At the University of Houston, where in the mid-1990s I earned my doctorate in Creative Writing, I began what will likely turn out to be a lifelong occupation as a translator. Three of my idols – Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and Richard Wilbur – had been translators of French poetry, but my emerging enterprise (should I say obsession?) would not involve the rendering of any foreign poetry into English. Instead, I would devote myself to ‘translating’ the discourses of critical theory into the art and discipline of Creative Writing.

My project originated in a somewhat unlikely venue. The curriculum at Houston required poetry candidates to enroll in at least one fiction workshop. The same was true for fiction writers, who had to take a stab at making poems. These ‘cross-over’ workshops sought to break down barriers not only between writers in the program but also between genres and styles. Little did I realize that my cross-over workshop taught by Mary Robison would inspire me to help Critical Theory (traditionally the province of scholarly literary studies) ‘cross-over’ into the field of Creative Writing.

I chose Robison’s workshop for the simple reason that I deeply admired two of her short stories, ‘I Am 21’ and ‘Yours’ (Robison, 2002), both of which I still teach in Creative Writing courses. I had no idea at the time that a brief comment made by her to one of my classmates would ultimately provoke me to dedicate a good deal of my writing and teaching life to studying the ways in which the ideas of Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and other so-called ‘high theorists’ could help maturing creative writers break new ground in their poems, stories, and dramatic works.