dissertation,”
which could imply a mandated,
toilsome, daunting concept. The
MFA program is about creating
passion projects — works of pride
to be relished, shared and enjoyed.
The program may be demanding,
but the faculty structure the expe-
rience to afford liberties other
fields may not.
“When I was here, I felt like
my experience mattered to more
people than just me,” Byers said.
“I felt as though my professors
were attentive to the experience
that I was having. I assumed that
was the model for how an MFA
program was supposed to be run
— student-centered with attention
to what the experience actually
is, a sense of a need for a balance
between the individual experience
being as important as the experi-
ence of the group as a whole.”
“Once (our students) get here,
they have their talent nurtured,”
Levad adds. “But they also make
wonderful connections with their
classmates, entering the literary
community is a real source of sus-
tenance for people because if you
see that the folks around you are
continuing to write and are get-
ting their work out there, then it
makes it feel much more possible
that you can do the same.”
Each individual in the program,
whether a student, professor or
administrator, is in on a collec-
tive effort to keep their art form
alive and appreciated. They are a
most vibrant support system, and
beyond their personal endeavors,
the community’s goals become
their own, their success a shared
one for the literary world. This
world, unfortunately, is one that
popular media enjoys critiquing
for being archaic, one that some
scholars lament for “dying.” But
Kaiser sees something different
in this literary world, one teeming
with emotion.
“It’s all the things you relate to
in the world, and to other people
that’s beyond facts and data and
numbers and figures,” Kaiser
said. “Stuff like words, stuff like
empathy and sympathy, love and
heartbreak and tragic and loss and
relation. Those are the things you
learn through literature.”
He pauses a moment. “Man,
I’ve been in parts of my life where
I just didn’t have exposure to any
of this stuff, and it’s an emptier
place.”
Lee
continues,
“Identity,
nation-states — the whole thing is
narrative. Religion, history — it’s
all narrative. The desire to master
that on some level is a desire to just
understand the world.”
“Our toolboxes as thinkers
are really, really enriched when
we try to think about subjects
and texts that don’t reveal them-
selves,” Trevor said. “We have
to remind those who are adverse
to the humanities, or those who
don’t know entirely what we do,
that our projects are primarily
about sharpening analytical skills.
(They’re) also a larger project
about theorizing what it means to
empathize and to think about the
world from other people’s points
of view. I can’t think of anything
more valuable than that.”
Levad adds, “It seems to me
that people are more engaged
with literature. I know we like to
bemoan the loss of the book, but
there’s always more exciting new
books coming out and indepen-
dent presses are still continuing to
publish great work.”
Together, their literary world
seeks answers to human nature
and the key to empathy. It seems
as if every process is intercon-
nected — the independent presses
Levad speaks of, the writers and
teachers alike. I wrapped up each
interview by asking for words of
advice for aspiring writers, and
their primary responses were the
same: simply, to read and to write.
As Trevor puts it, “Read widely,
and spend time thinking about
how to revise one’s own work.
Become accustomed to reading
your own work, as well as the
work of other people. And think
about writing as a cerebral exer-
cise, something you have to do
every day to be in good shape.”
“Read voraciously, and broadly.
And write as often as you can,”
Levad adds. “Try out different
things. Think about the way lan-
guage works. Think about syntax
and grammar — where do those
conventions come from? Think
about etymology. Language is the
material of our art form — it’s our
medium — so learn all you can
about language.”
After a week of following the
MFA program from the roots
up, from the words at the print-
ing press, to the words the stu-
dents write, to the professors who
inspire the students and finally, to
the administrators who point the
program in the right direction, I
know that they embody an effer-
vescent community that tells the
stories of all of our lives.
MFA PROGRAM
From Page 1B
SINGLE REVIEW
There’s still no news on
when
Frank
Ocean
will
release his next album, but
this
week-
end
the
R&B singer
gave fans a
reminder of
his immense
talents,
releasing on
his
Tum-
blr a cover
of “At Your
Best (You Are Love),” a track
originally done by The Isley
Brothers and later covered
by Aaliyah, in honor of what
would’ve
been
Aaliyah’s
36th birthday.
While Aaliyah improved
upon the Isleys’ bedroom
jam with her beautiful, soul-
ful vocals and a more con-
temporary
instrumental
accompaniment, Ocean takes
the song in another direc-
tion. The Princess of R&B is
soft, seductive and inviting;
Ocean sounds heartbroken
and isolated, accompanied
only by his keyboard and
the haunting echoes of his
own voice. Though lone-
lier and more closed-off,
Ocean’s take on the song
is just as powerful as its
other versions. His voice
hits notes even higher than
Aaliyah’s, his words sound-
ing like unconscious emis-
sions of his most personal
inner thoughts. The sparse
arrangement recalls Kanye
West’s recent “Only One,”
and this pleasantly surpris-
ing release from Ocean will
vault him right back up with
Kanye on everyone’s “Most
Anticipated Albums of 2015”
lists.
-ADAM THEISEN
DEF JAM RECORDS
EPISODE REVIEW
I’m always impressed by
“Law and Order: Special Vic-
tims Unit.” The writing, acting
and execution
are consistently
amazing,
and
this week’s epi-
sode didn’t dis-
appoint. “Agent
Provocateur”
had one of the
most
artistic
beginnings
the show has
seen in a long
time, which is
impressive see-
ing as part of
it involved an unconscious girl
being stuffed unceremoniously
into a suitcase and left in an
alleyway.
The episode draws attention
to the increasingly blurred lines
of communication on social
media, in this case between 15
year old Madison Baker (Madi-
son Grace, “Nova Road”) and the
object of her obsession, sleazy
Hollywood star Scott Russo
(Shiloh Fernandez, “Red Riding
Hood”). They apparently spend
a night together that Madison
says she doesn’t remember —
but it’s unclear whether this is
because of the drugs and alco-
hol in her system, or something
else. Russo is in the city promot-
ing his new movie — ironically
about being framed for a crime
he didn’t commit — with a col-
league, who is later revealed to
be Madison’s seducer. The epi-
sode is a whirlwind of he-said,
she-said, edited video footage
and purposely leaked informa-
tion to disreputable news source
LMZ. During the episode’s final
moments, Benson catches a brief
knowing look shared between
the
Franco-esque
star
and
another cute young girl, and her
realization that it might have all
been planned is the type of last-
minute realization that “SVU”
rarely utilizes — but, as in this
episode, always uses powerfully.
And if none of this intrigues
you enough, you should know
that legend Patti LuPone also
makes an appearance as the
stars’ cold and calculating man-
ager — giving a dynamic per-
formance as always.
-SOPHIA KAUFMAN
NBC
A-
‘Law &
Order:
SVU’
Season 16,
Episode 11
Wednesdays
at 9 p.m.
NBC
A
‘At Your
Best (You
Are Love)’
Frank Ocean
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
Printing a book at the Wolverine Press.
VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily
“Literary legends got their starts as printing devils.”