Rita Dove

In celebration of National Poetaster Month, below are three cartoons I sketched in 2004, 2006, and 2007.  Academic black-privileged Rita Dove of course did respond to any of the cartoons.  Also, below is an email I sent in 2007.  No response was ever received.  What I dislike about those like Dove, black or white, is how easily they fit into the establishment and how unlikely they'll ever bite the numerous hands feeding them.  For me, a poet should be a raw truth teller, not an academic careerist.  But then again, I guess I'm quite different.  BTW, I decided to post the three cartoons now after receiving an email from the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, which is highlighting Dove and one of her rather typically vacuous statements:  “Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful.”  It aberrantly also highlights ex-president ("It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is.") Bill Clinton's vacuous statement:  "National Poetry Month offers us a welcome opportunity to celebrate not only the unsurpassed body of literature produced by our poets in the past, but also the vitality and diversity of voices reflected in the works of today's American poetry.”  When poetry is backed by hacks, you know damn well that poetry is fucked.  The Cultural Center, whose motto is "All the Arts for All of Us," will not unsurprisingly include my art.  Orwellian at its finest!  Long live the curating (censoring!) cultural apparatchiks!  

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Date:	Tue, 4 Dec 2007 17:41:44 -0800 (PST)
From:	"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>  Add to Address Book  Add Mobile Alert
Subject:	Academy censorship... is Rita Dove a knowing partisan?
To:	rr5m@virginia.edu, jobrien@virginia.edu, jep6p@virginia.edu, sdf8x@virginia.edu, jrf2j@virginia.edu, shb7f@virginia.edu, ggc8n@virginia.edu, derrico@virginia.edu

Since I cannot locate Prof. Rita Dove's email on your webpage, I am contacting you, her colleagues, in the hope that maybe one of you might actually be open to communication from an ardent poet critic of the academic/literary established order, of which you all belong.  Please either forward her email or forward this email to her.  Thank you for your attention.  BTW, you might like to subscribe to The American Dissident, a 501c3 nonprofit literary journal devoted to critical writing against the machine, as in "let your life be a counterfriction to stop the machine" (Thoreau).  Your students would certainly (hopefully!) find it refreshing in its dissident perspective.  

G. Tod Slone, Ed.

The American Dissident

 

Dear Prof. Dove: 

I doubt you'll ever respond, (Prof. Snyder has yet to respond), but I like to cover my bases, so to speak and just found your email this evening.  The Academy of American Poets censored (banned) me from participating on its online forums last July.  My assumption is that you approve of this censorship.  For the details, including the banned transcript, see www.theamericandissident.org/AcademyAmericanPoets.htm.  In July, I contacted each staff member of the Academy and have yet to receive a response or apology.  

BTW, you might like to subscribe to The American Dissident.  Your students would likely find it refreshing because of its strong stance against the academic/literary established order, which of course includes you and your poet chancellor friends.  BUT it would take a very strong person to accept such critique.  To date, I've only found two such poet professors, one of whom invited me to speak before one of his English classes ( Endicott College ).  BTW, I have a doctorate and, when employed teach as a professor.  BUT when employed, unlike the bulk of professors in America , I am actively, unabashedly, and courageously vocal, so often find myself unemployed.  

 

Sincerely,

G. Tod Slone, Ed.

The American Dissident

www.theamericandissident.org

1837 Main St.

Concord, Ma 01742