A Million MFAs Are Not Enough

A Million MFAs Are Not Enough takes aim at the dullness that has cost poetry its general audience, and scores a direct hit. This collection of essays by Charles Harper Webb, the man called “Southern California’s most inventive and accessible poet” shows how American poetry has betrayed the general reader, and how poets can win those readers back with poems that, like the best fiction, grab the reader and hold on.

Something is rotten in the state of American poetry. With respect to audience and artistry, poetry has shot itself in many portions of its anatomy, and keeps blasting. The fact that vast numbers of poems are published every year, and a large number of Creative Writing students and graduates combine to read a few of them, does not mean that poetry is on the right track. As an acclaimed poet and veteran teacher of poetry, Charles Harper Webb knows what it takes for a poem to grab a reader’s attention and hold on. As a former rock singer/guitarist and a licensed psychotherapist, he understands how to connect with an audience. A Million MFAs Are Not Enough shows–with concrete tips that working writers can use–how poetry can return to cultural relevance again. He champions poems that enlighten as they entertain–as these extraordinary essays do.