Jennifer Le Blanc

An Experiment in Democracy: Regis College
[For academics and poets, who shamefully do not understand and, for that reason, tend to scorn the very concept of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy, cite the Supreme Court (Terminello vs. Chicago): "A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have profound unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. That is why freedom of speech, though not absolute… is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment..."]

If you don’t challenge or question something, you’ll never know what its true substance and nature are. So, you think your college is a great place? But have you ever viscerally questioned and challenged it? Have you ever spoken or written overtly what in your heart you know damn well others at your college will likely not appreciate? Or have you simply and unoriginally conformed to the collegial herd of smiley-faced self-censors?
—P. Maudit

[N.B.: Notice of this essay and above cartoon was sent to the Writing Faculty of Regis College (Weston, MA) jayson.baker@regiscollege.edu; marie.cicchese@regiscollege.edu; jason.clemence@regiscollege.edu; jan.donley@regiscollege.edu; patricia.elliott@regiscollege.edu; mary.gormley@regiscollege.edu; andrea.humphrey@regiscollege.edu; julia.lisella@regiscollege.edu; rachel.may@regiscollege.edu; barbara.mintz@regiscollege.edu; kreg.segall@regiscollege.edu]

First, I mean no emotional harm to student-client Jennifer LeBlanc, depicted in the above cartoon. Hopefully, for her intellectual development, she will get to examine the cartoon and this essay. Hopefully, that might actually push her to think out of the safe academic box.

What an opportunity, I thought, to be able to honestly and fully criticize a member of the protected species—the student-client! Hell, I don’t have to please the student-client at all. Regis College isn’t my employer. I can actually be honest! Need I be fearful of a libel suit? Not in the least! Contemplate the following, written by constitutional lawyers French, Lukianoff and Silverglate, FIRE’s guide to Free Speech on Campus:

“The concept of defamation includes both libel (usually, written defamation) and slander (spoken defamation), although the two are frequently confused and lumped together. […] If you are accused of libel, don’t panic. Although defamation is one of the most frequently made claims in law, it is also one of the most frequently dismissed. […] If a statement is true it is not defamatory. […] A statement of opinion, by itself, cannot be defamation. […] In other words, defamation is about objective harm, not about subjective hurt.”

The purpose of the above cartoon is to open the academic PC-cocoon a little bit and inject a dose of appreciation for democracy into it. To shelter or not to shelter, tis always the question in academe! Happy-face nursery school straight on through college?! That’s great for fragile self esteem, but not very good for building citizens with spine and democracy. Too bad, I cannot locate student-client LeBlanc’s email address. So, it is up to one of her English professors to show her the cartoon, which might prove more valuable to her than an entire English writing course on “great” bourgeois poetasters.

The idea for the cartoon was first sparked by the ad for LeBlanc’s new book appearing on Doug Holder’s website (dougholder.blogspot.com/2009/09/madras-press-non-profit-press-that-will.html), which essentially serves little purpose other than to advertise (push) the poetry of friends and self. It is a safe art-for-artsaking site without any particular ideas at all… with the exception of the Happy Face. A friend indicated that a rather lame interview of a poet had been posted on the site (Barbara Trachtenburg, self-proclaimed “prison” poet… who’s never been incarcerated). So, I took a look at it. There I noticed the ad, which eventually brought me to the Regis College student literary journal (Hemetera) web page (regiswritingprogram.pbworks.com/Hemetera) and LeBlanc’s photo. What really took fire was the slap in the face of democracy on the bottom of that page: “YOU DON’T HAVE PERMISSION TO COMMENT ON THIS PAGE.” Well, va funculo or rather va te faire foutre, calisse de tabarnak, I thought. Democracy demands vigorous debate, not “you don’t have permission” bouse de vache! Why aren’t LeBlanc’s professors instilling that idea?

“Professor Pat Elliott and I selected Jenn to represent Regis [at the Greater Boston Intercollegiate Poetry Festival] because of her dedication to her craft and her service to fostering creative writing at Regis,” noted Assistant Professor Julia Lisella of the English Department in an article on the college website. Of course, the real reason she was selected is her likely obedient role as see-no-evil, hear-no-evil student acolyte. We can also imagine what “creative writing” would not encompass at Regis, including this very essay!

“According to Professor Lisella, Jennifer has grown exponentially since the Poetry Workshop she took as a Regis freshman,” noted the article. The comment is clearly a base example of academic backslapping, which thrives throughout academe due to absence of accountability! What does “grown exponentially” mean? Why don’t students and professors question such statements? Does it mean becoming more and more like ones professors (i.e., bourgeois, unquestioning, unchallenging)? Likely and sadly.

“LeBlanc’s poetry is inspired by her observations of the world, her personal feelings and emotions, and what she reads in great literature,” noted the article, as if “great literature” was somehow objective and off bounds to vigorous questioning and challenging. Is that what higher education has become today: a fence of commonality off limits to questioning and challenging?

“She is ‘listening to the occasional/piano key or clarinet note/warble or squeak,’ as she remarks in a poem called ‘Singing Goodbye’,” noted the article. Yet can one get any more banal than that? Which of her professors will teach her to question and challenge everything, including the professors themselves and Regis College? Which of them will have the courage to give LeBlanc the courage to write more than poems about warbles and warbling? Well, likely, not one of them, which is why the college esteems them.

Is the “great leadership” that LeBlanc “has provided” simply a mirror image of the great leadership that continues destroying democracy in America? Apparently, that’s precisely what it is.

What an interesting and unusual experience for Regis College students if they were actually encouraged to question and challenge the statements made by LeBlanc on the student journal web page, as I did in the cartoon! What a refreshing, if not unique, experience for students! Sure, if LeBlanc has a delicate ego, she’d have trouble dealing with the critique. BUT I’m certain she’s got a huge support group behind her like a giant fluffy pillow with a yellow smiley-face tattooed reassuringly into it. Yet how else to get her to strengthen ego and backbone? Certainly, academic coddling and nourishing will not serve to do that at all! And what if she decides to become a smiley-faced politician? How would she ever be able to deal with the ineluctable criticism?

Democracy depends on a citizenry with strong backbone. Democracy depends on the open questioning and challenging of all citizens and institutions. Regis College English professors are urged to reflect, if at all possible, on that. Ascending in higher education, of course, depends on not reflecting upon it at all and always implies stifling the mind, muzzling the mouth, and turning a blind eye… in fact, becoming blind.

These things said, if any of the Regis College professors contacted have actually managed to read this far, I urge them or him or her to please consider requesting Regis College library to subscribe to The American Dissident, the unique 501 c3 nonprofit literary journal I created as a forum for questioning and challenging things literary and things academic. Also, please do consider hiring me to teach adjunct English courses, including one I put together, “Literature, Democracy, and Dissidence.” With a PhD and a lot of full-time higher ed teaching experience in both America and France, I am qualified. These things said, please consider inviting me to read in the context of the Regis College Writers Read program. Students might find me refreshing, as opposed to the déjà vu Fred Marchants that tend to be invited, right and left.

Rob Mitchell,Concord Festival of Authors

[N.B.: Interestingly, the only person to express sincere interest in my protest regarding the Festival's autocratic selection process, viewpoint bias, exclusionism, and complete absence of democratic fairness was a foreigner from Holland. Even high and mighty Democrat Party Chairman Howard Dean didn't give a goddamn. See below.]

At two in the afternoon, Wednesday October 21st, I stood in front of the Emerson Umbrella for the Arts building flyers in hand. Already people were arriving. “I don’t understand the sign,” said an elderly woman walking up the steps. “Democracy Needs More Than Safe Writing” was the sign by my feet. “Well, it means that here at this Festival only writers who don’t question the system are invited,” I replied. “Well, I agree with that,” she said to my surprise. “Everyone who knows anything has to know that.” She didn’t take a flyer. Then a number of incurious citizens whisked past me, up the steps and into the building. “Concord Festival of Authors prohibits Concord dissident authors from participating,” I said to another bunch. It seemed like a more or less old crowd. Even the young ones somehow looked old. “Concord Festival of Authors won’t invite dissident authors from Concord!” I repeated. “I’m a Concord author and I’m not permitted to participate. If Thoreau were alive today, he wouldn’t be invited either.” A couple of broads chuckled. “Oh, I think they would invite him,” one of them said. “Only if he were famous,” I said. They didn’t want flyers and entered the building.

Howard Dean soon arrived chatting with another man. They walked from the parking lot towards me and the entrance. I was surprised he wasn’t surrounded by cops or toadies. So, I walked towards them as they walked towards me. “I’m a Concord author and I’m not permitted to participate in this Festival,” I said to Dean, who just chuckled. “Democracy is not well in this town. Here, take a flyer.” But Dean wouldn’t stop and wouldn’t take a flyer. “No democracy, no free speech here at the Concord Festival,” I said as he walked by me. “Why don’t you tell them that!” “Well, I don’t think they’d be happy if I mentioned that,” he said chuckling like an imbecile. Pissed me off just the same. Well, that made it all worthwhile. It was surprising to see him in real life and totally apathetic to my protest. I wondered why the hell Mitchell, the organizer, had invited the Democrat partyline to open the festival. Was it the Democrat Party Concord Festival of Authors? I guess so.

Then a guy walked up to me to look at the sign and flyers and coughed without covering. “Schwein flu!” I said, walking off to the side. He didn’t seem to understand, said something, ah, with an accent. “What language?” I asked. “Dutch,” he said. We talked. He was quite fluent in English, really interested in what I was doing, and said he was Stephan Tychon, Chief Officer of Change for the World Stability Council. Well, that was a nice title. He ran a website, Complexxon.org, which was primarily concerned with Exxon corruption, and was visiting the US for three months. Then he asked if he could buy a copy of The AD. Two copies stood next to the sign. He reached into his pocket, but I refused the money and just gave him a copy. He wanted me to sign it, so I did.

“Rob Mitchell’s a good guy,” said a chubby woman with red marks on her face (wart removal? skin cancer?) walking out of the building and towards me. “Yeah, well, he doesn’t believe in democracy,” I responded. “You’re not going to beat me up now, are you?” “Rob Mitchell’s a good guy,” she repeated. “You just have to send him your books then he’ll invite you.” “Invite me?" I said. "He won’t invite me. He won’t even respond to my emails. Why would he respond to my books?” “Rob Mitchell’s really a good guy,” she repeated. “Yeah, I know you already said that,” I replied. “You must have a connection.” “I’m his sister,” she answered. “Ah, well that explains it,” I said. “He’s really a nice person,” she repeated yet again. “All you have to do is send him your books.” “Why waste the postage?” I said. “He's invited Houlihan, who doesn't like me, and Fred Marchant, who doesn't like me either. And the Chamber of Commerce doesn't like me either, and he wants to please it. And the Cultural Council doesn't like me." "If you send him your books, then he’ll invite you,” she said yet again. “All you have to do is be civil.” “Ah, that’s your code word for censorship!” I said. “Civility! What’s your name?” “Martha Mitchell,” she said, standing next to me. But I was more interested talking with the Dutchman. She was the proverbial brick wall. All I could get out of her was Rob Mitchell’s a nice guy. She finally left and went back inside.

“They’re all dead,” said the Dutch guy. He was damn right there. “Do you have an organization?” he asked. “Well, no, I do the protests alone and really for myself and expect little if anything from the attending citizenry.” “They’re all dead,” he repeated. No shit. “It’s more fascist in Holland,” he said. “Well, that’s hard for me to believe,” I said.

A lone policeman was directing traffic and didn’t bother me at all. That was positive. “Concord Festival of Authors disdains different points of view, disdains democracy!” I repeated. “They don’t even understand what free choice means,” said an elderly lady, stopping to gasp for air. “What do you mean?” I asked. “The health care insurance,” she snapped. “Oh, well, this is a writers festival,” I said. “Well, I’m coming here to hear Howard Dean,” she said. “I don’t care about writers!”

Celebrity uber alles. “Concord Festival of Authors hates democracy!” I said to a pod of approaching females. “Oh, I didn’t realize that,” said one of them without taking a flyer. Well, others arrived and did at least take flyers… about 26 of them. “Welcome to Concord where democracy is not flourishing!” I said. “Concord Festival of Authors won’t invite Concord dissident writers. I’m a writer from Concord and not invited.” “Maybe he thinks your writing’s not that good,” said a guy. “He’s never seen my writing,” I said. “Well, maybe it’s not that good,” he repeated. “Well, how the hell would he know?” I said. “Besides, do you really think all the people he’s invited are great writers? Give me a break!” He walked into the building.

Finally, the Dutch guy decides to attend the lecture. He’d asked me if I wanted to come with him, but I declined. Did I really want to hear Howard Dean spout the partyline for the 1,000th time? A somewhat attractive middle-aged female walked by. No interest at all in my protest and didn’t want to take a flyer… just wanted to see Howard Dean. I checked the time and took off at 2:40, walking across the lot and street and into the library, where I left the remaining four flyers. Too early for the red, which definitely entered my mind.

October 22, 2009
Rob,
Well, your sister found a few minutes to come out to see what I was up to… but not you. She didn't say much, just Rob Mitchell is a nice guy over and over like an indoctrinee. Is she the product of some university? Are you perhaps a cowardly sort… or just another high and mighty sort? Interestingly, I spoke to Howard Dean when he arrived (oh, he didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop), told him about the autocratic nature of YOUR festival… and he didn’t give a goddamn. What an asshole, I thought. He wouldn’t even take a flyer. Then I thought: why did you invite the Democrat partyline to open a book festival? Christ, does anyone else in this town question and challenge anything with its regard and apart from the partylines? Interestingly, the only person to really stop and talk and stay and discuss ideas with me was a man from Holland. Not one American cared to do the same. Well, say hi to the Chamber of Commerce for me. I suspect you must be a card carrying member?
G. Tod
[No response from Rob Mitchell.]

Review of a Review of Worst Instincts

Where the hell is the ACLU?
—Lenny Bruce

It is astonishing that the founding director (Marjorie Heins) of an organization named Free Expression Policy Project would so quickly truncate dialogue with someone like me who does not agree or dares actually criticize what shouldn’t be criticized! In Heins' review of Wendy Kaminer's Worst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity, and the ACLU (see www.fepproject.org/reviews/kaminer.html), the founding director notes that she was working in the ACLU in Massachusetts at the same time when I attempted to interest the ACLU in my case against Fitchburg State College also in Massachusetts. The ACLU essentially ignored my request for help. Was Heins perhaps friends with Vinny Mara, Franz Nowotny, Richard DeCesare, Harry Semerjian, or Shirley Wagner, dubious administrators at that college? Well, probably not, but anything in Massachusetts like that is certainly possible. The myth of the ACLU exists. "Well, there's always the ACLU," I've been told, now and then. BUT there wasn't the ACLU for me when I needed it.

The established-order mentality always demands the “right tone” or simply truncates discussion. The problem of course is that “right tone” often means readjusting (watering down) the message to the extent where it is no longer the original message which I, of course, refuse to do. Sure, I am a CITIZEN UNKNOWN, but if I were known, left or right, Heins would have likely engaged. Anyhow, I shall continue to communicate with the non-responding Heins, until she places my email address into her spam box, as every English professor at Williams College recently did because I’d sent them a criticism of one of their dear former colleagues, poet laureate Louise Gluck. Yes, vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy, but certainly not at our college, nor at our free expression projects! Heins was likely annoyed for two simple reasons: 1. the poem I’d sent her (see below) and 2. the cartoon figuring on the front page of The American Dissident website satirical of PEN New England (see www.theamericandissident.org).

Regarding Heins’ review of Worst Instincts, it is repugnant to think that “fund-raising” has become elevated to the category of “considerable talent,” as Heins thus deems it. Is it now also one of the fine arts? Certainly that “talent” has become a key problem of many universities and colleges today, which tend to select presidents who are expert fundraisers, while far too often advocates of censorship and speech codes. Evidently, the ACLU’s executive director Romero falls into that dubious category. Clearly, one must wonder just how principled and “dedicated” some of the ACLU board members really were if in fact they placed fear of ostracism above principle. Perhaps they entered the organization because of the prestige they’d get from being part of it and the money they’d eventually get elsewhere for that enhanced prestige. (Are not far too many lawyers like doctors and politicians driven to own mansions?) Heins, however, doesn’t quite put it that way: “Her opening chapter insightfully reflects on the herd instinct and the pressures for conformity that sometimes prevent even dedicated individuals like those who comprise the ACLU’s national board from standing up for principle when faced with the risk of ostracism from the group.”

Indeed, Heins seems to excuse corrupt minds (as long as on the left) by citing “the frailties of human nature.” Why shouldn’t author Kaminer have been “uncompromising in her expectations,” especially regarding persons involved in organizations like the highly acclaimed ACLU? Heins seems to excuse Romero’s shortcomings by stating his predecessor also had shortcomings. Should we excuse Obama’s shortcomings because Bush too had them? Truly that kind of reasoning seems twisted in an effort to excuse the corrupt in Heins’ very own milieu. It is indeed shameful how Heins cites herd mentality as an excuse: “Perhaps it is in the nature of executive directors to attract ‘yes men’ and women who will confound loyalty to the boss with loyalty to the organization, and will sometimes put both above loyalty to core principles.” Yet I have seen that kind of perverted reasoning used, time and again, to excuse the corrupt professors and administrators entrenched in institutions of supposed higher education!

Heins states: “Kaminer raises profound and difficult questions about organizational integrity, politics, and personal loyalty.” YET we’re not talking about any old business or for that matter academic organization here. We’re talking about the ACLU, an organization that many regard as the top of the top of integrity! Thanks to Kaminer, we now know that to be a myth.

The following questions raised by Heins are excellent ones that should each be answered with a capital YES, but Heins does not do so: “Were the compromises with civil liberties principles and basic honesty as dire as Kaminer and Meyers thought? On balance, was it worthwhile to ‘go public,’ at whatever cost to the organization’s image or fundraising? Were they right to conclude that the ACLU had been so hopelessly corrupted that only an open airing of their concerns would save it?”

Instead, in good bourgeois fashion, Heins questions Kaminer’s TONE. “[…] the reaction of some ACLU people to Kaminer’s and Meyer’s muckraking was, in her telling, gratuitously insulting […].” Of course, they were insulted! Truth is always extremely INSULTING to the fraudulent. Let them be insulted! Maybe it will do some good, though I highly doubt it.

Oddly, Heins doesn’t see it that way. Yet, if not for the “muckraking,” board members wouldn’t have been forced to show their true disgraceful colors: “[…] and at least one institutional response contributed mightily to the public embarrassment. A proposal to limit board members’ communications with the media, as detailed by the New York Times in the spring of 2006 was one of the politically dumber proposals to be considered by a group whose primary cause is freedom of speech.”

At least Heins does agree that ACLU members should heed Kaminer’s criticism, as opposed to engaging in facile “ad hominem attacks, as they sometimes did during the course of the battles she recounts.” It is still mind-boggling to me that so many so-called educated people actually do resort to ad hominem attacks. Worst Instincts is indeed an excellent, if not unique, account of left-wing corruption written by someone on the left. Far too often the left proves entirely incapable of dealing with criticism and reacts to it with ad hominem rhetoric, silence, or denial, as in a vast right-wing conspiracy for the angelic Clintons. Think also of ACORN. What the left needs are many more soldiers like Kaminer, standing first and foremost for truth, not for the liberal party line and precious career. They would only serve to strengthen the left… by helping to get rid of its stifling, viscous, putrid muck.


An Unknown Citizen’s Futile Efforts

The American Civil Liberties Union
responded, but then
SILENCE
The American Association of University
Professors never responded,
SILENCE
PEN America responded, then
SILENCE
PEN New England never responded,
“defending freedom of expression
everywhere,” except, of course, here,
SILENCE
The American Library Association’s
Office of Intellectual Freedom
never responded,
SILENCE
The Free Expression Policy Project
responded, but then
SILENCE
The National Coalition Against Censorship
responded, but then
SILENCE
Foundation of Individual Rights in Education*
responded, but then
SILENCE
…………………………………………….
*At first, this poem did not include FIRE because I really love FIRE. Thus, I found myself self-censoring. So, I finally decided to add FIRE. After all, why can’t I criticize FIRE and still be its friend?

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

Yet Another Pitiful Statement of Censorship

Collegiality and an ethic of civility encourage conformity and the suppression of dissent. Group solidarity encourages tribalism. Dedication to mission encourages obedience to people charged with mission control. Loyalty to the group easily subsumes loyalty to the ideals for which the group supposedly stands.
—Wendy Kaminer, Worst Instincts (On internal corruption at the ACLU)

It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live… lying, flattering, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility
—Henry David Thoreau

Censors are dead men/set up to judge between life and death./For no live, sunny man would be a censor,/he'd just laugh./But censors, being dead men,/have a stern eye on life.
—D H Lawrence, "Censors"

Editor Tim Green of Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century (sounds like an Orwellian nightmare!) just posted a statement of censorship on the journal’s blog site to further justify his role as yet another lackey of the established order bent on killing vigorous debate, cornerstone of a THRIVING democracy.

Censor Green is paid a salary by the Frieda C. Fox Family Foundation to censor voices of which he disapproves and earned awards from Phi Beta Kappa, the Golden Key National Honors Society, and the Academy of American Poets. The latter, fearful of meaningful dissent regarding the general bourgeois nature of its heralded poets, censored and banned me from participating in its forums (see www.theamericandissident.org/AcademyAmericanPoets.htm).

How, a thinking citizen must wonder, do so many students manage to obtain college educations without learning much at all about democracy? Clearly, their professors favor CIVILITY and conformity over dissidence and vigorous debate. The whole civility initiative works against democracy and reminds of the left’s recent “whining”—to use Censor Green’s word of predilection to dismiss anything with which he disagrees—, regarding the recent town hall meetings, where vigorous debate actually took place. Censor Green reminds of Bubba Clinton who stated: “This cynicism is my enemy.” “Cynicism” was, according to Bob Woodward, however, in part, a code word for media criticism. Interestingly, Censor Green dismisses critics with the very same term used by the British government to dismiss American revolutionary patriots: “riffraff.”

Clearly, Censor Green, like all censors, has a deep-seated feeling of inferiority, which explains why he is so FEARFUL of opinions that might prove more cogent than his and why he defines himself as the sum total of awards obtained from the bourgeois established order.

By the way, Censor Green’s blog seems to be attracting a number of democracy-indifferent schoolgirls. How sad. In any case, Censor Green’s statement of censorship follows and is a shameful affront to democracy. You decide.

Comment Guidelines
random riff-raff / 1 Comment
Wed 9.9.09
The trolls are ruining this place, and I’m sick of cleaning piss out of a carpet that I don’t even care about. There’s no reason to waste time thinking about comments on this blog, unless it’s to participate in a discussion relevant to the post above them. I’ve spent way too much time this summer trying to decide how to respond to what amounts to ignorant, masturbatory graffiti. I feel like a kindergarten teacher. Well, I’m taking away the scissors.
Comments on this blog are now all moderated. Hopefully very few comments will actually be screened out, but there will be a delay, while I check to make sure they follow these simple rules:
1) Be civil.
2) Be relevant.
That’s all you have to do: Be civil and relevant. Even trolls who keep their whiny rants civil and relevant can voice their opinions. But if you can’t, your comment will sit forever in a queue gathering cyberdust.
Let this be a notice to everyone who’s been warned before: Don’t waste your time. I suggest making your own blog and bitching there.
And to everyone who no longer reads the comments because they raise your blood pressure: You can come back now, the riffraff is gone.

An Experiment in Democracy: University of Iowa

Business-as-Usual Shoes to Fill at The Iowa Review
N.B.: The URL for this blog entry was sent to over 65 English faculty members at the University of Iowa. It was also sent to the university's student newspaper. Will any of them respond... in the name of vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy? See below for names.

A friend sent me an editorial from the Press Citizen, “Our View—Big Editorial Shoes to Fill at The Iowa Review,” which immediately grabbed my attention right from the beginning where the editorial seemed to praise the retiring literary editor, David Hamilton, for his rhyming of the names of contributors “arranged into four couplets and a tercet” on the back cover of the latest issue. Wow, I thought, could high-brow writing have really gotten that low? If that literary stunt were any indication of Hamilton’s purported “vision, energy and personality,” which helped create the “magazine's national reputation as a premier literary journal,” then we were indeed in trouble. On another note, journalists—as so many tend to be today—should not be in the business of hackneyed hagiography. They should rather be in the business of caustic questioning and challenging of the powers that be, both grand (e.g., Obama) and small (e.g., Hamilton).
The in-coming editor of The Iowa Review, Russell Valentino, chairman of the University of Iowa Department of Cinema and Comparative Literature (Hamilton will be continuing in that department as tenured professor), noted the journal had "a quiet quality […], contemplative as well as playful.” Could it get any more mind numbing? When big university literature becomes “quiet” and “playful” and praised for it, the nation may very well be in trouble… democracy may very well be in trouble! Imagine the likes of Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, Emerson and Thoreau admiring those purported qualities! Literature needs to holler—it needs to be serious in these times of war all the time, corrupt corporate CEOs all the time, and PC censorship all the time.
If The Iowa Review is indeed “such a success,” perhaps we need to rethink what “success” has really come to mean. And if indeed the contributors and collaborators of the journal include an “impressive number of smart, creative, committed folks,” then we also need to rethink what “smart, creative, and committed” have come to mean. Indeed, apparently those glowing epithets must be reflected by the following sentences cited in the editorial taken from Hamilton’s story published in the latest issue: "The fish tasted fine, by the way, grilled, with chemicals infusing the olive oil and lemon. Maybe an occasional fish from the Iowa River is like shots I used to take as a kid, little bits of many things making my allergies manageable. But I wouldn't want to count on that."
What Hamilton writes (and likely teaches) is as banal and safely disengaged as it gets. Indeed, it couldn’t possibly offend in any manner whatsoever the proverbial old ladies amongst us. Perhaps we need to feel badly for the students studying in that English department. In fact, as a little experiment, I will send this to the University of Iowa student newspaper just to see if the student editors have been fully indoctrinated in the mores of the academic happy face.
“The magazine is an expression of his personal connections," noted Valentino regarding Hamilton. But since when did inbred result in quality? What “personal connections” end up giving us is less than best writing. Examine any given anthology of David Lehman’s yearly The Best American Poetry to see what I mean. In any case, with the likes of Hamilton and Valentino at the helm, we can be assured that the University of Iowa Writing University taskforce will not be recommending: 1. more risk-taking in writing, as in encouraging student writers to be critical of their immediate surroundings (e.g., the university and professors); 2. inviting dissident writers critical of the academic/literary established order; 3. writing against the “playful” happy-face grain and 4. real vigorous debate on the issue of writing itself.
According to the editorial, Valentino will be trying to balance the journal’s supposed “inclusiveness and high standards, humor and sophistication.” Yet how has inclusive come to mean excluding dissidence? And doesn’t “high standards, humor and sophistication” sound a lot like euphemisms for business-as-usual bourgeois good taste and established-order friendliness? Indeed, Hamilton will be reading at the Old Capitol Museum Senate Chamber in an evident manifestation that writing and writers have become so castrated today that they are quite welcome by the nation’s politicians and chamber-of-commerce business FOLK.
Finally, that “very welcoming magazine” (i.e., The Iowa Review), as the editorial refers to it, would certainly not be very welcoming to those like me who do actually dare, now and then, “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways” (Emerson). In our wildest dreams, could we imagine The Iowa Review publishing this short essay? Of course not… and that, dear thinking citizens of Iowa City, is precisely what renders such magazines less than successful… at least in the eyes of democracy.
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NB:  Surprise!  The student editors never responded.

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russell-valentino@uiowa.edu; David-Hamilton@uiowa.edu; katherine-thorpe@uiowa.edu; ryan-vanmeter@uiowa.edu; carol-desaintvictor@uiowa.edu; paul-diehl@uiowa.edu; hualing-engle@uiowa.edu; john-grant@uiowa.edu; john-harper@uiowa.edu; john-huntley@uiowa.edu; robert-kelley@uiowa.edu; carl-klaus@uiowa.edu; llj@ia.net; john-mclaughlin@uiowa.edu; alan-nagel@uiowa.edu; rfsayre@mchsi.com; daniel-weissbort@uiowa.edu; Fredrick-Woodard@uiowa.edu; bluford-adams@uiowa.edu; Linda-Bolton@uiowa.edu; Florence-Boos@uiowa.edu; Lori-Branch@uiowa.edu; Matthew-P-Brown@uiowa.edu; Corey-Creekmur@uiowa.edu; john-philip-dagata@uiowa.edu; Huston-Diehl@uiowa.edu; Kathleen-Diffley@uiowa.edu; david-dowling@uiowa.edu; Barbara-Eckstein@uiowa.edu; Mary-Emery@uiowa.edu; Ed-Folsom@uiowa.edu; Patricia-A-Foster@uiowa.edu; Claire-Fox@uiowa.edu; Eric-Gidal@uiowa.edu; Miriam-Gilbert@uiowa.edu; loren-glass@uiowa.edu; blaine-greteman@uiowa.edu; robin-hemley@uiowa.edu; Cheryl-Herr@uiowa.edu; lena-hill@uiowa.edu; michael-hill@uiowa.edu; adam-hooks@uiowa.edu; kevin-kopelson@uiowa.edu; marie-kruger@uiowa.edu; rudolf-kuenzli@uiowa.edu; Priya-Kumar@uiowa.edu; stephen-kuusisto@uiowa.edu; Brooks-Landon@uiowa.edu; Kathy-Lavezzo@uiowa.edu; Susan-Lohafer@uiowa.edu; Teresa-Mangum@uiowa.edu; christopher-merrill@uiowa.edu; Dee-Morris@uiowa.edu; Nazareth@uiowa.edu; Judith-Pascoe@uiowa.edu; Horace-Porter@uiowa.edu; Jeff-Porter@uiowa.edu; John-Raeburn@uiowa.edu; Maryann-Rasmussen@uiowa.edu; Laura-Rigal@uiowa.edu; Phillip-Round@uiowa.edu; robyn-schiff@uiowa.edu; Tom-Simmons@uiowa.edu; Alvin-Snider@uiowa.edu; Claire-Sponsler@uiowa.edu; anne-stapleton@uiowa.edu; Harilaos-Stecopoulos@uiowa.edu; garrett-stewart@uiowa.edu; bonnie-sunstein@uiowa.edu; miriam-thaggert@uiowa.edu; lara-trubowitz@uiowa.edu; Jonathan-Wilcox@uiowa.edu; Doris-Witt@uiowa.edu; David-Wittenberg@uiowa.edu

The Death of an Oligarch

Above is a cartoon I drew quite a while ago (a decade probably). I like emphasizing some of the stupid things the famous say or write. It's not a great toon, surely not one of my best. But, hey, let's celebrate Teddy. It's the only one I've ever done of him, though I'm cogitating another one.

Below is a poem I just wrote. I've reworked it a number of times. The subject isn't easy to cover without getting too rhymy or insufficiently rhymy. Some rhyming is needed to render the flow reasonably smooth. No matter. It just came out. The emotion of barfing out what so many mindlessly ingurgitate serves as its catalyst.

The Death of an American Oligarch
The hagiography runs rife on the tube—
even the conservatives praise the dude,
while the populace congeals deer-eyed
before the dead Star of the moment.

The older brother had stepped down,
decades ago to become president;
so the younger one took over the seat,
while the father’s money would serve
to keep him as permanent resident.

The journalists pumped him up periodically,
while the citizenry, mouth agape,
swallowed the superficial swill of the dynasty.

So, now the dude’s finally dead, and the
question posed is not Term Limits
for the sake of democracy,
but rather who will take over the seat
of the family oligarchy:
the wife, one of the nephews, or Caroline Kennedy?