Cultural Center of Cape Cod

For the unsurprising reaction to the broadside below, read the account of my protest at the Cultural Center in celebration of National Poetaster Month, "Nasty: Notes from a Protest and an Encounter with the Executive Director of the Cultural Center of Cape Cod," here:   https://www.newenglishreview.org/articles/nasty-notes-from-a-protest-and-an-encounter-with-the-executive-director-of-the-cultural-center-of-cape-cod/. 

..........................

An American Dissident Free-Speech Broadside (April, 27, 2022)

The American Dissident, a 501 (c)3 Nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy & Dissidence (Publishing Biannually since 1998)

G. Tod Slone, PhD and Founding Editor  todslone@hotmail.com   www.theamericandissident.org   wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com

217 Commerce Rd., Barnstable, MA 02630

“Some of the Arts for Some of Us”

the Castration, Cooptation, and Corralling of Cape Cod Poets

(A “Dangerous” Poet’s “Dangerous” Statement to the Cultural Center of Cape Cod)

Estoit-il lors temps de moy taire? 

—François Villon, “Ballade du Guichetier Garnier”

 

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION is in serious danger of extinction when poets do not give a damn if another poet is ostracized, censored, and/or banned!  That is the sad reality here on Cape Cod, where local poets are far more concerned with government grant money, invitations, publications, tenure, and curatorial/censorial positions, than with FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION.   

     The Cultural Center of Cape Cod—its Learning Director Diane Giardi—refused to accord me permission to read at its National Poetry Month “Poetry Marathon.”  Why?  Quite simply, the apparatchiks at the Center are unable to brook hardcore criticism—my criticism! Its motto, “All the Arts for All of Us,” embodies their grotesque hypocrisy. My art and my poetry have been excluded from its Orwellian realm of  INCLUSION IS EXCLUSION. “Join us for an all-day Poetry Marathon in celebration of the beauty and power of poetry in all its forms!”  But certainly not the power of poetry in my form!  

      Why should culture and its apparatchiks be exempt from criticism?  As editor of a poetry journal, I openly ask for criticism and publish the harshest received in each issue.  And I do NOT ostracize and ban!  If my criticism is not on target, then it is up to the Giardis and Demeulenaeres to prove it.  And if they did, I’d have no problem issuing an apology and correction.  How is the Center’s motto not hypocritical?!  Well, the cultural apparatchiks have yet to respond!  And so, as a rejected poet and artist, I stand outside today in protest. 

    In the beginning of this month, April, I wrote the Center’s PR Coordinator, who inspired a poem. Too bad I can’t read it at the “Poetry Marathon”! The PR-Apparatchik chose not to respond.  Imagine, a PR-Coordinator for poetry! On Cape Cod, the Chamber of Commerce has coopted, castrated and corralled the poets!    

To Becky Renaud, PR Coordinator, Cultural Center of Cape Cod:  Well, nothing personal here—I don’t know you.  But my request to read a couple of poems like the ones below at your April open-mic event was simply ignored (i.e., no response) by your Learning Director Diane Giardi.  Sadly, it really does seem that criticism of culture is strictly verboten on Cape Cod.   Please do at least contemplate that thought and what it implies for the state of democracy here in the midst of the tourist industry.  Fear not!  I am neither violent, nor do I ever make threats.  However, I am an ardent critic, especially regarding that which is taboo in the realm of establishment critics.  Finally, perhaps you might convince Mme Giardi to open her closed doors and permit me to read some of my poetry… 

     Oddly, my last solo protest was precisely two years ago on April 27th in front of Sturgis Library in Barnstable, which was celebrating Kurt Vonnegut.  On the sidewalk, I stood with a sign and handed out flyers.  If I had stood on library property, director Lucy Loomis would have called the cops.  Why?  Well, in 2012, she’d permanently banned me from her publicly-funded library w/o warning, w/o due process.  Since she refused to provide a written reason, a poet friend in Georgia, Russell Streur, who has a certain expertise in dealing with corrupt organizations, contacted the Massachusetts State Secretary of Records, which nine months later forced Sturgis to open its records (see sturgisbansdissident.blogspot.com). Only one short email from Loomis to the trustees revealed the reason for the banning: “for the safety of the staff and public” (see theamericandissident.org/orgs/sturgis_library.html).   In vain, I contacted every pertinent organization on Cape Cod, including Cape Cod Poetry Review, Cape Cod Writers Center, Barnstable County Human Rights Commission, Cape Cod Times, Barnstable Patriot, Provincetown Arts, Provincetown Banner, Town Counselors of Barnstable, Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, and the 25 library directors of the Clams Library System (see wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2017/10/free-speech-organizations-apathetic-and.html).  Not one person gave a damn!  Not one Cape Cod poet, artist, or writer gave a damn!  And yet my very civil rights are still being denied today because I am NOT permitted to attend any cultural or political events held at my neighborhood library, where the “Generative Poetry Workshop” is being run by.paid-poet hacks Bellinger, Miller, Bonanni, and Chen.  Do they care?  Of course not!  Is there one poet here who cares?  Likely not!  Curatorial censorship of expression IS NOT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION!

Vive la liberté de parole, câlisse ! ! !

.......................................................