May 1979 
AWP in Nashville- Reports on the Program: "A Celebration of Wallace Stevens"
Van Brock
In honor of Wallace Stevens, the keynote session of the 1979 AWP Conference in Nashville was launched by Helen Vend1er's address, "Apollo's Harsher Songs." Vendler, professor and critic from Boston University, was introduced by AWP Board Member David J. Smith. To explain the distinction of her array of achievements, Smith observed that Vend1er was a clear exception to Marvin Bell's definition of a critic as one "who reads a work less than once."
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AWP in Nashville- Reports on the Program: George P. Elliott: "The Art of the Novella"
Ben Howard
Mr. Elliott's lecture was an informal inquiry into the nature of the novella. Rejecting the conventional, quantitative definition of the novella as "a prose fiction of 30-50,000 words," Mr. Elliott proposed a qualitative definition comprised of essential attributes. His approach, he explained, was not empirical but deductive. He began with an idea of the novella and discussed selected works in relation to that idea.
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Committee Reports to the Members: Curriculum and Academic Policy
AWP Committee
The report from the Curriculum Committee is divided into two parts. The first is a narrative report on the data gathered from the 1978 survey of the membership. The second part consists of recently approved policy statements, guidelines and recommendations formulated by the Board which make use of data collected.
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AWP in Nashville- Reports on the Program: John F. Nims: "Speaking of Poetry"
Jeanie Thompson
We had to move to a larger room because so many people wanted to hear John F. Nims speak on poetry, but this minor interruption was soon forgotten when we found ourselves being entertained as well as instructed. Mr. Nims began by referring to Wallace Stevens' concern with "small thoughts," brought to our attention earlier in the day by Michael Ryan, and said he would talk about "small things," claiming he felt like "a podiatrist among the brain surgeons."
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Committee Reports to the Members: II. Guidelines for Teachers of Writing
AWP Committee
At the same time, the survey asked writing teachers in AWP to rank these factors that may have contributed to their effectiveness as teachers: their own experience as writers, their own teaching experience, graduate training in writing, or graduate training in literature. Three-fourths of those responding cited their own experience as writers, and over half also cited their own experience as teachers.
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Apollo's Harsher Songs
Hellen Vendler
"The words of Mercury," says Armado at the close of Love's Labor's Lost, "are harsh after the songs of Apollo." Apollo's songs, like the songs of Orpheus, are thought to be full "of linked sweetness long drawn out": and Keats, wishing that his nightingale could sing "divine melodious truth," decided that sculpture was the better art, expressing "a flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme," letting us hear those unheard melodies that pipe to the spirit, sweeter than the heard melodies of the nightingale.
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