Welcome to Creative Critical

The twenty-first century has seen the erosion of any sharp distinction between the ‘creative’ and the ‘critical’. Can criticism itself aspire to be creative? Does creative writing have a critical force? Or should we dispense with these terms altogether?

Such questions come to the fore as creative writing embeds itself in the academy, demanding fresh thought about the forms and languages of criticism, and new kinds of literature more attentive to their own critical force. This website aims to be a forum for all such forms of writing, thinking, and teaching.

Welcome to Creative Critical

The twenty-first century has seen the erosion of any sharp distinction between the ‘creative’ and the ‘critical’. Can criticism itself aspire to be creative? Does creative writing have a critical force? Or should we dispense with these terms altogether?

Such questions come to the fore as creative writing embeds itself in the academy, demanding fresh thought about the forms and languages of criticism, and new kinds of literature more attentive to their own critical force. This website aims to be a forum for all such forms of writing, thinking, and teaching.

The Dark Path / There and Here

The Dark Path / There and Here

By David Miller with an introduction by Matt Martin.The UK poetry scene has lately become increasingly interested in interdisciplinary modes like creative criticism. The time seems right for a reminder that David Miller has pioneered such practices. The Dark Path meditates on contemporary poet Fanny Howe’s articulation of ‘negative theology’, the tradition of considering the divine in terms of what God is not, rather than what God is. There and Here addresses 19th-century French writer Gérard de Nerval.

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Poetry and Indiscipline

Poetry and Indiscipline

By Sam Buchan-Watts and Lucy Mercer.   On 10 May 2024 we held a closed, eight-person symposium in a seminar room at MayDay Rooms entitled ‘Poetry and Indiscipline’. An ‘archive, resource space and safe haven for social movements, experimental and marginal...

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Verse-Criticism

Verse-Criticism

A prospectus and call for submissions for a new section of creative critical, edited by Christopher Norris. Tommy Karshan, Gabriel Flynn and Irina Dumitrescu have very kindly invited me to initiate a new branch, section or segment of creativecritical.net devoted to the practice and discussion of verse criticism. Rather than writing a full-scale introduction to the critical verse-essay genre I’ve decided to post this extended version of a prospectus I wrote for the staff and postgraduate students when teaching this topic at a Summer School in Colorado a few years ago.

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