Open Letter to Henry David Thoreau #1

I've been writing a new Open Letter to Henry David Thoreau (#16).  When I was living in Concord, I managed to write 15 such letters and even managed to pass some of them through the approval process of the town apparatchiks, required for all posting on the bulletin board in the center of town.  A number of those letters are included in the book I wrote on my ten years in Concord, Transcendental Trinkets.  Now, since 2010, I've been living on Cape Cod, also in Massachusetts.  Below is the first such letter I wrote.  

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Open Letter to Henry David Thoreau #1

--The Concord Censorial Committee and Concord Poetry Center--

Dear Henry: This letter is addressed to you because you would understand it, whereas most of our fellow citizens of Concord would likely not.  You know what I’m talking about: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même marde.  Some say you repose incarcerated today behind the walls of the Concord Museum, while others believe you to be held hostage behind those of Thoreau Institute, in a display case at the Concord Free Public Library, or even recycled, uh, reincarnated into a tee shirt, coffee mug, and other trinkets sold at Shop at Walden, operated by the society named after you.  In Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, I’ve walked by your gravesite, grabbed the coins placed there, but intuitively know you do not repose there either.  Since I am thus uncertain of your whereabouts, I have decided to post this letter on the Concord Bulletin Board at the Milldam.  

     Interestingly, the Chamber of Commerce controls the town today and, of course, local business pillars control it. Thus, all such postings must be approved by censorial apparatchiks:  “messages containing obscenities or other inappropriate content, as determined by Town staff, will not be posted.”  Pre-approved speech is, of course, not free speech at all.  Well, hopefully, the committee will approve this letter and not determine it to contain “inappropriate content.”  By the way, Henry, I have greatly appreciated the dissident morsels dispersed throughout your journals. Your wonderful statement, “Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine,” in fact, helped spur me to create a literary journal here in Concord to provide a forum for examining the dark side of the academic/literary established order and to incite poets and other artists to, in the words of your friend Emerson, “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.”  As poet-editor, I thus push myself periodically to go upright and vital, though to act and speak alone tend to be equated with antisocial behavior in these parts, as you well know. 

        A month ago, thus, I protested the opening of the Concord Poetry Center for three simple reasons. The first included what Emerson had declared:  “I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names.”  The Center had invited a badge and name to speak, Pulitzer Prize Franz Wright, son of Pulitzer Prize Charles Wright.  The Center is located in the building owned by the Town and named after Emerson himself, the Emerson Umbrella for the Arts.  Oddly—well, perhaps not—, its director, Richard Fahlander, could not comprehend my dissent at all.  In fact, he refused to respond to my letters of protest. The second reason concerned what the Center’s director Joan Houlihan had written me: 

The idea of your teaching a workshop or delivering a lecture on the art of literary protest or poetry protest, or simply protest (Concord is where it all started!) occurred to me even before you mentioned it, so, yes, it’s something I will consider as we progress (this is only our first event).  However, I must say I don’t favor having you teach at the center if you protest the reading.

     The third reason pertained to my endless curiosity with regards poets in America today.  Oddly, indeed, not a single poet, poetaster, or poetophile attending the event was able to comprehend the reasoning for my protest. The hubris manifested by the organizers was troubling:  how dare anyone criticize us!   

     What marked and saddened me most during the protest was the incuriosity of local poets, poetasters, and poetophiles.  How could they be so un-inquisitive?  Such lack of curiosity is indeed quite foreign to me.  I really cannot fathom it, Henry.  How could poets and artists have become so bourgeois in mind and attitude—so safe, so un-warring with corrupt society, so networking, so group thinking, and so salivating before prizes and prize-winners?  Money and careerism can only explain it.  Well, I’ve got to stop here, since town functionaries have stipulated that only one page is permitted.  I’ll write again in several weeks when they tear this letter down and toss it into the garbage bucket.  Best to you, Henry.

Franz Wright

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Why Poetry Doesn't Matter--Yet Another Example...

Above is a cartoon I sketched in 2004 on Franz Wright, who actually paid me $10 for a copy of it in person at the Emerson Umbrella for the Arts (ah, but not for my arts!) building when he saw me with signs and flyers protesting his scheduled reading at Concord Poetry Center.  He chuckled and never did comment on it.  

          I thought I should post it here for the record, since Wright just croaked.  "Award-winning poet" Michael Dickman presented his blind-poet accolade write-up in Time magazine (6/1/15).  "Award-winning" poets like Dickman and Wright of course rarely, if ever, possess the individuality to question and challenge the academic/literary established order machine handing out the prizes and accolades.   Dickman, in a typical outpouring of hyperbolic lit-dysentery, states "Franz Wright was a haunted and passionate poet, creator of some of the most devastatingly beautiful and dangerous poems written in English in the past 50 years."  Sadly, MFA poesy students will likely swallow the shit without questioning it.  And Dickman evidently needs a dictionary to look up the term "dangerous."  

          "The hole he leaves in contemporary American poetry will not, as Wright once wrote, be 'scarlessly closing like water' anytime soon," concludes Dickman as if somehow making an objective statement, which sums up the entire canon-making machinery, which inevitably performs its hocus-pocus and voila subjective becomes objective.  Just swallow and say ahh, just like Dickman has been doing all his life right up the ladder to the safe penning of a Time mag obit hagiography.  Dickman, by the way, briefly responded to my critique of his hagiography (see below for correspondence).  I'd mistakenly written that Charles Wright, current Lit-Innocuity-in-Chief aka Poet Laureataster of the US Congress, was Franz Wright's father.  In fact, the two are not related.  Sadly, that was all Dickman had to say.  

          Regarding my Concord protest, Franz Wright, of course, unsurprisingly, did not give a damn about it, and I doubt he possessed the capacity to understand the cartoon he'd purchased.  The protest concerned, not just him, but also the Concord Poetry Center, who's director, Joan Houlihan, had aberrantly stipulated that if I stood before her center in protest, she would not permit me to teach a workshop on dissident poetry and poets.  Where most poetasters like Wright would probably have said, well, ok, I won't protest, I certainly did not.  Below is the letter I wrote to Wright, who never responded...

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                                                                                                      October 17, 2004

Franz Wright, Pulitzer Poet

74 Parmenter Rd.

Waltham, MA 02453

Dear Franz Wright:

We met Saturday night quite briefly (see my poem on that encounter).  I was/am the lone poet protester of Concord (I spent a day in a Concord jail for protesting the absence of free speech at Walden Pond several years ago).  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all dialogue, rather than chuckle at each other?  Wouldn’t it be nice (generous) if the academic lit journals, workshops, classes and poetry centers opened their scope to other possibilities and even manifested CURIOSITY?  Yes, I am aware that you are not an academic… but I suspect, if you are not already, you shall soon be with workshop opportunities, adjunct courses, and offers of tenure from the nation’s poetry department heads.  

Anyhow, enclosed is a copy of the literary journal I created as a result of academic corruption at Fitchburg State College (MA).  I was a professor there (5 years) and am now a blacklisted unemployed professor with a PhD… for whatever that is worth.  

Enclosed also is a self-published chapbook (who else would ever publish such a thing?) of my poetry and especially my literary manifesto.  The latter is what I’d really like you to examine.  Over 40 academic journals have rejected it.  I thought it might be interesting if you simply contemplated for a moment how impossible it is for a dissident poet to find a publisher in today’s society.  Indeed, recently reading Solzhenitsyn’s The Oak and the Calf, I could not help but compare America’s Academic-controlled literary scene (the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex) with that of the Soviet Writer’s Union.  

Thank you for helping to support The American Dissident with your $10 contribution.  

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From: todslone@hotmail.com

To: mdickman@princeton.edu

CC: lewiscenter@princeton.edu

Subject: Adjudicated: Insufficiently Deferent

Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 11:16:51 -0400

To Michael Dickman, (Academic) Lecturer in Creative Writing, Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University:

Yesterday, I read your obit on Franz Wright, while waiting for my car inspection at Toyota.  My comments with its regard, including a cartoon I’d sketched on Wright ages ago, have just been posted on my blog site here:  wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com.  Why not take a gander.  After all, as I've always said, curiosity did not kill the cat, careerism did that.  

In fact, why not manifest unusual openness and expose your creative-writing students to it?  Pipe dream?  Most likely, and despite the following deceptive statement of implied inclusivity:  “The Lewis Center for the Arts is designed to put the creative and performing arts at the heart of the Princeton experience. This mission is based on the conviction that exposure to the arts, particularly to the experience of producing art, helps each of us to make sense of our lives and the lives of our neighbors.”

Ah, but which “creative and performing arts” are to be included… and which are to be excluded… in the name of inclusivity of course? Which poets are to be included and which shall be excluded?  Do you teach your students that?  Do you teach them to question and challenge the lit canon?  Do you teach them to wonder about the faceless judges concealed behind the scene who choose this poem but not that poem?  Do you teach them to wonder why those faceless Pulitzer judges chose Franz Wright?  Did they choose him because he was harshly critical with their regard?  

Finally, why not get Princeton to subscribe to The American Dissident (only $20/year) or better yet order copies for your students.  After all, where else might they read criticism of lit icons and their acolytes?  Where else might they be able to examine satirical cartoons, poems, and essays on those like Wright… and even you?  Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Buffalo, and a few other universities thankfully subscribe.  To date, only one professor has been willing to open up his classroom to opposing viewpoints and invite me to speak about The American Dissident.  Professor Dan Sklar (Endicott College) has been doing that for almost five years now.  For all student comments, see http://theamericandissident.org/students.html.

Thank you for your attention.

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From: mdickman@Princeton.EDU

To: todslone@hotmail.com

Subject: RE: Adjudicated: Insufficiently Deferent

Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 15:36:17 +0000

Mr. Slone, 

Charles Wright is not Franz Wright's father. 

Good luck,

Michael Dickman

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From: todslone@hotmail.com

To: mdickman@princeton.edu

Subject: Adjudicated: Insufficiently Deferent

Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 20:21:59 -0400

Michael,

I stand corrected!  I always thought he was the father.  Somebody must have told me that a while ago.  I shall note on my blog that I erred.  Now, too bad you are not OPEN to different viewpoints... too bad for your students.

G. Tod

Joan Houlihan

 

Read the amazingly stupidly contradictory statement poetry autocrat Joan Houlihan wrote me on dissidence here:  http://www.theamericandissident.org/orgs/concord_poetry_center.html. 

Susan Edwards Richmond

The following email was sent to Susan Edwards Richmond, who unsurprisingly did not respond.



Hi Susan Edwards Richmond:

Time for a reality check. Step out of the poesy cocoon and take a gander (Sanctuary!) at the new P. Maudit cartoon on YOU posted on The American Dissident blogsite http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2012/08/susan-edwards-richmond.html

Feel free to use it in Wild Cherries, uh, Apples. Feel free to comment, though I doubt you’re a partisan of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy. Enjoy!

Charles Coe

 

As part of an ongoing experiment to test the waters of democracy, especially in the academic and literary arenas, notice of this blog entry was sent to each of the persons depicted in the above watercolor (see below). Will any of them dare comment? Likely not. Their shame is that they do not cherish, but rather scorn, vigorous debate, democracy’s cornerstone. Their shame, at least those in the teaching profession (Pinsky, Marchant, Houlihan, Wright, and Espada), is that they do not seek to expose their students to all points of view and all possibilities for inspiration with regards writing, including and especially dissidence and purposeful conflict with power. Their shame is their contentment that dissidents like me and others are kept out of their festivals, kept from public funding, and kept from the eye of youth. Their shame is that my freedom of expression and that of other American dissidents is being crushed at every corner. Some of them have even become millionaire professor poets. Indeed, how can one possibly expect raw, visceral truth from such persons?

The idea for the above watercolor brewed over several weeks time and was likely sparked by the probable clique connection existing between Joan Houlihan, Director of the Concord Poetry Center, Karen Wulf, Director of Pen New England, Joan Bertin, Director of the National Coalition against Censorship, and Fred Marchant, Director of the Suffolk University Poetry Center. Both Wulf and Houlihan operate from Lesley University (Cambridge, MA). Both Wulf and Bertin refuse to address the freedom of expression and censorship issues I’d brought to their attention. Why?

Again, the only concrete explanation I could come up with was the clique. Houlihan often reads paired with Marchant, who is depicted in a photo hugging Charles Coe of the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Coe refuses to address my request to be invited to the Poetry Festival. To that concoction, I added Doug Holder of Ibbetson Press, who interviewed Coe and gave Robert Pinsky, also depicted in the watercolor, a medal or award.

Pinsky seems to be the established-order poet poster boy, invited left and right and everywhere else to read his flaccid poem about a shirt. How mind-boggling can it get? I first contacted him in 1996 or 7, when he was invited to give the commencement speech at Fitchburg State College. I contacted him because of the inherent corruption festering at that institution. He of course was indifferent and did not respond. All he wanted was his 5-10K honorarium. He really does disgust me as a poet.

Doug Holder, on the other hand, has certainly been more open than most poets of the established order. Poesy mag, which he co-edits or co-edited, interviewed me. Doug certainly could have prevented that interview. Also, he did place a link to this blog on his site and even manifested rare established-order poet curiosity by buying an issue of The American Dissident at Grolier's in Harvard Square. So, hats off to Doug... sincerely. Just the same, it is too bad he doesn't push others of the clique like Coe and Houlihan and Marchant to open their doors to dissent. So, come on Doug, give those poet cohorts a little boot in the rump... not for me, but for democracy!

To fill out the picture, I added Martin Espada of the University of Massachusetts for diversity’s sake and for his indifference to dissident poets. Also, I added Franz Wright of Brandeis University, who was invited by Houlihan to read and for his indifference.

Of course, many others could have been added to the picture. Duke University professor Gary Hull, Director of the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, for example, could have been added. He refused to respond to my emails requesting he place my signature, as editor of The American Dissident, on a petition he created to decry Yale University’s decision to censor cartoons. Has it perhaps gotten that bad that petitions are only open to certain categories of citizens?

In America, perhaps we are indeed now in the Age of Aberrancy, where censorship has become rampant and censors extolled as moderators of pre-approved bourgeois aesthetics. George Orwell would have gone nuts with so much material to write about!

In essence, the rancid odor of cliquishness characterizes the established-order academic/literary scene. Offend the clique and risk ostracizing. It’s quite that simple. What really concerns the clique is not literature per se and certainly not democracy, but rather the marketing of clique members and their books. It is sad that public cultural councils endorse this kind of cliquishness and hermetic resistance to dissent.

As noted in the watercolor, its idea was also inspired by Brueghel’s painting, “The Cripples” (or “The Beggars”) and Léo Ferré’s 1956 preface to "Poète...vos papiers !" (see www.theamericandissident.org/Essays-Ferre.htm) In the quote, Ferré mentions that poets cut off their own wings, leaving just enough “moignon” (stump) so they may flutter about in the Literary Poultry Yard. He also mentions that we may expect little, if any, hope from poets of that sort.
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From: George Slone
To: Charles.coe@art.state.ma.us; ibbetsonpress@msn.com; pen-ne@lesley.edu; Bertin@ncac.org; mespada@english.umass.edu; fjmarchant@aol.com; rpinsky@bu.edu; joan@concordpoetry.org; cpc@concordpoetry.org; fwright@brandeis.edu
Cc: gahull@soc.duke.edu; mina.wright@art.state.ma.us; dan.blask@art.state.ma.us; voltairepress@live.com
Sent: Fri, December 11, 2009 11:57:37 AM
Subject: The Age of Aberrancy, the Poetes moignons & Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy

Dear Poets et al:
You are the subject of a new watercolor and blog entry, which is why you're being contacted. Go ahead, curiosity didn't kill the cat. Apparently, it only killed the poet, which certainly must explain his and her incredible incuriosity! http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2009/12/age-of-aberrancy-and-poets-of-moignon.html

Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, PhD and Founding Editor (since 1998)
The American Dissident, a Journal of Literature, Democracy & Dissidence
A 501 c3 Nonprofit Providing a Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy
todslone@yahoo.com
www.theamericandissident.org
1837 Main St.
Concord, MA 01742

Poets House—$11 Million Just for the Interior Decoration

The following is a letter I just wrote to Le Monde (Paris) regarding its article on Poets House in New York. After the letter (sorry, it's en francais) is an email (in English) sent to Poets House to see if it might subscribe to The American Dissident. Poets House collected $11 million in donations to redecorate its interior! So far, no response has been received. Last night I solo protested against Louise Gluck's reading at the Concord Free Public Library. My account of the protest, "Why Don't You Please Go Home," will serve as a future blog entry. The title of the essay was the comment issued by Joah Houlihan, Director of Concord Poetry Center, as she quickly scurried past me like a diminutive troll... and not of the Internet variety. Clearly, Houlihan is not a proponent of democracy, nor of its cornerstones, vigorous debate and virulent protest! She has become a despicable established-order cog... yet another sellout hippie.

Un bon debut de critique sur cette nouvelle Maison (opulente) des Poetes (opulents) qu’on appelle Poets House… mais seulement un debut. Remarque que les poetes bourgeois de notre pays (USA) peuvent gagner des salaires garanties universitaires de plus de $100,000 par an. Il y en a parmi eux qui gagnent encore $500,000 par les bourses (e.g., MacArthur Foundation et Poetry Foundation). Qu’ils sont loin du mythe du poete affame ! Ils ont besoin donc de cette Maison opulente. A propos, les $11 millions ont ete destines pour la redecoration de l’interieur de cette Maison et ne representent donc pas le cout du batiment qui est loue gratis a la Poets House. Imagine ce qu’on aurait pu faire avec ces dollars pour les divers poetes comme moi qui ne reussissent jamais a denicher de bourse. Moi, je publie un journal litteraire depuis 10 ans devoue a la critique dure de la poesie bourgeoise et de sa grosse machine friquee. Les bibliothequaires publiques pour la plupart ne veulent pas s’abonner a ce journal (seulement $20/an) en depit de leur Library Bill of Rights (droits de l’homme a la bibliotheque) qui stipule que les bibliotheques doivent inclure toutes les optiques dans leurs collections. C’est presque certain que la plupart de ces bibliotheques si nombreuses n’obtiennent pas l’optique exprimee dans ma revue. La Maison (i.e., Poet’s House) ne veux pas s’y abonner non plus. Ici, les universitaires et les poetes bourgeois detestent ceux qui osent les critiquer. Comme des enfants, ils n’arrivent pas a encaisser quoi que ce soit. Je sais bien car j’effectue des experiences dans ce milieu depuis plus de 10 ans. En fait, moi je n’arrive plus a me trouver un poste de prof ici car j’ai critique et continue a critiquer ce milieu douteux ouvertement. Et oui, j’ai un doctorat de l’universite de Nantes qui ne vaut pas ni un sou ici dans les States.

En tout cas, cette Maison de Poetes bourgeois montre qu’il existe un vrai chasme entre ces poetes tres bien remuneres et nous autres qui n’arrivent pas a obtenir ni un petit sous des diverses fondations publiques et privees qui distribuent les millions de dollars destines aux poetes et a leurs diverses journaux, festivals et institutions. Les poetes plutot politiques et autrement socialement engages contre la grosse machine bourgeoise (de l’ordre etabli, si tu veux) de la poesie sont systematiquement ignores et autrement gardes a l’ecart par les divers festivals et conseils culturels soutenus par les divers chambres de commerce, qui preferent, bien sur, la poesie de diversion a la poesie engagee. En bref, quelle sorte de poesie peut-on vraiment esperer de la part des poetes universitaires archi-remuneres sinon la poesie qui ne risque rien, qui n’offusque personne sauf les rares poetes comme moi qui osent se tenir debout a part du troupeau poeticailleur ? Hier soir, par exemple, j’ai proteste solo devant la bibliotheque publique de Concord, ville historique des patriotes revolutionnaires et ecrivains engages tels Thoreau, Emerson et Alcott, car elle n’invite que les poetes bourgeois pour lire leurs poemes anodins. Le chef du cercle local de la poesie m’a dit: « Why don’t you just go home ! » Quel beau titre ! Oui, je l’utilise pour le compte-rendu de ma proteste. Oui, cette voix declenchee de Robert Frost a la Maison Bourgeoise de la Poesie rappelle le Big Brother d’Orwell.


From: George Slone
To: lee@poetshouse.org
Cc: jane@poetshouse.org; maggie@poetshouse.org; emma@poetshouse.org; molly@poetshouse.org; robert@poetshouse.org; marsha@poetshouse.org; krista@poetshouse.org; jane@poetshouse.org; stephen@poetshouse.org; mike@poetshouse.org; narisara@poetshouse.org; catherine@poetshouse.org; suzanne@poetshouse.org; carlin@poetshouse.org
Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 9:13:52 AM
Subject: Dissidence, persona non grata in Poetry House?

Dear Lee Briccitti, CEO of Poet’s House:

Today, I read the NY Times article on your house of poetry. $11 million… just for the interior decoration! Wow. Can I ask you to consider subscribing to a rare literary journal, one that criticizes established-order poetry, poets and machinery? The viewpoints it offers are likely not offered in Poet’s House. I’ve been contacting professors for the past decade. Only one, Dan Sklar of Endicott College, has been inviting me to speak to his English classes. The others respond mostly with deafening silence. A one-year subscription costs only $20. Even though I have the 501 3c nonprofit designation, I cannot obtain one penny of public funding, not from the NEA, not from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, not from the Concord Cultural Council. Librarians prefer subscribing to Entertainment Today and Mademoiselle. The Academy of American Poets blatantly censored my comments and banned me from further participation. What is going on in poetry today? How did it get so dainty? Why the fear of non-established-order ideas and comments? Trying to open the doors of the established order to vigo rous debate, cornerstone of democracy, has been a near-impossible endeavor.

Evidently, you form part of that order. Are you too hermetically sealed? On a final note, how not to laugh, though sadly, at all the POETRY MANAGERS in your organization: the Managing Director, Office Manager, Chief Financial Officer, and Community Relations Manager. Sadly, that is indeed poetry in America today... highly managed and safe enough for children and those in power. I copy this to the other managers of poetry in your house in case you decide not to respond and one brave or sufficiently indignant individual amongst you does.

G. Tod Slone, Founding Editor, 1998
The American Dissident, a Journal of Literature, Democracy & Dissidence
A 501 c3 nonprofit organization providing a forum for vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy
www.theamericandissident.org
1837 Main St.
Concord, MA 01742

Crony Capitalism Paving the Way to Crony Culturalism: the Massachusetts Poetry Festival… Brought to You by State Cultural Apparatchik, Charles Coe

What really pains—deeply pains—is the bourgeois grip upon poetry and the literary milieu. It is an iron grip not unlike that of the Soviet Writers Union under Stalin. It silences dissent effectively. Indeed, if one wants to be a “successful” poet (or poetry editor), one must not upset it, let alone question it. Thus is the sad state of the literary milieu today in America. The voice of dissent is out there, but it is up against a massive, impervious brick wall. So, for a poet today, the choice must be a conscious, deliberate one, between “success” and failure, repression and truth. For some poets, however, we do not have the choice. Truth is our muse.

Why, one could wonder, was I not invited to the Massachusetts Poetry Festival since I have been a long-time Massachusetts poet and an editor of a poetry journal based in Concord, Massachusetts since 1998? Why, one could also wonder, was The American Dissident, the journal in question, not invited to exhibit at the Festival’s small press fair? Well, the answer to those two questions is simple. Charles Coe, the Festival’s chief organizational apparatchik (i.e., Project Administrator—I just love the corporate titles these fellows adorn) and Massachusetts Cultural Council (see www.theamericandissident.org/LitCCC.htm) career cultural functionary does not like dissent at all, let alone vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy. Only a month ago had I attempted, in vain of course, to obtain from him some rather simple answers to some rather damning questions regarding MCC policies, including the public funding of organizations that form part of multibillion-dollar endowed private universities like Harvard Museums and Agni (Boston University) and the refusal to fund any literary journal not having a budget over $10,000—a very strange policy indeed, or perhaps not for it likely works against the dissident spirit.

As for the CEO of Concord Poetry Center (www.theamericandissident.org/LitCPC.htm), an active participant in the Festival, Joan Houlihan also detests dissent and vigorous debate. Once upon a time, she’d written me:

“The idea of your teaching a workshop or delivering a lecture on the art of literary protest or poetry protest, or simply protest (Concord is where it all started!) occurred to me even before you mentioned it, so, yes, it’s something I will consider as we progress (this is only our first event). However, I must say I don’t favor having you teach at the center if you protest the reading.”

How odd! Or am I the only one who can see the oddity? Later she wrote: “We welcome dissidents! All the best poets were dissidents.” But then I informed her that I was going to protest and to hell with the workshop possibility. Her response was again an odd one: “What are you protesting? Seems like you’d welcome a place in your area for poets who are not part of the poetry establishment.” But what was Houlihan talking about? Not part of the poetry establishment? Horseshit! She is part of the establishment, regularly gets funded by the establishment and only invites poets of the establishment to read at the Center.

Thus, I’ve been around protesting lame poets, poetasters, and poetophiles for the past decade and even longer for back in 1995 or 96, I’d protested against the corruption at Fitchburg State College and brought it to the attention of Pinsky, who was chosen as graduation speaker. Pinsky, of course, chose to take the money and, like a good establishment boy, remain deaf and dumb. Evidently, for the average established-order poet or established-order wannabee, protest is fine, as long as not against the poetry milieu. “Pissing off politicians, corporations, zealots, and/or lawyers is acceptable and, in fact, encouraged,” writes M. Scott Douglass, editor of MainStreet Rag. Well, I challenged him on that and asked why it was apparently not acceptable to piss off poets and poet organizations. He did not/could not respond. Logic has died or never did thrive in the hearts of established-order poets and editors.

On another note, though really always the same note, why the NEED for egregious, ubiquitous self-vaunting in the poetry milieu, as in “The Massachusetts Poetry Festival is a three-day celebration of the poets, poetry, and literary heritage of a state whose contribution to American poetry is unsurpassed in the nation”?Is Massachusetts, a state plagued by rampant cronyism in all sectors including the cultural one, really “unsurpassed” in the realm of poetry? Perhaps in the realm of cronyism, but certainly not in poetry. Why the NEED for such feel-good exaggeration? Shouldn’t we expect more from poets and poet organizers? Moreover, a thinking poet—how few of us there are!—ought to ask him or herself who were the appointed judges who selected the appointed poets to read at the festival and, in fact, who appointed the judges in the first place. One could also ask why the judges (Coe?) chose to invite the usual suspects Pinsky, Espada, Sanders (The Fuggs?), and Dubus. Likely, they (or he) did so because they are dazzled by literary celebrity, know the chosen poets are safe, inoffensive, and do not question and challenge (i.e., think as individuals, disconnected from the crony careerist network). BUT does poetry really need INOFFENSIVENESS or does it need DISSIDENCE, QUESTIONING AND CHALLENGING of poetry events made safe for the bourgeois pillars of society, and POETS WHO WOULD DARE GO AGAINST THE GRAIN OF POETRY AS USUAL? Given the sad state of the nation, and not simply with regards the economy and war all the time, the answer to that question ought to be crystal clear. Crony capitalism has given way to crony culturalism.

Well, since I stand in direct opposition to the hypocrite Houlihan and for the sake of democracy, shouldn’t the Massachuestts Poetry Festival at least place a link to The American Dissident (and this blog!) in the list of links on its webpage? Let’s see what Coe has to say about that, though I already know what he has to say about it: NEIN!

Today, I swam across Walden Pond likely for the last time this year. The water is getting chilly! A dissident needs to stay in top physical shape, while on the other hand, a cultural council apparatchik will likely get as flaccid as a porker.