Famous writers’ Rate My Professor pages.

Here’s the thing: some writers are also teachers. Some teachers go onto be writers, but usually it’s the other way around. Over the years, I’ve found it interesting to go online and check out the Rate My Professor.

The RMP site is a black hole, with search boxes that lead nowhere, misspelled college names and an anything-goes commentor credo. In other words, it’s on the internet.  I thought it might be helpful to have some all in one place.

Here, then, is a handy dandy guide to some Rate My Professor pages of famous and almost-famous writers-who-teach–some I admire, some I know, and some I do not admire and do not know. Anyone have any others? Post them in the comments and I’ll add.

Dan Barden, he of the sort of famous article from Poets & Writers,  “Workshop: A Rant Against Creative Writing Classes,” teaches himself–surprise–in a creative writing program. “Sometimes you just want to scratch him behind the ears,” writes one student.

The “add a photo” feature for professor linkings is rarely used, but in the case of Joshua Clover–rock critic, Marxist, and poet–the photo features Prof. Clover, seemingly in mid-thought. “Every lesson so far has blown my mind,” writes one student.

When he was awarded as Poet Laureate he left the campus,” writes one student of former poet laureate and spokesman for mainstream poetry Billy Collins. “Even his personal belongings were still in his office….But, then again, every poet who’s ever been awarded the Laureate has gone to hell…I think they ought to award 100 of them a year.”

The verdict of Rate My Proftards split on Virginia Tech’s Nikki Giovvani. “It didn’t help that she always referred to whites as the “oppressor,” writes on student.  “On the plus side, not much work is assigned so it was an easy A.” Bonus!

Most of Robert Hass‘s rates are from 100-level classes at UC-Berkeley, which dashes the hopes of some us in academe (including yours truly) who might dream of a future of avoiding the first-year great unwashed.  The former poet laureate’s ratings don’t indicate great intellectual stews cooking out in the land of Small Press Distribution and road blocks around rich neighborhoods. “Can run lectures like a Morry Povich [sic] show–questions from idiots and savants alike, each treated with PC tact and approbrium, resulting in total snoozefest,” one student writes. “However, when he lectures from notes, or best, anecdotally, he’s on fire. Generous grader.”

Best American Poetry editor David Lehman doesn’t seem to have many reviewers at his native New School, but to appropriate Prince, All the critics love him in New York University.

Flarf co-co-co-co-inventor K. Silem Mohammed
seems to elicit Flarfian evaluations from his students. “Sometimes I buy pasta from a taco truck then I think ‘Oh wait. Kasey is awesome,’” writes one regarding his/her experience in a class called WRIT292. “Also he is the sexiest cowboy who ever placed one foot carefully in the Snake River.”

“I heard of this guy, the godfather of creative nonfiction, before taking the class,” writes one Hofstra University student of Phillip Lopate. “Turns out he’s, like, old! And tall! Really tall! And also pretty smart. I heart. I heart I heart I heart.”

Cancer memoirist and Christopher Columbus poetry enthusiast Sarah Manguso splits the vote among her Pratt evaluators. “Lessons were boring and predictable, but she ran great workshops and gives good advice for revisions,” writes one student. “Tries to be too “buddy buddy” , though – doesn’t have a lot of authority over her students.” I love those scare quotes–as if the student had just coined the neologism “buddy buddy.”

Lyric essay apologist David Shields gets some love for ENG384 at Washington University University of Washington. Another student sounds like he/she’s writing for The Rumpus; or better put, the comment boxes. “I never got the impression that he actually wanted to be there, or had any interest in helping students improve, and certainly didn’t seem to want to actually read any student writing,” one student writes. “He only wants you to listen in awe while he muses about why fiction is so useless. He thinks everything he has to say about writing is gospel and it gets old fast.”

“AMAZING,” writes one Rutgers student about fiction writer and HTMLGiant diarist  Justin Taylor. “I love this little hipster.”

And Letters to Wendy’s author Joe Wenderoth? The comments are epic.  Read them yourself.

UPDATE: Check out Ryan Call’s post on this very same topic at HTML Giant here. So much for originality.