A Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy

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A FORUM FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND VIGOROUS DEBATE, CORNERSTONES OF DEMOCRACY
[For the journal--guidelines, focus, etc.--go to www.theamericandissident.org. If you have questions, please contact me at todslone@hotmail.com. Comments are NOT moderated (i.e., CENSORED)!]
Encouraged censorship and self-censorship seem to have become popular in America today. Those who censor others, not just self, tend to favor the term "moderate," as opposed to "censor" and "moderation" to "censorship." But that doesn't change what they do. They still act as Little Caesars or Big Brother protectors of the thin-skinned. Democracy, however, demands a tough populace, not so easily offended. On this blog, and to buck the trend of censorship, banning, and ostracizing, comments are NEVER "moderated." Rarely (almost NEVER) do the targets of these blog entries respond in an effort to defend themselves with cogent counter-argumentation. This blog is testimony to how little academics, poets, critics, newspaper editors, cartoonists, political hacks, cultural council apparatchiks, librarians et al appreciate VIGOROUS DEBATE, cornerstone of democracy. Clearly, far too many of them could likely prosper just fine in places like communist China and Cuba or Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Russia, not to mention Sweden, England, and Austria.
ISSUE #47 PUBLISHED MAY 2024. NOW SEEKING SUBMISSIONS FOR ISSUE #48.

More P. Maudit cartoons (and essays) at Global Free Press: http://www.globalfreepress.org

Saturday, April 23, 2022

Dana Levin, Poet

 

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No email address on the internet available for Dana Levin. So, I sent the above cartoon to the Great Brick Wall of Poets & Writers magazine, which interviewed/advertised Levin.  In fact, that magazine is nothing but a platform for smiley-face advertising of poets.  It incarnates "Poetry Is Dead."

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The Spineless

(For Poet Dana Levin, who incarnates this poem)

Those who buffer themselves 

from outside criticism, 

by, for example, 

keeping their contact info secret, 

tend to be weak, 

narcissistic—self-laudatory—, 

and ideologically conformed and confined.  

Just look at their me-me-me websites

—mere lists of their establishment credentials.

Such persons ought to stay the hell 

out of the limelight, 

instead of constantly seeking to be under it,

    ever slobbering for renown and anointment.   


Notes on “The Spineless”

From an idea— 

a taboo thought—, 

I tend to create a poem, 

which tends to render it

not a poem, 

though only in the eyes 

of the bards in control 

of the poetry establishment

—the money, the platforms, the positions.