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.
......................................
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment