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The following email was sent to the English department professors of Brandeis University. To date, not one of them has responded.
From:
todslone@hotmail.com
To: plotz@brandeis.edu; aliabdur@brandeis.edu; uanjaria@brandeis.edu;
ebrad@brandeis.edu; broumas@brandeis.edu; burt@brandeis.edu;
campbell@brandeis.edu; cchanner@brandeis.edu; flesch@brandeis.edu;
mdhoover@brandeis.edu; irr@brandeis.edu; tking@brandeis.edu;
smccau@brandeis.edu; lanser@brandeis.edu; pmorrison@brandeis.edu;
dsherman@brandeis.edu; quinney@brandeis.edu; dawnskor@brandeis.edu;
fsmith@brandeis.edu; targoff@brandeis.edu; ruesch@brandeis.edu;
stevensk@brandeis.edu; marcw@brandeis.edu; gilmore@brandeis.edu;
goodheart@brandeis.edu; staves@brandeis.edu
Subject: Brandeis English instructor lampooned
Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 09:35:54 -0400
To
John Plotz, Chair, and the other professors and instructors of the English Department,
Brandeis University:
In
the spirit of the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights,
“Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of
view,” why not get your library to subscribe to The American Dissident,
which presents a point of view at antipodes to that presented by Poetry
magazine, for example. In vain, I knocked on the door several years
ago. Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Brown and other universities are
subscribers.
Will
any of you amaze me with a response from the normally unresponsive
academic/literary established order? In fact, have any of you raised your
voices against the silencing of Hirsi Ali? In fact, why not invite me as
your next poet-in-residence? I would certainly add fire to that normally
dull position. I do possess a doctoral degree from a French university.
Well, we all certainly know the answer to that one! Might there be one
individual in the academic English herd amongst you? My experience with
such herds indicates that to be highly unlikely. For the past several
decades I have been knocking on academic doors. To date, only one
professor has been willing to invite me to his classes to talk about The
American Dissident and dissident poetry and writing. Below is one
student’s response to the journal, received this week.
Thank
you for your attention!
......................................
April 15, 2014
Response to The American
Dissident
I like the idea behind
The American Dissident; I like the rebellious nature behind the idea. I also
think it’s REALLY cool that this guy has, for a lack of a better phrase, the
balls to do this! Few people today have the passion and dedication shown by G.
Tod Slone. It’s clear he puts an insane amount of time into each issue of his
magazine; the layout, the poems, the cartoons, the excerpts he writes, are all
examples of this. His blunt way of writing and the bluntness of the poems he chooses
are refreshing and a break from the sugar coated shit that is usually
circulated around schools, universities, and professional offices.
There is very little
tolerance shown to people who have opinions that differ from the masses. Pushed
down and ignored, most people succumb to the social norm around them. It’s nice
to see that not everyone is a pushover; that some people rebel- and not just
this one man either, but everyone that he publishes. Every single poem was so
real.
I also want to give
mention to the correspondences in the back of the booklet. Slone’s dark sense
of humor and sarcasm shows throughout the magazine, but it really shines in
this section. It’s a look into Slone’s personal life, and the kind of feedback
he gets from real people and his real reactions. It adds so much to his
magazine knowing he really supports and preaches this stuff in real life.
