The students in Arthur Flowers’ Literary Blues class seem closer than most.

They banter with each other as they walk into his classroom at Archbold Gymnasium, rehashing memories of previous classes with Flowers, a creative writing professor at Syracuse University. It’s a comfortable atmosphere. One aspiring musician even brought his guitar.

Soon, Flowers – burly with dreadlocks hanging from the back of his balding hairline – enters the room and comments on its format: all the desks face forward in straight rows in the prim and proper classroom.

But this isn’t Flowers’ style. He prefers seminar rooms with large tables, where all the students face each other.

Flowers, a writer, teacher and ‘blues man,’ has been writing and teaching for over three decades. He has spent more than a decade at SU. He considers himself part of the African-American tradition of writers, incorporating the blues and pieces of the mystical belief system ‘Hoodoo’ into his work.

He also teaches his workshop and lecture classes with a unique approach, trying to make the students as active, outspoken and involved as possible.

So the class rearranges the desks into a circle before the next order of business: the price of the course’s book from the copy center.

‘Did you get the reading?’ Flowers asked with a Memphis drawl. ‘You didn’t go get the reading? How much was it?’

Ben Offenberg, a senior English major and one of the few students who had already purchased the course book, replied it cost $50.

‘Fifty dollars?’ Flowers said. ‘You know, it used to be they’d let us use the machine, but they don’t anymore. They want you to pay. Is that your guitar?’

‘No,’ Offenberg deadpanned, ‘I bought the book instead.’

This brought a deep laugh from Flowers, as well as the rest of the class.

That’s what it’s all about for Flowers – give and take with his students, a chance to learn.

‘They gave me three options,’ he said as he introduced the course to his students. ‘They said ‘Arthur, you can teach either history, politics or theory.’ I don’t like history, I like what’s happening now, what’s going to happen tomorrow, that’s what I like. Politics, I know politics, like I know all of you. But theory? Man, all I know about theory you could put into a little thimble and lose. So I’ll teach theory, because what’s the point of teaching if not to learn?’

Flowers writes what he knows. His first novel, ‘De Mojo Blues,’ tackles the Vietnam War, where he served in the Army.

‘Vietnam blew my young mind,’ he said. ‘That’s when I realized that we’re living history. Trying to capture that experience is what made me a writer, so my first novel was about war.’

His second, ‘Another Good Loving Blues,’ is a love story between a bluesman and a woman who conjures spirits, perfectly in line for the man from Memphis, Tenn.

Flowers is currently working on his third novel, a process that’s taken about 15 years to complete.

‘It’s called ‘Rest for the Weary,” he said. ‘It’s about a sorcerer who aspires to be a prophet. This is the one I hope to be my big novel. It’s a classic literary trope, folks trying to write a big novel that aspires to greatness. I’ve done good work, but they aren’t what I aspire to, which is literary masterpieces. My work’s always had heart, but this has a quality that I hope will take me to the Promised Land.’

The novel will be a reinterpretation of a classic African-American hero myth.

‘I am trying to bring African-American culture and its religious, spiritual, sacred tropes into the 21st century,’ he said.

Bonnie Ryan, Flowers’ partner and a librarian at SU, is someone the professor considers one of the ‘great blessings’ of teaching at Syracuse, and she is excited to see how his third novel comes out.

‘He is very dedicated to his work and his craft,’ Ryan said. ‘I’ve never seen anyone quite so dedicated and his writing is his life. Teaching is his life too, but being a writer is what he does and what he is.’

George Saunders, creative writing professor at SU and winner of four National Magazine Awards for fiction, commented about Flowers’ love for teaching via e-mail.

‘Arthur’s great gifts, in his writing and his teaching, are his loving heart and his great generosity,’ Saunders said. ‘His love for the world overflows into his writing and his love for the craft of writing (and for his students) overflows into his teaching.’

This semester, Flowers is teaching two classes: Literary Blues and a fiction workshop for graduate students.

‘I tend to think of teaching as a sacred calling,’ Flowers said.

His students notice.

Offenberg recalled the first time he met Flowers.

‘The first thing he said was that he was a blues man,’ Offenberg said. ‘I don’t know what else you could want from a professor but someone who’s got his own personality. He’s out of the ordinary and he’s absurd, but he provides you with new thoughts and ideas. You couldn’t really ask for more.’

Flowers has an ability to make his students more comfortable with sharing their lives in a classroom environment. He helped Jeannie Smith, a junior English major, open up in class.

‘I tend to be very hesitant of what I think I should say or speak,’ Smith said. ‘But one of the things he was very good at helping me with was pulling that out. I learned to write about whatever I was thinking or seeing or sensing or feeling. That’s one thing that I hold in high regards about Professor Flowers.’

Flowers prefers teaching workshops, where he can help the students with their own work.

‘A lot of writers don’t like workshops, but I’m a writer who teaches rather than a teacher who writes,’ he said. ‘It becomes as important to you as your own work. Having folks you can say, ‘I helped that one.”

During his Literary Blues class, he played a varied blues playlist for the class, providing informed introductions to each piece. He often pauses while speaking, in order to sing along a little or hum the tune.

While Flowers is teaching, he asks students to just speak out when they have something to say.

‘I like chaos, I like the students eager, and I don’t like them stopping to raise their hands’ he said. ‘I am the conductor and there are all these musical instruments in the class, and it’s my job to make the harmony.’ Flowers stops to wave his hands and sign a brief tune. ‘I don’t like to lecture too much. I’m really trying to get it so the students carry the class. I’m happy when I can just sit back and let the students get loose.’

Published on September 6, 2007 at 12:00 pm