Robert Pinsky and Charles Simic

 

Below is an old aquarelle I sketched on establishment hacks Pinsky, Simic et al.  Also, I include an email to which Pinsky chose NOT to respond.  

August 2, 1998

Professor Robert Pinsky

Poet Laureate of the USA

Boston University 

236 Bay State Rd.

Boston, MA 02215

Dear Mr. Pinsky:

Perhaps you are swamped with admirers, perhaps not.  In any event, I am always interested to see who speaks at the commencement exercises at Fitchburg State College, where I taught for five years.  Last year, it was Dershowitz, the lawyer; this year, you, the poet laureate... shaking hands with Riccards, the intellectually corrupt college president.  

I wrote Dershowitz last year.  He did not respond.  Will you?  

Perhaps a person like yourself should research places before you speak at them.  The following is a letter I just sent to The Boston Globe.  No doubt, they will not print it.  I send such things for the intellectual exercise and to further prove my hypothesis that dissidents are rarely given voice in the USA... quite the opposite for academic poets of bona fide innocuousness.  I also include a poem I wrote with you in mind.  

Sincerely yours,

G. Tod Slone, Ed.  

Dear Editor:

All this brouhaha over the stateThe Boston Globe!  Indeed, we now suddenly discover that manyAll this brouhaha and no mention of the real problem obstructing the system:  objective adherence to the criteria set-up to define good teaching.  Indeed, rampant lack of impartiality in the hiring, tenuring and promotion processes has been crippling the system since its very beginnings.  For example, at Fitchburg State, where I taught for five years (91-96), I witnessed and publicly decried the institution

Over the Rainbow... at the Harvard Club

with ringside seats at the latest boxing match

(and ball game too, i suppose)

he, university professor, tenured

in his Victorian Newton home,

quite distant from the edge,

new poet laureate of America,

rhythmical words aloud that comfortsthe White House... will be present

senator Kerry of Heinz ketchup fame

to read a poem disparaging... socialites

while the friend of former poet laureate,

who, friend of former poet laureate,

shall talk about democracy in the light

of his new smiling public demeanor

new poet laureate, he

shall rap at commencement exercises,

shake hands with corrupt college chiefs

and

keyboard the Wizard of Oz in his college office,

while nobody shall question the lack 

of democratic representation 

in the selection process... for new... poet... laureates...