A Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy

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A FORUM FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND VIGOROUS DEBATE, CORNERSTONES OF DEMOCRACY
[For the journal--guidelines, focus, etc.--go to www.theamericandissident.org. If you have questions, please contact me at todslone@hotmail.com. Comments are NOT moderated (i.e., CENSORED)!]
Encouraged censorship and self-censorship seem to have become popular in America today. Those who censor others, not just self, tend to favor the term "moderate," as opposed to "censor" and "moderation" to "censorship." But that doesn't change what they do. They still act as Little Caesars or Big Brother protectors of the thin-skinned. Democracy, however, demands a tough populace, not so easily offended. On this blog, and to buck the trend of censorship, banning, and ostracizing, comments are NEVER "moderated." Rarely (almost NEVER) do the targets of these blog entries respond in an effort to defend themselves with cogent counter-argumentation. This blog is testimony to how little academics, poets, critics, newspaper editors, cartoonists, political hacks, cultural council apparatchiks, librarians et al appreciate VIGOROUS DEBATE, cornerstone of democracy. Clearly, far too many of them could likely prosper just fine in places like communist China and Cuba or Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia, not to mention Sweden, England, and Austria.
ISSUE #45 PUBLISHED MAY 2023. NOW SEEKING SUBMISSIONS FOR ISSUE #46.

More P. Maudit cartoons (and essays) at Global Free Press: http://www.globalfreepress.org

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Réjean Bonenfant


Poème « irrépondable »

                                                                           Inspiré par Réjean Bonenfant1

Que c’est difficile de dialoguer dans la Noirceur,2… sinon impossible !
Qualifier d’«irrépondable» le réfléchissement dur sans fioriture d’un poète
révoltévenant d’au-delà de vos frontières,
vous excuse, sans doute, vous, poètes subventionnés de l’État, de réfléchir
sur ce qui est déjà trop bien enterré dans le fond de vos méninges surprotégées,
et vous permet de continuer de jouir de votre refuge dans la grande illusion littéraire. 
Si la plume est une épée, c’est seulement quand c’est dans vos mains
et ce n’est pas du tout au grand service de la poésie.
Le poète révolté reste désarmé devant vous, mais il refuse de s’en aller.
Appelez donc les flics… ou est-ce que vous l’avez déjà fait ?

Dénigrer son expérience d’être censuré devant l’apathie de la masse poète
par l’évocation de la vôtre ou de celle d’un autre d’il y a quelques années
vous enlève toute trace de culpabilité d’inaction là où vous auriez dû réagir
et vous permet sans doute de prospérer dans la grande hypocrisie de la poésie
chez vous où l’ouverture est prétendue car poètes d’outre-mer sont les bienvenus—
ben, pas tous—mais n’est-ce pas en réalité qu’un grand geste superficiel ?

La Machine de la poésie existe comme formidable ennemie de la poésie rebelle,
celle qui s’engage contre la Machine elle-même
car cette dernière, résultat naturel de la force indomptable de la mondialisation,
sert à diminuer le pouvoir de la poésie en répandant la versification délavée,
celle pratiquée dans vos cliques de bistrots pop ou salons confortables.
Examinez tout simplement le tonnelage de poèmes produits dans votre seule ville—
une masse, pour la plupart, qui n’éclaire aucunement
car au nom de l’aveuglement bénéfique perpétué par les poètes rouages.
Sans les subsides des oligarques, vous ne posséderiez pas
vos chics recueils imprimés sur papiers pas mal chers.

Que c’est difficile de dialoguer dans la Noirceur… sinon impossible !
Deux solitudes en état de guerre, vous et le poète révolté,
et vous êtes la puissance de loin dominatrice du fait de vos amples fonds
ce qui vous permettent d’accaparer les moyens de communication littéraire
tandis que le poète révolté fait partie des derniers sauvages car sans éditeur
pour lui gonfler la tête, ni coterie de groupies pour l’assurer dans cet univers sans assurance.
S’il perd cette guerre, et c’est sans doute ce qui va arriver, serez-vous vraiment contents
dans l’enfer que vous avez préféré, là où le poète devenu showman n’a plus de voix ?
Vous secouer de votre complaisance ne semble même plus une option aujourd’hui;
après tout et en fin de compte, les poètes de fonction ne sont que des poètes fonctionnaires !    
……………………………….
 
1Réjean Bonenfant, écrivain québécois
2La Grande Noirceur, c’est l’époque où régnait Maurice Duplessis, dictateur soft québécois

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Philip Kennicott


Notes on a Review by an Established-Order Critic
Philip Kennicott, critic for the Washington Post, manifests a certain “normal” inability to viscerally question and challenge.  In his reportage of the “Poetic Likeness” exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery, he notes “many famous poets” are not included without even wondering or caring why all non-famous poets are not included.  Fame, he at least seems to recognize though half-heartedly, does not necessarily equal greatness (whatever that might be in the realm of poetry).  But he seems incapable of realizing that not famous can mean not necessarily bad. 
Kennicott notes “celebrity poet” Maya Angelou was not included in the exhibit, though she recited at Clinton’s 1993 inauguration.  He doesn’t seem to grasp that poets invited by presidents clearly translates into poets innocuous to presidents.  He, of course, does not wonder how innocuous seems to be a trait shared by many, if not most good or even great poets. 
He notes the fellow who created the exhibit included with the photos or paintings texts that were “deliciously indulgent,” as if the writing were a Twinkie.  And perhaps indeed that would sum up the bulk of bourgeois poets and poet critics.  Kennicott includes a couple of lines from Gertrude Stein to back his Twinkie observation:  “Very fine is my valentine./Very fine and very mine./Very mine is my valentine very mine and very fine.”  Well, to be fair, at least he characterizes those lines as “typically infantile doggerel,” though mentions that the curator Ward had said, “If I submitted that to the New Yorker I wouldn’t have to wait for the return mail to know the response.”  Apparently, Ward does not know the New Yorker, which would have probably eagerly published those lines, considering the fame element.  Kennicott, of course, fails to challenge Ward with regards the bulk of New Yorker published poetry, which seems to be representative of typical bourgeois doggerel.  Off limits:  any poetry apt to question and challenge the poetry establishment and its academically cocooned fluffy icons. 
“Spoken like a poet, which in fact Ward is,” remarks Kennicott, failing to add the qualifier bourgeois.  “Publicity and poetry went hand in hand, albeit uncomfortably, throughout the period,” he notes, failing to underscore that such has evidently gotten worse today, where poets of renown have websites dedicated to themselves and more often than not totally devoid of unique thought and ideas.  He also fails to underscore that the “self-mythologizing pioneered by Whitman”  is no longer even necessary today, for an entire network of mythologizing machinery exists from the Academy of Academic (uh, American) Poets and Poetry Foundation to the Library of Congress.   “Many of the names included are now fading into obscurity, even former poets laureate Howard Nemerov and Richard Wilbur,” notes Kennicott.  Well, let us then rejoice! 
Finally, Kennicott concludes regarding the exhibit:  “’Poetic Likeness’ emphasizes something essential about poetry — that it is dynamic and ongoing, and that its fundamental appeal is to the part of our brain that likes fine distinctions.”  As I tell my students, avoid using WE and OUR, for exceptions will always exist… thankfully.  What “Poetic Likeness” sadly seems to emphasize and seeks to push is nothing but base celebrity in the hope of somehow keeping the mythology of the poet as inflated as possible.  Wouldn’t it be far more interesting to create an exhibit that highlighted poets who actually stood up on their hind legs to speak rude truth against the bourgeois poetry machine that seeks to keep poetry as a coopted intellectual diversion, as opposed to a form of written combat against the corruption drowning the nation.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Keli Goff


From: todslone@hotmail.com
To: assistant@keligoff.com; submissions@keligoff.com
Subject: A new Keli Goff cartoon
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2012 11:57:19 -0500

To Keli Goff,
Check out the satirical cartoon P. Maudit just drew on you:
http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2012/12/keli-goff.html. Please comment, though I doubt you will. Feel free to post the cartoon on your glowing egotistical website.
Sincerely...


Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Louis Hamelin

Les Néo-cons

Fuck you, yankee
—Louis Hamelin, chroniqueur du Devoir

 
Partisans coulissards de la censure,
ces journalistes, artistes, poètes,
profs et autres fonctionnaires de la
machine mangeuse de la démocratie


diront hautement et publiquement
non à la censure—

 
la face publique de leur double gueule
l’exige ; c’est comme ça qu’ils vivent
rangés, emmurés tranquillement
de courbettes et cérémonies.

 
O qu’ils encaissent mal la dure critique,
leur faisant mouche sur l’oignon
à court d’arguments,
qui leur provoque
un fulgurant
ad hominem d’indigné.

 
Ainsi, le moral de cette petite histoire vraie
c’est qu’il vaut mieux être un maudit yankee
qui ose dire ses quatre vérités
qu’un hostie de cocooné  
qui n’a aucun devoir à la véracité.