Department of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside

NO RESPONSE 

Not one response from over 20 Professors at the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

DEPARTMENT OF CREATIVE WRITING!  

How sad it is that out of 20 some odd university professors contacted, not one deigned to respond to my criticism.  How do such professors become such detesters of vigorous debate, one of democracy's prime cornerstones?  Clearly, they reflect the closed doors of the general Academic/Literary Established Order.  Clearly, they are part of that PRIVILEGED elite!  How sad they are and how sad it is that NOBODY from the university student newspaper would respond either.  Evidently, those 20 some odd professors have succeeded in indoctrinating the student editors.  Below is the OPEN LETTER I sent.  See also the post after it regarding one of their own...

From: George Slone

Sent: Sunday, January 3, 2016 9:46 AM

To: juan.herrera@ucr.edu; reza.aslan@ucr.edu; charmaine.craig@ucr.edu; josh.emmons@ucr.edu; stephen.erickson@ucr.edu; katie.ford@ucr.edu; nalo.hopkinson@ucr.edu; michael.jayme@ucr.edu; christopher.buckley@ucr.edu; michael.davis@ucr.edu; judy.kronenfeld@ucr.edu; eliud.martinez@ucr.edu; laila.lalami@ucr.edu; goldberry.long@ucr.edu; tom.lutz@ucr.edu; susan.straight@ucr.edu; allison.white@ucr.edu; andrew.winer@ucr.edu; maurya.simon@ucr.edu; ben.stoltzfus@ucr.edu; chuck.whitney@ucr.edu; dwight.yates@ucr.edu

Cc: editorinchief@highlandernews.org; opinions@highlandernews.org

Subject: Open Letter to the Department of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside

Open Letter to the Department of Creative Writing, University of California, Riverside

As you know, one of your own, Juan Felipe Herrera, is now Poet Laureate of the US Library of Congress.   As you do NOT know, he was lampooned on the front cover of the latest issue of The American Dissident, a 501c3 nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy, and Dissidence.  You do not know this because not one library in California is willing to subscribe to the journal.  Universities like Harvard, Brown, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Brown, and a few others are subscribers. For those of you, who still have an iota of curiosity of what goes on outside the California PC-box, you can examine the front cover, as well as the editorial pertaining to it, here:  wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com.  Below the editorial is the Open Letter to Juan Felipe Herrera I wrote in August and sent to Herrera and Michael Rios, student editor of The Highlander.  Neither deigned to respond.  Evidently, neither is a proponent of vigorous debate, one of democracy’s prime cornerstones.  Are any of you?

Why are each and everyone of you likely entirely indifferent to the fact that the Academy of American Poetry censored and banned me, a creative writer and poet, from expressing my views on its website?  Why does academe favor a smiley-faced herd professorate over staunch individuals daring to “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways?” (Emerson)  That is an important question confronting democracy in America today.  Thankfully, I have failed as an academic teamplayer and thus do not possess titles of Endowed, Distinguished, Emeritus, Distinguished Emeritus, Laureate, or any of the other such dubious honors normally accorded those with exceptional turn-a-blind-eye ability.  BTW, the first part of that Emerson quote is “I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions…”  Can any of you grasp what Emerson meant by that?  

Finally, might there be one of you, just one of you, who might actually encourage students in a creative writing assignment, for example, to criticize you, your department, your institution, or any of the established-order organisations from Poet Laureate to Poetry Foundation, Poets & Writers magazine, Poetry magazine, the Academy of American Poets, etc.?  Silence seems always to be the “response” of those possessing comfy sinecures, pensions, fringe benefits, titles, badges, and hefty salaries.  Sadly, it seems also to be the response of those they teach like student editor Michael Rios…