From: todslone@hotmail.com
To: editorinchief@highlandernews.org; opinions@highlandernews.org
CC: juan.herrera@ucr.edu
Subject: Criticism and satire of one of your professors...
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 17:55:56 -0400
To: editorinchief@highlandernews.org; opinions@highlandernews.org
CC: juan.herrera@ucr.edu
Subject: Criticism and satire of one of your professors...
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 17:55:56 -0400
To Michael Rios, Editor-in-Chief, and Colette
King, Opinions Editor, The Highlander:
How about being courageous and publishing the open letter (see below) and cartoon depicting one of your creative writing professors (seehttp://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2014/08/juan-felipe-herrera.html)? If you are a fervent believer in freedom of expression, you will do so. If not, you will not do so. And the University of California is not a great institution for such freedom, as you likely know. How about asking your librarian to subscribe to The American Dissident (only $20/year) and be the first library in all of California to do so? After all, where else would students be able to read and view such criticism of their professors et al? Thanks!
...........................................................................................How about being courageous and publishing the open letter (see below) and cartoon depicting one of your creative writing professors (seehttp://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2014/08/juan-felipe-herrera.html)? If you are a fervent believer in freedom of expression, you will do so. If not, you will not do so. And the University of California is not a great institution for such freedom, as you likely know. How about asking your librarian to subscribe to The American Dissident (only $20/year) and be the first library in all of California to do so? After all, where else would students be able to read and view such criticism of their professors et al? Thanks!
No response.
................................................................................
Open Letter
to Juan Herrera, Writing Professor, University of California at Riverside,
Poet Laureate
of California& Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets
He had written much blank verse, and
blanker prose,
And more of both than anybody knows. […]
—Lord Byron,
RE poet laureate Bob Southey
“Is Poetry Dead? Not if 45 Official Laureates Are Any Indication” was the
title of the New York Times article that featured a large photo of you
et al. However, it is not a question of “dead,” but rather one of having
or not having pertinence. Poetry, in fact, really doesn’t matter today in
America because, for one thing, poet laureates and other poets accorded voice
are largely paid for and/or promoted by the academic/literary established order
to essentially push pabulum verse apt not to offend elementary school children…
and easily offended, multiculti-minded adults. The bland poems read at
Obama’s two inaugurals—shame on any poet who stoops so low as to be willing to
read a poem only after a politician gives it the okay—serve as examples of such
pabulum, as does the verse written by you, cited in that article as a kind of
“Whitmanesque tribute”: “Architects engineers laborers drivers
Viva!/Lifters callers crane operators Viva!/Cement mixers cable threaders Viva!”
Whitman could indeed be bland and inncouous in his glory, glory hyperbolic
rhetoric. What is wrong with the New York Times, if it really
thinks that line of yours worthy of mention? Indeed, it sounds as if it
might have been taken from the “Communist International,” which for some odd
reason omitted to include mention of the millions of hard-working kulaks
butchered under the Soviet state.
In any case, I wish to
inform you that I was permanently banned from commenting on the Academy of
American Poets’ website in 2007 (see http://theamericandissident.org/orgs/academy_american_poets.html). For the transcript of my censored comments, see http://theamericandissident.org/orgs/academy_american_poets_transcript.html). If unusually curious you do actually check it out,
you’ll note the absence of racist or sexist epithets and threats.
However, my comments were not PC smiley-faced. Fortunately, I saved the
transcript prior to its being censored. Poets should fight tooth and nail
against such lowly censorship! Why did your colleague Chancellors not do
this? Well, for one thing, they tend to be the censors! My comments
were offensive to them because I had (and have!) the audacity to criticize
established-order poets and their academic/literary established-order
machine. For that, I have been ostracized into poet oblivion. But
that was certainly to be expected, for poets are hardly at all staunch
defenders of freedom of speech. What they tend to be is politically
correct and gregarious, as opposed to steadfast individuals and fervent
advocates of free expression.
Now, do you care about
that egregious incident of Academy censorship or will you attempt to justify it
like several of your Chancellor colleagues? Will you stand as an
individual to protest against that act of censorship and RISK upsetting your
colleague censors? As a ladder climber, you will likely respond with a
NO, though not directly or to me. You state in the New York Times
article that poets “have to float and be
transparent and pick up everything we can.” Well, what the hell does that
even mean? Most poets don’t give a damn about censorship or issues of
freedom of expression. Hell, if they did, they’d end up ostracized like
me and with no grants or speaking invitations, let alone tenure at some
university. So, are they supposed to be “transparent” about their
apathy? Well, that would be a good place to start. So, are
well-fed poets like you blinded by the feed or are they being fed because they
were already blind? Perhaps it’s a little of both? How long have
you been turning a blind eye to rise, as you have, in the ranks of the
established order? As far as poets “floating,” I’d much rather sink and
not “pick up” any of those titles, grants, and academic perks you’ve received
over the years.
Finally,
since the New York Times would never publish this as an opposing point
of view, I send it to The Highlander, your university student
newspaper. Will Michael Rios, editor-in-chief, publish it?
Sadly, experience with such newspapers and journalists tells me that likelihood
to be quite low. These things said, how about getting your library to be
the first and only library in California willing to subscribe to The
American Dissident (only $20/year), a journal of literature, democracy, and
dissidence? LOL…
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