Wanda Brown

Editorial Issue #39

The Corona Apocalyptic

Dear Mr Slone, Please feel free to criticise Quillette and myself in any forum you see fit. However please refrain from submitting to us in the future. Regards,Claire Lehmann  [“Quillette is a platform for free thought. We respect ideas, even dangerous ones. We also believe that free expression and the free exchange of ideas help human societies flourish and progress. Quillette aims to provide a platform for this exchange.”]”

—Claire Lehman, Ed-in-Chief, Quillette

Will the pandemic help destroy the little democracy we have left and increase the power of Big Government bureaucracy?  Gary Goude notes, “Well, for now the LA county sheriff and LA city sheriff,  on the mayor's orders, have closed gun shops in the county as ‘not essential’ and then the Gov ordered all background checks stopped, which means you are not able to purchase any firearm. I am no lawyer but I am certain this is a 2nd amendment unconstitutional violation. Hopefully it will be challenged in court.”

    Well, I was going to title this editorial, “The Business of Poetry & Writing,” but then came the apocalypse.  So, I changed it, though not much at all in the editorial.   Lehman’s comment (see above) is so amazing that I’ve quoted it a number of times in the past.  Perhaps it is a sign of the present apocalyptic times.  Such gems are rare.  The norm is deafening silence, a virtual echo of a quarantined literati. What is astonishing is that Lehman cannot even comprehend the gross intrinsic hypocrisy in her statement… in her very being.  And so had I committed an act of blasphemy?  Yes!  That’s what I’d done!  I’d criticized Quillette! 

    Sadly, the literary journals are never looking for rude-truth writers, apt to criticize the literary establishment that hands out the carrots—prizes, grants, invitations, awards, tenure, publications, etc. And yet the often self-aggrandizing statements of fluff exuded by poet and writer hacks of the establishment beggar to be criticized.  As an example, cite  Jamil Publishing:  

We know that poetry is greater than all its parts. We feel that it is truth from deep within and in its greatness, in its vastness, in its enormity we find that poetry is all encompassing and visionary—seeing deep into our history, the breadth of our present, and far into our future.  Creative writing is a tool that give voice to the voiceless.

     Moreover, the poetry journals openly profess their racist and sexist biases.  Again cite Jamil Publishing:  

We are looking for women and artists of color [i.e., white men need not apply!] who are actively working in the community.

      Few—very, very few—dare to call the editors out on their egregious racism and sexism.  NewPages.com has no problem with it at all!  BUT it does have a serious problem with a journal like The American Dissident, which will and does criticize the establishment, including NewPages.com itself, which of course refuses to list The American Dissident.  Well, I for one, as a poet and editor, call out the hypocrites, racists, and other poet fraudsters! My reward? Full ostracizing!  Oh, but of course!  And I’d have it no other way. 

Poets & Writers magazine hates criticism to the extent that criticism simply does not exist for the magazine, which incarnates the sad reality of the business of poetry. Its staff is composed of many well-paid haters of uncomfortable truths, including an Executive Director, Managing Director, Deputy Director—Development & Marketing, Development & Marketing Coordinator, Development & Marketing Assistant, Director of Finance & Accounting, Staff Accountant, Administrative Coordinator, Editor in Chief, Senior Editor, Managing Editor, Associate Editor, Assistant Editor, Senior Web Editor, Associate Web Editor, Associate Publisher, Senior Advertising Manager, Advertising Assistant, Director of Readings & Workshops, Program Associate, Director of Information Technology & Web Development, as well as a bunch of Fellows, including a Raab Editorial Fellow.  Wow.

  Money determines the direction of poetry (e.g., towards pc-diversity and diversity/identity politics, while away from rude truth), just like everything else.  And evidently Poets & Writers magazine has tons of money, although not as much as Poetry magazine with its $200 million foundation.  Cultural councils like the NEA grant tax-payer money to magazines that do not question and challenge cultural councils. Hardcore critique of the business of poetry is essentially banned by the grant-according machine, including its proponents and cogs.  Try getting a critical essay on the business of poetry published in a poetry journal or even a cartoon like the first one in this issue.   Bonne chance! Coopted prize-winning/tenured poets hate criticism.  For them, it simply does not/cannot exist.  Eileen Myles’ response to it reflects the general decrepitude of establishment poets like her:  “go away troll.”  

Over the years I have contacted many editors, poets, journalists, writers, curators, artists, and, of course, academics—professors, deans, and college presidents.  For some reason, I am still sort of surprised how they categorically refuse to address the hypocrisy and inanity underscored.  I still don’t quite understand their absolute reluctance to publish criticism in their diverse newspapers, journals, and magazines.  Alas, it is definitely the sign of our pitiful totalitarian times.  

    BTW, rarely do I ever NOT depict real people nowadays in my cartoons and aquarelles.  There are so many nut-jobs out there to pick from.  No need to invent them! And by nut-job, I mean blatant hypocrites and liars, inanity spewers, spineless virtue-signalers, reason-devoid professor poets, and on and on. Anyhow, an American Library Association bookmark, kindly sent to me by Jennifer Fulco, inspired the issue’s front cover, which depicts three American Library Association leaders: American Libraries Magazine Editor/Publisher Sanhita Sinha Roy, ALA President Wanda Brown, and Director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom Deborah Caldwell-Stone.  Librarians are like journalists and poets today: PC-infested, self-congratulating ad nauseam, and extremely averse to outside criticism. My concerns regarding the ALA are that it refused to address questions raised regarding its total apathy and inaction regarding my being permanently banned from Sturgis Library. Its Office for Intellectual Freedom is as hypocritical as it gets.  And its American Libraries Magazine refuses to publish any hardcore criticism, regarding libraries and librarians.   

The back cover of this issue presents a satire on the vapid official Academy of American Poets April 2020 National Poetry Month poster (see image below), created by contest winner Samantha Aikman. The anointing judges were “renowned” dyke cartoonist Alison Bechdel and former U.S. chicano Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera.  Identity politics rules!  The vapid, almost meaningless, words on the winning poster (not mine!) are those of U.S. Native-American Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo: “Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.”  Might Harjo be so implanted on Cloud 9 as to not realize that not  everything is growing, that somethings are in fact croaking?  No doubt.  And so, in the satirical version of that poster, the line was altered to better fit the reality of the business of poetry. Finally, despite my beggaring, I received no critical essays from contributors.  In any case, many thanks to those who have subscribed over the years and in doing so helped keep The AD afloat.  Many thanks especially to Dolores Granger for her generous contributions!  And many thanks to Russell Streur for his directing a contribution for nonprofits to The AD.