Le Devoir -- Caroline Montpetit, Michel Garneau, et Mira Falardeau

 

Devon Walker-Figueroa and Carmen Giménez

 

Kevin Carey, Anne Pluto, Lloyd Schwartz, Daniel Tobin

The following is the front cover for the next issue of The American Dissident due to be published later this month (October, 2022).  Below it, appears the email sent to the 4 prof/poets depicted on the front cover and invited by Sturgis Library to read.  I, a poet/editor, was NOT permitted to attend the reading.  Not one of the prof/poets deigned to respond.  In essence, not one of them gives a damn about vigorous debate and freedom of expression, the two prime cornerstones of a thriving democracy.  They do incarnate the sad state of America today...

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To Prof Poets Kevin Carey (Salem State University), Anne Pluto (Lesley University), Lloyd Schwartz (University of Massachusetts), and Daniel Tobin (Emerson College):  

Are you perchance aware that I, as a dissident poet and editor, was not permitted to attend your reading at Sturgis Library, my very neighborhood library?  If not, now you are fully aware!  From my decades-long experience with poets and academics, however, I doubt very much that any of you will stand up for freedom of speech and actually write a letter decrying library director Lucy Loomis’ autocratic decision to permanently ban me in 2012 for the crime of having disseminated written criticism of her egregious hypocrisy, regarding the library’s (and the American Library Association’s) collection development statement, in particular, “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view."  Read the letter from the State Secretary of Records of Massachusetts demanding Loomis open her records to public scrutiny, so that I might at least examine what she wrote about me... nine months after the banning.  

Evidently, my point of view and the points of view of all the poets I’ve published since the 2012 banning are NOT permitted at Sturgis Library, one of the oldest in the country.  Loomis refused a free subscription offer!  Likely, I am very, very different from each of you because, as a poet, essayist, cartoonist, and editor, I tend to speak truth openly, especially regarding the multitude of well-fed academic/literary (and librarian!) establishment cogs serving to undermine freedom of speech and vigorous debate, democracy’s very cornerstones.  From the inevitable resultant dross (e.g., pathetic apathy and/or ad hominem), I create!  Would the Cultural Center of Cape Cod open its doors to my critical aquarelles?  Of course not!  PROHIBITED! 

Currently, I am contemplating an idea using the four of you for the front cover of the next issue, #44, of The American Dissident.  As a highly unusual literary editor, I not only brook harsh criticism (unlike Loomis and most others in power positions), but encourage it especially regarding the journal and me... and publish the harshest received in each and every issue.  Is there another literary journal that does that… in the name of democracy, as opposed to groupthink wokidiocy?  Well, I have yet to find one!  

So, I encourage you to respond.  And yes, I too was once a professor, but, for me, speaking truth openly always took precedence over climbing the see-no-evil, speak-no-evil ladder to tenure.  Attached is my Curriculum Mortae for your perusal.  Now, would Salem State University, Lesley University, Emerson College, and University of Massachusetts ever consider hiring someone like me?  Certainly not!  As a side note, how not to LOL regarding Schwartz’ "Pulitzer Prize for Criticism."  Yes, anything but criticism of the dubious Pulitzer and all the other hands feeding him!  Be curious!  Check out the links in this email!   

Why are the bulk of poets and poet organizations so incapable of dealing with criticism?  Why is Loomis so incapable?  Why does she feel compelled to ban criticism of her?  Never have I made any threats!  I have no criminal record!   It has reached the point where criticism (with the exception of samizdat) simply does not exist with her and their (the poets’) regard.  

As another side note, shame on Edie Vonnegut for using his family name to become a library trustee censor.  For him, I attach the cartoon I sketched in 2014, depicting what his relative Kurt had said about Sturgis Library, where once he too served as a trustee.  

One day, in the brave new world of the Loomis’s, someone like me will be cuffed, arrested, and incarcerated for simply disseminating an email like this one… and thanks to those like you... and, of course, in the name of democracy.

Au plaisir,

G. Tod Slone, Ed.

The American Dissident

Curriculum Mortae

 Curriculum Mortae

—A Dissident Citizen Poet Professor’s Resume—

G. Tod Slone, PhD

todslone@hotmail.com — www.theamericandissident.org 

Dissidence:  If there is no risk when speaking rude truth, there is really no dissidence.  It is for that reason that dissidence really implies, at least in America, criticism on the local level.  Evidently, there is no risk at all criticizing an American president, thanks to democracy’s legal framework.  Examine my two essays:  “The Cold Passion for Truth Hunts in No Pack” and "Notes on RISK and Writing."  

By openly criticizing the academic/literary/art establishment administrators, I personally risked jobs, promotions, invitations, grants, publications, and general blacklisting.   As for  the latter, the Cape Cod Times, for example, will not include me in its list of Cape Cod authors because I’ve dared criticize its editors.  The Academy of American Poets, Poets & Writers, Poetry Foundation, NewPages.com, Arts & Letters (Chronicle of Higher Education), Publishers Weekly, American Libraries Magazine et al have essentially blacklisted The American Dissident (see below), the journal I publish.  The very term, dissident, stems from opponents of socialist/communist authoritarian regimes and requisite in-lockstep groupthink.  It needs to be applied more frequently in America because such authoritarianism has become an integral part of the nation.  Those who toe the line—the bulk of so-called professionals—will automatically detest somebody like me.  Indeed for a summary of the ad hominem (kill the messenger/avoid his message) hurled my way, examine 

Dissident Objectives:  “Go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways” (Emerson); let my life “be a counterfriction to stop the machine” (Thoreau), “write because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention” (Orwell), and teach students and others the importance of individuality and dissidence in a democracy, and open their hearts to hardcore criticism, while encouraging them to learn and create from it.  

Dissident Formation and Experience:  (For a number of other examples of my dissidence, examine “Testing the Waters of Democracy” on The American Dissident website.

—The Sixties.  While the Sixties perhaps sensitized me to ubiquitous corruption, it also pressured me to de-individualize, groupthink, and group behave, in essence, prerequisites for a successful career as a university professor or other such “professional.”  

—Université du Maine (1980-82) and École Nationale de Mécanique (1982-88). While a lecteur de langue anglaise in France, I became interested in reprobates Villon and Céline, as well as other French authors.  There, I also read Bukowski for the first time and in French and consequently wrote some of my first poems in French.  

—Elmira College (1989-1991) Faculty/administrative corruption/apathy transformed me into a firm dissident (i.e., truth-speaking individual, as opposed to careerist ladder climber).   Deans sided with a handful of students, who complained now and then that I’d offended their sensitivities.

—My first truly critical essays and poems were published in The Octagon, the student newspaper. They criticized students and my so-called colleagues, as well as administrators.

—I created and disseminated my first critical newsletters, “Purple Marasmus,” which I distributed mostly to the Humanities faculty, who I harshly criticized in them.  Elmira’s color logo is purple.  

—Fitchburg State College (1991-1996). My eyes were further opened to academic corruption (e.g., a closet homosexual department chair wanting me to visit him every weekend at his home, highly whimsical faculty evaluations, nepotism, eviction mid-semester from my office w/o due process, a prevaricating dean and apathetic faculty). The American Association of University Professors and the ACLU of Massachusetts remained silent regarding my grievances of state-college corruption.

—Eviction from my college office (McKay Campus) mid-semester due to one complaint by a colleague that she was afraid of me, despite my having no criminal record.  To this day, I could be arrested if I stepped foot on McKay Campus.

—Received a year’s salary as settlement payment after a lengthy in-house hearing.  The college never admitted wrong-doing.

—The student, local, and state newspapers (Boston Globe), as well as The Chronicle of Higher Education, refused to publish my accounts of corruption at Fitchburg State, which provoked me to begin publishing a newsletter, Corruption Magazine, which morphed into Corruption Massachusetts.

—Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (1998).  My experience at this so-lauded “blue-ribbon” high school, as a full-time substitute babysitter, resulted in a few highly critical published op-eds in the local newspaper, as well as a non-fiction novel, Total Chaos (People’s Press—2001).  

—The American Dissident (created in 1998). A 501 3c nonprofit journal of literature, democracy, and dissidence places rude-truth telling and risk above team-playing, networking, and turning a blind eye.  Sadly, it is rare for poets, writers, artists, editors, and journalists to engage in such a modus operandi.  

—Walden Pond State Reservation (1999).  Arrest and incarceration in a Concord jail cell for a day.  I was solo protesting the absence of free speech at Walden Pond State Reservation.  Both the local media and Thoreau Society were pathetically apathetic.  The judge dropped the case against me at the Concord Court House.  

—Bennett College (2001-2003).  Numerous highly critical op-eds were published in the local and college newspapers.  

—Festival International de la Poésie de Trois-Rivières (Québec—2001).  The only invited and remunerated poet out of 150 who dared criticize the hands that fed in the form of poems I’d written in French.  Never invited back.    

—Eastern Connecticut University (2002). Wrong skin color (and who knows how many other institutions I’d applied to rejected me for the same reason). Agustin Bernal, Dept. Chair:  “The search for the tenure-track position in Spanish/French was declared ‘failed’ by the administration, after three equally acceptable finalists (you among them) were submitted to them for campus interviews. The entire pool of candidates was reviewed and they concluded it wasn't ‘deep’ or ‘diverse’ enough to be satisfactory.”

—The Concord Poetry Center (2004).  Director Joan Houlihan stated:  “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.”  Evidently, I chose to protest the reading.    

—The complete silence of PEN New England (“defending freedom of expression”), regarding impediments to my freedom of expression and the likely influence of poet Joan Houlihan on PEN director Karen Wulf, both comfortably installed at Lesley University, further provoked my questioning and challenging of such organizations.

—The silence of some 500 college English professors regarding my attempts to interest them in radically altering the academic culture of sycophancy, turning a blind eye, careerism, PC, and prevarication confirmed my observations that college professors tended to be apparatchik careerists first, while truth tellers last.  

—geocities.com/enmarge.  That was my first website URL, which was removed sometime in the mid 2000s due to one anonymous complaint.  Geocities refused to respond to my protest with that regard.  Vice notes, “Geocities was one of the first places your average person could make a website for free.”  Yeah, well, it was also one of the first places that began censoring websites!  

—Grambling State University (2005-2007).  This was my second experience at an all black (HBCU) college.  There I found the same intellectual corruption, as I’d found at Bennett College,… and wrote a number of highly critical op-eds published in the student newspaper.  

—Watertown Free Public Library (2008).  The director issued a six-month no-trespass order with my regard without due process for my attempting to interest its reference librarian in subscribing to The American Dissident.  

—Academy of American Poets (2009).  My comments on the Academy’s website were censored and I was banned from participating in its online forums.  No reason was provided for the banning.

—American Public University (2010-2017).  Online instructor of English.  This was my very last teaching job… because I disobeyed the Chair’s order that I cease expressing myself… regarding criticism lodged against me.  

—Sturgis Library (2012).  Permanently banned from my neighborhood library w/o warning and w/o due process.  The reason:  “for the safety of the staff and public.”  Five days prior to the banning I’d sent to the library directors of the Clams Library System of Cape Cod a critical essay of their collection development policy, which states, “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view.”  Also, prior to the banning, the Barnstable Patriot interviewed me.  

Dissident Publications. Numerous critical letters to the editor of student newspapers at colleges employing me confirmed professor indifference to matters of corruption, free speech, and vigorous debate.  A number of those letters can be viewed on my blogsite.  Numerous publications of poetry, essays, satirical cartoons, novels, and plays.  Some of those publications can be viewed on my website and at globalfreepress.org/contributors/usa/g-tod-slone and globalfreepress.org/cartoonists/g-tod-slone. 

Dissident Art Exhibits.  Critical art exhibits at the Concord Free Public Library (2008) and Sturgis Library (2011).

Solo Protests.  Staging of various solo protests critical of state-sponsored poets at the Concord Poetry Center, Concord Free Public Library, Robert Creeley Prize in Acton, and elsewhere confirmed poets were largely indifferent to questions of free speech and vigorous debate.  

Foreign Languages Spoken and Written:  French (near-native fluency—Parisian and québécois), Spanish (fluent), Italian (intermediate fluency), German (reading fluency)

Professional Formation & Experience: 

Doctorate in English (Université de Nantes, Nantes, France), 

M.A. in French (Middlebury College), 

B.A. (Northeastern University).

Online adjunct English/Spanish instructor, American Public University System; English instructor, US Navy (Central Texas College),Visiting professor of French and Spanish (Grambling State University), Online writing instructor (Davenport University), Assistant professor of French and Spanish (Bennett College) and (Fitchburg State College), Assistant professor of Humanities (Elmira College), Lecteur de langue anglaise (École Nationale Supérieure de Mécanique, Nantes, France) and Université du Maine (Le Mans, France), Adult Education instructor of Spanish (Concord-Carlisle Adult & Community Education, Concord, MA), High school mid-year replacement teacher of Spanish (Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, MA), Community college instructor of Spanish (Mount Wachussetts Community College, Gardener, MA), Language program director in Martinique, France (ASA International Adventures, Amronk, NY), Lecturer of French (Northeastern University, Boston, MA), High School teacher of French (Nazareth Academy, Wakefield, MA), Shipyard welder (General Dynamics), radiation monitor (Groton submarine base), FDIC bank examiner (South Dakota), interpreter/translator (Le Mans auto race—11 consecutive years), census taker…

Publications See http://theamericandissident.org/g_tod_slone_books.html. 

This CM is a work in progress…

Corey Farrenkopf

 

Larry Brown Cape Cod Times

The following cartoon and counter-essay were not permitted in the pages of the Cape Cod Times.

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White Bad, Black Good

First, the term “liberal” ought to imply real belief in free speech, vigorous debate, and equality.   Unfortunately, today, the term “liberal” has come to mean left-wing Democrat-Party partisanship against free speech, vigorous debate, and equality.  True liberalism has been replaced by the faux-liberalism of diversity, inclusion, and equity, Orwellian code for unity of thought, exclusion of unwanted ideas, and racial inequality of opportunity.  Thus, the term left-wing ought to be separated from, not equated with, the term “liberal.”  Second, differences, including height, attractiveness, sex, intellectual capacity, physical strength, skin color, wealth, etc., actually do exist… and to judge is natural… but to stereotype on the basis of any of those differences inevitably defies reality.  Humans do have the capacity to weigh their judgments in accord with reality.  Sadly, many do not do that.  

Critical Race Theory teaches the white bad/black good (victim) stereotype falsity, which supports the adoption of double-standards falsity, including all whites are racists, while all blacks are not.  Falsity only ends up harming those who propagate it, who do so in an effort to somehow protect and empower.  Columnist Larry Brown and his Cape Cod Times have evidently embraced, rather than question and challenge, falsities pushed by CRT.  

Brown’s column, “I’m not racist, but …,” begs to be critically examined.  But those like Brown and the Times are opposed to questioning and challenging of their left-wing—not liberal—narrative.  The Times over the past decade, for example, has absolutely refused to publish anything I’ve sent it, including an account of my being permanently banned without warning or due process from my neighborhood library, Sturgis Library, for merely questioning and challenging the de facto policies adopted by its library director, Lucy Loomis, which, in particular, contradict its written policy that “libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view.”  For the Times, I illustrate “wrong think” and thus simply do not exist.

And so Brown begins his column by admitting to his white privilege, though doesn’t quite put it that way: “When I was a boy, we had Black maids come in once a week to help my mother.”  Well, when I was a boy, my family never had maids, black or white.  And indeed, white maids do exist, though perhaps not in Brown’s fantasy world.  Evoking that fact clearly is harmful to his left-wing narrative.  Now, I wonder how many maids the Obamas have on the Vineyard.  Are they white or black or both?  To pose that question could, however, be damaging to the stereotype adopted by Brown and the Times.  

It is intellectually belittling for Brown to evoke one convenient example of his white mother sending a get-well card to one of her black maids, who purportedly stated that to be “the only deliberate act of kindness she had experienced from a white person in her whole life.”  In other words, white bad/black good.  Now, as mentioned, when I was a boy, my family never had maids.  But to state that would be an affront to the white-privilege stereotype, espoused by Brown.  Just the same, I wonder what the three black youths might have said to each other after they beat and robbed me in Baton Rouge one morning.  The only deliberate act of kindness they’d experienced from a white person in their whole lives?  After all, they went on a shopping spree with the credit card they stole from me.  Brown states regarding the maid:  “Think for a moment what that means. Minorities tell us all the time that they experience life in America differently.”  Evidently, my experience contradicts Brown’s stereotype.  In essence, one example (one experience) should never be used to stereotype entire races.  How can Brown, a Cape Cod Academy humanities teacher, not comprehend that?  Well, I certainly made sure my experience didn’t; sadly, Brown made sure his did.

“There’s more than one kind of racist,” argues Brown.  Yes, there are black racists and white racists.  Ah, but he does not state it that way at all.  After all, he has been indoctrinated that blacks cannot be/are not racists.  Imagine if the Times had published an op-ed on black racists.  Pipe-dream?  You bet!  Brown argues that “Class One racists react viscerally to people of color, often to gays, mixed-race couples, mixed-race ads on TV.”  What I am against is the undemocratic (authoritarian) social engineering effected behind the scenes by societal elites.  Clearly, “mixed-race ads” form an integral part of such social engineering, which seeks in the long run to terminate nations by mixing populations via population importations and to eliminate, in a racist endeavor, the white race (consider the “tanning of America” ideology as propagated, for example, by Tracey Ross in The Root blog on Washington Post).  Brown argues without an iota of proof of assertion:  “They’re angry when issues of slavery are taught in school, ‘dragging our country through the mud’.”  Well, I’m angry because in general the truth, the whole truth regarding slavery is rarely if ever taught in government schools (see, for example, “1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project").  

Sadly, Brown’s entire piece is one-sided.  Whites are racist, while there is no mention of racist blacks.  White supremacy is mentioned, while black supremacy (e.g., Black Panthers and Nation of Islam) is not mentioned.  Brown argues, “It’s precisely the failure to recognize the harm in supremist [sic] thinking that the left wants to address.”  The reality, however, is highly political, which is why the left actually wants to promote a sort of POC supremacy aka CRT, which will increase its political power… or so it hopes.  

Brown argues that “A humane and law-abiding society should want to isolate and contain its most violent members.”  Well, we agree on that point, but is it not the left-wingers, who chose to do  nothing regarding the violent Antifa/BLM rioters?  In fact, did they not seek to release more such violent persons from the nation’s jails, as well as eliminate bail requisites and permit many of those arrested to walk free?  

Brown’s left good/right bad essay concludes:  “After half a century, liberals have failed to shame racists out of their racism.  We have to argue them out of it with the love and faith decency demands.”  And yet “love and faith” are certainly NOT what the left-wing has been pushing, but rather anti-white racist hatred, reparations, severe school indoctrination, and Marxist ideology.  Sadly, in America today truth is not rewarded, whereas ideological adherence is rewarded…

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NB:  Brown’s email address is not available on the Times’ website or on that of Cape Cod Academy.  Cocoon buffered!

 

Doug Lederman

The following aquarelle was created in 2009 by P. Maudit (G. Tod Slone). 

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/. 

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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 ! ! !

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Experiments in Free Speech & Democracy

University of Pennsylvania Open Letter to the Professors of the English Department The American Dissident, a 501 c3 nonprofit journal of literature, democracy, and dissidence, would like to know what you think, as individuals and, even moreso, what your students think. The journal believes that all icons and institutions should be open game for hardcore criticism. Oddly, or rather conveniently, however, the large majority of established-order poets seem to think that poetry organizations, celebrities, prizes, and journals should be off limits. And indeed, established-order poets tend to live in protective cocoons of incessant praise and funding. It is next to impossible for outsider organizations like The American Dissident to get satire to penetrate those buffered cocoons. The American Dissident is a firm believer in free speech and vigorous debate, democracy’s cornerstones. Yet how can debate be vigorous when, for example, the Academy of American Poets censors opinions it does not like and its professor chancellors respond with indifference (see http://www.theamericandissident.org/AcademyAmericanPoets.htm). And when most college professors seem to favor censorship (either turning a blind eye to it, preferring euphemisms like moderation, civility, and good taste, and/or proferring to be too busy to be concerned), democracy itself is in peril. What do you think? Have you perfected excuses as part of rationalizing your silence? The cartoon above, inspired by a brief review appearing in Entertainment Weekly, which normally critiques the love-life and attire of Hollywood celebrities, satirizes your colleague Charles Bernstein. Yes, yes, we all know that he is revered by the academic/literary established order and has climbed that ladder, wearing blinders wherever necessary. But should criticism of Bernstein be taboo? What do you think? For more unusual critique of those who are rarely if ever criticized, examine The American Dissident, which firmly believes that poetry should be more than mere intellectual ENTERTAINMENT and diversion or bourgeois past-time. In fact, why not subscribe to the journal (only $20/year) to help expose your students to alternative negative viewpoints regarding literature and the literary establishment. Are the doors of the English department at the University of Pennsylvania like those of so many other universities hermetically sealed against uncomfortable outside critique? Do you help your students create and fortify “mind-forged manacles” like those observed by William Blake? Your SILENCE will certainly support that hypothesis! Thank you for your cordial attention. N.B.: Notice of this blog was sent to The Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper and the following English instructors and professors: eng111@mailman.ssc.upenn.edu, charles.bernstein@english.upenn.edu, nauerbac@english.upenn.edu, rbarnard@english.upenn.edu, hbeavers@english.upenn.edu, nbentley@english.upenn.edu, tbowers@english.upenn.edu, bushnell@english.upenn.edu, cavitch@english.upenn.edu, pconn@english.upenn.edu, rcopalan@english.upenn.edu, tcorriga@english.upenn.edu, davistm@english.upenn.edu, degrazia@english.upenn.edu, dcherney@english.upenn.edu, deng@english.upenn.edu, jenglish@english.upenn.edu, esty@english.upenn.edu, afilreis@english.upenn.edu, mgamer@english.upenn.edu, jajii@english.upenn.edu, amkaplan@english.upenn.edu, kaul@english.upenn.edu, kazanjia@english.upenn.edu, zlesser@english.upenn.edu, loomba@english.upenn.edu, loveh@english.upenn.edu, cmazer@english.upenn.edu, amparo@english.upenn.edu, jnpark3@english.upenn.edu, perelman@english.upenn.edu, jmrabate@english.upenn.edu, prackin@english.upenn.edu, psain@english.upenn.edu, sanchezm@english.upenn.edu, pstally@english.upenn.edu, steinerer@english.upenn.edu, wsteiner@english.upenn.edu, stillet@english.upenn.edu, dwallace@english.upenn.edu, cmyang@english.upenn.edu, madams@sas.upenn.edu, rallen@ccat.sas.upenn.edu, janthon2@english.upenn.edu, maxapple1@verizon.net, azzolina@pbox.upenn.edu, psethbauer@hotmail.com, beckmank@sas.upenn.edu, benamos@sas.upenn.edu, blochj@english.upenn.edu, broussard@writing.upenn.edu, kbrownie@sas.upenn.edu, dburnham@english.upenn.edu, lcary@english.upenn.edu, ADeCurtis@aol.com, kathydemarco@writing.upenn.edu, tdevaney@writing.upenn.edu, djanikia@writing.upenn.edu, edwards@english.upenn.edu, despey@english.upenn.edu, marciaf@english.upenn.edu, dfox@sas.upenn.edu, lf@lisefunderburg.com, funkhauser@adm.njit.edu, agaedtke@gmail.com, pgaffney@sas.upenn.edu, gautsche@writing.upenn.edu, kg@ubu.com, devin.griffiths@rutgers.edu, adhall@english.upenn.edu, sharzews@english.upenn.edu, khellers@sas.upenn.edu, phendric@english.upenn.edu, mjens@sas.upenn.edu, jjossely@writing.upenn.edu, mkant2@english.upenn.edu, iamblel@aol.com, adlevy@english.upenn.edu, mlotto@english.upenn.edu, rmalague@english.upenn.edu, jmalcolm@english.upenn.edu, maxwellr@sas.upenn.edu, mmazaj@sas.upenn.edu, cmcgrath@uchicago.edu, dianemw@sas.upenn.edu, mamills@sas.upenn.edu, lizmoore1234@gmail.com, susan.murray@nyu.edu, michols@phillynews.com, cristinp@english.upenn.edu, polman@writing.upenn.edu, tipowell@sas.upenn.edu, jrezek@sas.upenn.edu, riebling@english.upenn.edu, krile@writing.upenn.edu, vross@writing.upenn.edu, rydel@sas.upenn.edu, schlatt@english.upenn.edu, rebecca@sas.upenn.edu, a.shonkwiler@gmail.com, scottstein@verizon.com, tarr123@gmail.com, vtodoroz@sas.upenn.edu, traister@pobox.upenn.edu, tricia@pointedpress.com, catumer@sas.upenn.edu, valterza@sas.upenn.edu, wahlert@english.upenn.edu, kwatters@english.upenn.edu, lweissbe@sas.upenn.edu, emilyw@sas.upenn.edu, abrahams@english.upenn.edu, curran@english.upenn.edu, rlucid@english.upenn.edu, vmahaffee@illinois.edu, randkregen@juno.com, jrichett@english.upenn.edu, gweales@english.upenn.edu, swenzel@english.upenn.edu

Carl Phillips Jackson Poetry Prize

 

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Above is the back cover of issue #42 of The American Dissident.  It features the Jackson Poetry Prize recipient (see last paragraph of the editorial with its regard).  Below is the editorial for that issue.  I post this today because I am in the midst of writing an essay on the new Jackson Poetry Prize winner, 

Sonia Sanchez.  

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

The American Dissident’s prime purpose is NOT poetry for the sake of poetry, nor is it to help spread poetry as a form of intellectual entertainment—a highbrow game of words.  Its prime purpose is to serve as a rare—very, very rare—platform for hardcore criticism against the academic/literary establishment—friend of the chambers of commerce—, including Poets & Writers magazine, Poetry magazine (run by Poetry Foundation and its $200 million Eli Lilly drug—money donation), the Academy of American Poets, laureate and inaugural icons, Pulitzer Prize, Guggenheim, MacArthur Foundation, the nation’s college English departments, etc.  When poetry fails to question and challenge that which promotes it, then it becomes a palatable part of the ruling-class machine of castration, cooptation, and corralling…  

Editorial

A Metastasizing Cancer

But you can’t turn literature into a business.  But without business, there won’t be any more literature.

—A Business Affair (1994 film)

 

The front cover of this issue features the Freedom Forum Institute… with a touch of satire, of course. For the critical essay I wrote on that organization, “The Fake (Free) Expression Institute,” see www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=190705&sec_id=190705.  The Institute constitutes a pro-censorship organization, backed by the Democrat Party.  To proclaim an opinion as “misinformation” and thus eliminate it constitutes an egregious act of censorship, a shallow justification for the reduction of freedom of expression.  Democrat-Party-aligned Big Tech (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google) have radically increased de-platforming. The former President of the United States has been censored, as have critics of autocrat-vaccine mandates, critics of Critical Race Theory, critics of Black Lives Matter, critics of the Hunter/Joe Biden scandal, etc. Communism and socialism do NOT embrace freedom of expression! Autocrats do NOT embrace freedom of expression! White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki declared in typical hack-circular reasoning:  

Our view continues to be though that every platform, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, any other platform that is disseminating information to millions of Americans has a responsibility to crack down on disinformation.

“Crack down on disinformation” is, of course, simply a convenient euphemistic term for censorship! Psaki fails to address the fundamental problem with Democrat-Party encouragement for increased censorship: the politically-tainted subjectivity inherently involved in determining what is and what is not “disinformation.”  Roman poet Juvenal evoked another fundamental problem:  Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?  In essence, who will watch over the gatekeepers of information?  

Psaki’s statement incarnates the metastasizing cancer in the heart of freedom of expression, the very fundament of democracy.  Power elites like her hate freedom of expression with a passion and always have and always will!  

The back cover of this issue illustrates the sad state of establishment poetry in America. The verse spewed by poet Carl Phillips in the aquarelle somehow earned him the Jackson Poetry Prize ($75,000).  In elite poetry circles, innocuity rules!  Why?  Because innocuity evidently does not threaten elites at the academic/literary helm.  It assures absence of accountability…

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. 

The Rumpus

 

Academy of American Poets

 

Jamie Merisotis

 

Christian Desmeules

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AUCUNE REPONSE DE DESMEULES ET DES AUTRES DU QUOTIDIEN LE DEVOIR !!

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From: George Slone

Sent: Monday, February 7, 2022 8:07 AM

To: otremblay@ledevoir.com <otremblay@ledevoir.com>; ecritsdesforges@gmail.com <ecritsdesforges@gmail.com>; redaction@revue-estuaire.com <redaction@revue-estuaire.com>; info@revueliberte.ca <info@revueliberte.ca>; info@inconvenient.ca <info@inconvenient.ca>; revuemoebius@gmail.com <revuemoebius@gmail.com>; cdesmeules@ledevoir.com <cdesmeules@ledevoir.com>; lettres@ledevoir.com <lettres@ledevoir.com>; acaillou@ledevoir.com <acaillou@ledevoir.com>

Subject: Critiques impubliables dans la Belle Province... des Ecrivains faibles

 

Salut les écrivains québécois du Devoir,

Moi, poète/dessinateur archi-critique/inconnu, j’ai satirisé dans une nouvelle vignette Christian Demeules, qui a choisi, sans aucune surprise, de ne pas y répondre.  Pour la vignette ci-attachée, voir wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2022/02/christian-desmeules.html.  

Comme je vous ai écrit il y a une année:  

Mais où donc se trouvent les critiques—les vrais critiques—au Québec aujourd’hui ?  Il semble que la littérature soit complètement centralisée dans ta Belle Province comme c’était le cas à l’ancienne Union soviétique !  Solzhenitsyn doit se retourner dans sa tombe !  

Ouais, il y avait à une époque Steak Haché.  Mais malheureusement cette revue a disparue.  Les mains des écrivains québécois sont tendues vers les sources monétaires et non pas vers la vérité.  Que c’est triste.  Est-ce que Le Devoir publierait ce courriel, la vignette en question et/ou ce qui se trouve icitte:  theamericandissident.org/quebec/quebec.html ?  Et ben, nous tous savons la réponse…

Au plaisir,

G. Tod Slone (PhD—Université de Nantes, FR), aka P. Maudit, Founding Editor (1998)

The American Dissident, a 501c3 Nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy, and Dissidence

www.theamericandissident.org 

wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com    

todslone@hotmail.com

217 Commerce Rd.

Barnstable, MA 02630

Sturgis Library

The following is a list of the pathetic/apathetic people and organizations I contacted over the past decade regarding the permanent banning without warning/without due process of an American citizen (me!) from his neighborhood library, Sturgis Library in Barnstable, Massachusetts on Cape Cod (see  http://theamericandissident.org/orgs/sturgis_library.html).  

Organizations et al Contacted RE Sturgis Library’s Removal of My Civil Rights

-The Massachusetts State Secretary of Records (contacted by a friend, Russell Streur) forced Sturgis Library to open its records so that I could examine what was written about me (see sturgisbansdissident.blogspot.com).  

-Town Manager (argued no jurisdiction and no interest, though the former was false considering he was forced to contact the library by the State Records chief)

-Town Attorney (no jurisdiction/no interest)

-ACLUM (interested at first, contacted Sturgis, then silence, then a simple, no)

-Police Station (paid 50 cents for the police report, which does not mention precise reasons or even the duration of the trespass order)

-Barnstable Patriot (no response)

-Barnstable Enterprise (no response… and now defunct)

-Cape Cod Times (no response)

-Eleanor Claus, President of the Town Library Committee at the time (no response) 

-Ted Lowry, president of the library trustees (no response)

-American Library Association (no jurisdiction over libraries and disinterest) 

-ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom (no response at first, then the new director responded and a rather lengthy back and forth proceeded [see http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2017/04/james-larue.html])

-ALA’s Freedom to Read Foundation “Defending the First Amendment in Libraries and Beyond” (No response)

-25 library directors in the Cape Cod Clams Library System (No response)  Dan Santos, Sturgis Library trustee, responded to the directors, but not to me, and argued my argument was mere “intellectual masturbation”

-Barnstable Council of Aging (No response)

-New England First Amendment Center (Northeastern University/called me/worked on the case, then slowly disappeared) 

-PEN New England “defending freedom of expression” (No response) 

-First Amendment Center, Nashville, TN (suggested Town Attorney… who said it was out of her jurisdiction!)

-Institute for Justice—Arlington, VA (No response)

-State Senator O’Leary (presented Sturgis with a whopping check.  No response)

-State Representative Sarah Peake (also presented Sturgis with a whopping check.  No response)

-Elizabeth Hacala, Executive Manager, Massachusetts Library Association (No response)

-Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (No response)

-J. Gregory Milne, candidate delegate to the Barnstable County Assembly of Delegates (No response)

-Ann Canedy, town council rep (would do nothing)

-State rep Cleon Turner (got angry, labeled me impolite, then no response) 

-State rep Brian Mannal (expressed interest, then no response)

-Massachusetts Secretary of Records (ordered the library to make public all documents with my regard, a minor victory)

-Cape Cod Poetry Review, editor John Bonanni (held a workshop at Sturgis)

-Cultural Center of Cape Cod, poetry curator Gouveia got angry because I questioned his sincerity (otherwise no response from the director)

-Massachusetts Common Cause (11/14/13)   [No response]

-Freedom House (11/18/13) [No response]

-Cape Cod Community College English instructors- one puerile, indirect response from Prof. John French “Hi Sally, I suppose I will be a target soon...LOL  I hope he brings it on while I am at 60mg of Prednisone.  John” [Pathetic non-response]

-PEW Research Center [No response]

-Center for Individual Rights [No response]

-Center for Inquiry—Campaign for Free Expression [No response]

-Cape Cod Writers Center (Dir. Nancy Rubin Stuart) [3 or 4 different times and never a response]

-Barnstable Village Civic Association [No response]

-Barnstable County Human Rights Commission (sent 12/27/13) (Zero interest)

-Library Journal (1/09/14) Irrelevant, evasive response

-Center for Civic Media, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chris Peterson, Research Assistant [No response]

-Social Justice Committee of the Unitarian Church of Barnstable (3/28/14).  Apathetic response.

-Brandeis Center for Human Rights (3/30/14)  No response.  

-Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (May 2014) No response.

-National Coalition Against Censorship (June 2014) No response.  

-Banned Books Sponsors (July 2014):  NCAC, National Council of Teachers of English, American Book Sellers Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Association of American Publishers, Freedom to Read Foundation, National Association of College Stores, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Project Censored, and Center for the Book at the Library of Congress.  No response.

-Adam Kessel, Principal in the Boston office of Fish & Richardson (July 2014) No response.

-Dr. Nancy Dempsey, Professor and Coordinator of Criminal Justice, Cape Cod Community College, organizer of the local National Human Rights Day forum [No response]

-sunshineweek@asne.org. Requested sunshine success stories, so I sent mine.  [No response]

-NPR (Cape Cod) WCAI (Woods Hole) [No response]
-National Endowment for Democracy (No response)

—Cape Cod Art

—Cape Cod Art Center

—Cape Cod Museum of Art

—Cape Cod Today

—Cape Cod Magazine

—Cape Cod Community College

—Provincetown Arts

—Provincetown Banner

—Fine Arts Work Center of Provincetown

—Cape Cod Voices for Peace Poetry

—Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce

—FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) [Not enough resources]