Carla Hayden and Beacher Wiggins

Good riddance Carla Hayden, Library of Congress despot.  Trump just got rid of the hippocrite!  On to the next, as in Beacher Wiggens, Director for Acquisitions & Bibliographic Access.  See my open letter to that hypocrite, "To the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center, Another Odd Sponsor of Banned Books Week Proudly… Banning Books."  He never deigned to respond.    Below is the aquarelle I created for issue #45 on Hypocrite Hayden.

Poet Laureate Ada Limon

Below is the front cover of the latest issue of The American Dissident, #45, published/distributed in May 2023.  Per usual, I sent it to those targeted in the sketch.   Normally, silence is golden for those (cogs of the establishment) who hate debate (i.e., democracy).  Surprisingly, I received one response, though it was not an intelligent one.  For the brief correspondence, see below.

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May 13, 2023, 7:05 AM

To Rigoberto Gonzalez,

Attached is a satirical aquarelle front cover depicting you and a few others.  Why not expose your students to it?  Hell, if you did that you wouldn't be a typical academic hack...

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

May 23, 2023, 3:43 PM

Sorry it’s taken me a bit to respond. I’m on leave. Anyway, where can I get a good print of this? I’d frame it and hang it in my office. 

Regards,

Rigoberto

Rigoberto González [rigonzal@newark.rutgers.edu]

Distinguished Professor of English

Director, Rutgers-Newark MFA Program in Creative Writing

43 Bleeker St.

Newark, NJ 07102

May 25, 2023, 7:50 PM

Hola Rigoberto,

Thanks for the response.  It is extremely rare for a professor to respond to my criticism.  That has been my decades-long experience.  Now, I have to wonder if you're joking, And if you're not, then perhaps you did not understand the aquarelle image.  

Au plaisir, 

G. Tod

[No further response]

Carla Hayden

The following satirical sketch and essay were created in 2017...

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Unchecked Self-Aggrandizement—A Review of an Interview

New York Times interviewer Ana Marie Cox seems to be devoid of critical-thinking capacity.  Should one be surprised?  Not really.  After all, isn’t this the age of fake news?  “Carla Hayden Thinks Libraries Are a Key to Freedom” is an interview she did on the new librarian of Congress.  So, was banning library patrons like me without warning or due process a “key to freedom”?  If so, then that freedom really meant the freedom of librarians to be unaccountable and punish criticism of librarians.  

Cox begins her interview by asking what the best preparation for a librarian of Congress might be.  Hayden responds, “to have an open mind,” then notes that “Each librarian has been almost perfect for the time that they served.”  Does Cox challenge that statement?  Not in the least!  And yet a minimum of research on her part ought to have provoked challenge!  For example, the previous librarian of Congress, James H. Billington, lived a one-percenter lifestyle (e.g., “first-class airfare, $1,000-a-night hotels in Rome and Florence, chauffeured cars and Acela trains”), thanks to the dubious James Madison Council of exclusive one-percenters he created to purportedly fund-raise for the Library of Congress.  Long-time librarian Maureen Moore noted: “He likes to associate with rich and famous people.  To my knowledge, they’ve never put money toward anything useful.”  

Now, does that sound “almost perfect”?  And what about the congressional investigation that criticized the Library of Congress for its “technological failures”?  For details on that less than “almost perfect” librarian of Congress, see “Librarian’s trips abroad, posh hotels all paid for by James Madison Council.”

An independent, critical-thinking capable mind might have also wondered how the autocratic selection of poets laureate could be perceived as “almost perfect.”  And was “almost perfect” having to persist over and again for nine months to obtain a simple response from the Library of Congress? 

Dear Dr. Slone:

My apologies for not having responded to your earlier message.  The Library has determined that it will not acquire your serial.

Thank you.

Beacher Wiggins  bwig@loc.gov

Director for Acquisitions & Bibliographic Access

Library of Congress

Then when I asked what the criteria for acquisitions were, Wiggins would not respond.  Period.  So, I wrote a lengthy Open letter to the Library of Congress, which unsurprisingly did not respond.  Was non-response to questioning and challenging citizen-plebes like me “almost perfect”?  So, why didn’t Cox question and challenge?  Ah, back to square one:  the new librarian of Congress was a black female appointed by Obama!    

Well, it’s funny that you mention that each librarian appointed seems to have turned out, in retrospect, perfect for the time, because you’re a very particular librarian. You’re the first woman and the first African-American named to the role, and some people have called you a radical librarian.

Yes, a radical librarian who will likely not respond to citizen-plebes like me just like her predecessor.  And what is the librarian stereotype?  Well, Hayden gets it right, though not of course meaning it as I see and have experienced it.  

Maybe I’m a romantic, but I do think of librarians as inherently radical. There’s something political about access to information.  And it has been throughout history.

Yes, indeed, “something political about access to information,” including the acquisition of (i.e., access to) some periodicals, but rejection of others.  Well, “access” probably means precisely that in the Orwellian world of librarian gatekeepers.  Cox asks, “Do you think libraries can help in this epidemic of fake news and lack of trust in the media?”  And Hayden responds.

Librarians have been pounding on this issue in a different way for a while—that just having computer literacy is great, but as information professionals, we’re always looking at what’s the most authoritative source for the information and teaching information literacy.

“Information professionals” is of course a euphemism for information gatekeepers.  In other words, librarians like Beacher Wiggins, for example, guard the library collection, determining what enters and what must not enter into it.  Might I be wrong in assuming that “information literacy” probably means the ability to reject that information which conflicts with pc-approved information and dogma?  It’s a frightening brave new world today, especially the world of librarians.  

Hayden notes regarding her past that “In being elected to head the A.L.A., I became the face of the association.”  Well, the American Library Association will not publish any criticism with its regard.  And its “Office for Intellectual Freedom” is another of those librarian euphemisms, for it is really an Office for Intellectual Constraint and Impotence.  Well, now Hayden is “the face of the Library of Congress.”  Any difference?  Likely not in the least!  Will Hayden deign to respond to this review of her interview and that 2014 open letter?  Well, I shall not hold my breath…

Joy Harjo

Alexandra Alter

The Hillary Poets of the Hillary Resistance

Poetry has become very important again, at least according to New York Times hack-journalist-for-the- publishing-and-literary world Alexandra Alter.  In her article, “American Poets, Refusing to Go Gentle, Rage Against the Right,” she quotes a number of Hillary poets, though somehow doesn’t mention Hillary in it.  Under the previous political regime, the poets were conspicuously silent… or rather lap-doggie.  Poet Jane Hirshfield explains: “When poetry is a backwater it means times are O.K. When times are dire, that’s exactly when poetry is needed.”  Yes, everything was wonderful under Obama and yes, somehow poetry will take down he, who Hillary couldn’t.  

Across the nation today, poets have awakened and are walking like groupthink zombies out of the “backwater,” though only partially, because they’re still holding their PC-pens and writing from the confines of their groupthink “backwater” safe-spaces.  They are raging, though not against the poesy establishment, not against the poesy academy chancellors, not against the black poesy laureate autocratically-anointed by the black Librarian of Congress appointed by the former black president, not against the poesy academic gatekeepers—those poesy executive directors of poesy societies and poesy academies and publishers of establishment poesy rags—, not against their well-fed poesy idols usually entrenched in academic sinecures, and not against the inherent corruption in the according of poesy stipends, poesy grants, and poesy tenure slots.  

Most poets couldn’t even fathom questioning and challenging such things and persons.  After all, doing that would mean being free-minded and going against the academic grain, rocking the establishment boat, and bucking the literary system, those giant hands that feed only poets in lockstep.  Not a good poesy-career move at all!  Far too risky!  Far too much individuality required!  

As for the new raging verse, Jeff Shotts, one of those poesy executive editors (Graywolf Press), argues:  “This isn’t just confessional poetry, but poetry that’s meant to stir us into action.”   Action for Hillary, the Prevaricator, once again in 2020?  Action for more Russian-collusion inanity?  Alter informs that the poets are forming part of the Hillary-resistance movement (without mentioning Hillary of course).  Will their icon Maya Angelou step out of her academic cocoon to denounce Trump?  Well, I guess not.  She’s dead.  “There’s going to be a major shift in our poetry,” announced Alice Quinn, yet another of those poesy executive directors.  Poetry Society of America is her fiefdom, you know, that members-only society, where only members can anoint new members. “The poems that I have been reading, which are freshly minted, most of them, have a powerful sense of urgency and reckoning and responsibility,” she stipulates.  Responsibility to speak truth as staunch individuals and to poesy-power figures like her?  Of course not!  

Self-declared gender-free poet Danez Smith, whose verse is used by Black Lives Matter, provides some lines of “urgency and reckoning”:  “on the TV/ is the man from TV/ is gonna be president/ he has no word/ & hair beyond simile/ you’re dead, America.”  Brilliant!  Daring!  Original!!!  Well, apparently Alter must think so.  “We turn to poems in moments of crisis for comfort,” announces Jennifer Benka, yet another of those poesy executive directors.  Yes, poets with lofty titles!  Her fiefdom is the omnipotent Academy of American Poets.  Dare criticize it and be banned forever!  Yes, that’s what happened to me quite a while ago!  Read all about it here!  After all, curiosity didn’t kill the poet, PC-groupthink did that!  Do the Hillary poets care about my banning?  Of course not!

“We’ve seen this spontaneous swell of people coming to read poems that speak to this moment,” says Benka.  Oh, yeah, now they’ll be putting some of those Academy-approved poems in those academic safe-spaces next to the crayons, legos, and teddy bears!  

Alter informs that “Poetry readings around the country have come to resemble leftist political rallies.”  Does she mean the violence and rioting against those with the wrong opinions?  Such rallies are of course not inclusive or at all open to diversity of thought and remind of Stalinist Pravda poetry and of the incarcerated Cuban poets, who could not and did not walk in lockstep with the communist Castro regime, the one praised by, well, you know.

According to Alter:  “Major publishing houses are rushing out their own volumes” of resistance verse.  And yet what is really needed is a drain-the-poesy-swamp movement, not more poesy-swamp- creature empowerment under the guise of resistance.  Alter notes, for example, that Boston Review published “Poems for Political Disaster,” which has a foreword by academic poet laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, and includes poems by academics Stephen Burt, Monica Youn and Jorie Graham.  Alter, however, does not inform that they are indeed academics and, of course, is incapable of questioning and challenging the poesy establishment.  Her job depends on that incapacity.   All she can do is ahh and ooh before elitist establishment names and titles.  Can she and those establishment poets possibly comprehend the words of Emerson, which inevitably damn them?   “I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.”  

Interestingly and again without any manifestation of capacity to question and challenge, Alter notes “But poets tend to be liberal, and the submissions skewed heavily to the left.”  But if the poesy machine is liberal then clearly the poesy machine will be actively suppressing poets not deemed liberal (i.e., of the groupthink PC-mindset).  In other words, in the darkness of suppression, how can one know just how many poets might not be of that liberal-ilk?  

Amit Majmudar, editor of Resistance, Rebellion, Life, a book of 50 poems published by Knopf, argues regarding to his call for submissions:  “I was equally open to an anti-globalization poem as I was to a Trumpocalypse Now poem.”  Was he sincere or would sincerity have eliminated him from being chosen editor?  Likely the latter!  Alter, again mesmerized by “badges and names,” notes poems by former academic poet laureate Robert Pinsky, Eileen Myles, Kevin Young and Solmaz Sharif will be in that volume.  

Finally, most poets shamefully hate and reject vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy.  When criticized they will normally remain silent, especially if the critic is not of the known elite-poesy variety, or they will call the critic a “troll” or some other infantile ad hominem, or they will simply respond with vacuous politesse.   Burt chose silence regarding my critical cartoon with his regard, “The Professors—Why Poetry Doesn’t Matter.”  Myles called me a “troll,” regarding the critical cartoon with her regard, “The Poets—Identity Politics, But Still Bourgeois to the Core.”  Majmudar chose the vacuous-politesse option regarding the critical cartoon on him and others, “Poetasters of the Resistance.”  “Thanks for your creative engagement, George! Keep up the good work!”  Oh, yeah.  I’ll try to do that, Mr. Majmudar!  And if he were not a flaming hypocrite, why did he reject my poem, “The Fall of Hillarius, the First,” but publish Frederick Seidel’s poem, “Now”?  “Now a dictatorship of vicious spineless slimes/ We the people voted in has taken over.” […]   Brilliant!  Daring!  Original!   Now, if Alter possessed an iota of “fair and balanced” in her literary reportages, she would have included a counter sentence or even two in her extremely PC-biased article.  Now, which establishment poesy magazine out there would be willing to publish this counter essay?  Not one, of course!  And that constitutes the core flaw embedded in the heart of the lit resistance…

Jessa Crespin

Carla Hayden

Yvonne Abraham

The following letter to the editor was rejected without comment by the Boston Globe.

Shiny Facades

Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham heaped praise on libraries and librarians in her essay, “At Boston Public Library, new light and life for visitors.” What she revealed was an unquestioning embrace of a positive stereotype, as well as her inexperience testing the waters of democracy regarding libraries and librarians.  Furthermore, it was rather pathetically puerile of her to turn that story of a library renovation into something anti-Trump:  “The man who now leads this country, and his fans, seem convinced that government is not merely useless, but malevolent—a destructive force that takes from the people.”  

Well, government hacks a-pathetic to issues of freedom of speech and expression 
were certainly not good. Nowadays, far too many journalists like Abraham didn't even seem like they attempted to present their reportages in an objective manner, which of course explained why they were held in somewhat low-esteem by the populace.    
     Now, were libraries and librarians really above reproach?  Well, Abraham sure thought so:  “If you’re looking to refresh your faith in our ability to achieve great things together, a public library is a good place to be.”  By testing the waters of democracy over the past several decades, however, I've been able to determine that perhaps many librarians do not favor freedom of speech and expression, let alone vigorous debate, cornerstones of democracy.  

Was a public library really such a good place to be when it, for example, might ban patrons who dared criticize it?  Hell, that happened to me at Sturgis Library on Cape Cod!  Why wouldn’t the American Library Association and its aberrantly-named Office for Intellectual Freedom publish my account of that or any other criticism of libraries in its American Libraries Magazine?  Was that the new intellectual freedom?
Why did journalists seem only to be hagiographers when dealing with librarians or, for that matter, poets and artists?  Had Abraham read the New York Times mind-numbing interview with the new librarian of Congress, “Carla Hayden Thinks Libraries Are a Key to Freedom,” and thus followed that model of what journalism should not be?  

Abraham stated, regarding the BPL:  “Around me, people of all ages and races are roaming, working at desks, or reading in cozy chairs.”  Well, that was nice, but if she went to Sturgis Library, I would not be one of those people, because I had been permanently banned without warning or due process for having written criticism about its director!  Might there be others like me, though in the Boston area, who were not permitted to enter the BPL because they dared criticize its director David Leonard?  And why would the BPL, with its $78 million renovation, refuse to subscribe to a literary journal like The American Dissident (only $20/year!), let alone provide a reasonable answer for the rejection?  How many other books and periodicals were rejected by the BPL, thus de facto mocking the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights:  “libraries should provide materials and information presenting ALL points of view”? 

Abraham stated, “Libraries connect us to facts (remember those?) and to other people. They bring the world to us, and us to each other. They welcome everyone. And they’re a testament to the good that government does.”  Well, they certainly did not welcome me, nor the ideas of those published in the American Dissident!  Far too many librarians acted as gatekeepers of information, excluding some of that “world” mentioned by Abraham... and thanks to reporters like her, they were not held accountable.  

Now, why would Abraham, the Boston Globe, Barnstable Enterprise, and Cape Cod Times not want to report what happened to me?  After all, my civil rights are being denied today in my town of Barnstable because I am not permitted to attend any cultural or political events held at my neighborhood library.  Would Abraham like to read the open letter I'd posted and wrote less than one week prior to my permanent banning?  Would she like to examine the long list of people I’d contacted in vain from the ACLUM to PEN New England, NCAC, and Barnstable County Human Rights Commission in an effort to regain those civil rights?  Nope!  After all, it would be tough to draw an anti-Trump connection…
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Abraham never did respond.

Beacher Wiggins

The following open letter was sent in 2014.  

Open Letter (2014)
To the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center,
Another Odd Sponsor of Banned Books Week Proudly… Banning Books

Should public servants be in the business of determining what literature should be accepted and what literature should be rejected at the publicly-funded Library of Congress?  Should they be serving as Gatekeepers of Propriety—Grand Censors and Banners of Books?  How can such activity possibly conform with the principles of democracy?  

Beacher Wiggins, Director for Acquisitions & Bibliographic Access, finally responded to my query, originally sent in January 2014, then again in August and again in September of the same year, regarding the procedure for getting the Library of Congress to subscribe (only $20/year) to The American Dissident, a 501c3 nonprofit journal of literature, democracy, and dissidence.  His response was a curt “My apologies for not having responded to your earlier message.  The Library has determined that it will not acquire your serial.”  Period.  I’d received the same kind of curt response from the NEA regarding a grant request.  And the NEA refused to provide any details as to why its flat-out rejection of the journal as “low” and “poor.”  Of course, anything critical of the NEA or Library of Congress or National Poetry Month or Academy of American Poets or any other established-order organization, cog, or icon would have to be deemed “low” and “poor.”  

                As for Rob Casper, Director of the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center, he has yet to respond to my query as to how The American Dissident might be placed on his shelves (i.e., the public shelves of the Library of Congress!).  He and Wiggins have yet to respond to my request for details on the process of determination, that is, acquisition and non-acquisition.  Is their silence with that regard an indirect statement that the simple opinion of public-servant apparatchiks is the determining factor?  After all, how can one possibly make an objective determination regarding poetry and poetry criticism?  

Does the collection development policy of the Library of Congress include, like so many other libraries, the American Library Association's “Library Bill of Rights” statement that "libraries should provide materials and information providing ALL points of view"?  If so, why do chief acquisitions apparatchiks like Casper and Wiggins not adhere to it?  If not, why is that statement not part of it?  Do they espouse the left’s inclusivity mantra?  If so, why do they effect de facto exclusion.  Hypocrites?

Clearly, The American Dissident is a unique literary journal because it dares criticize what few if any other journals dare criticize:  the academic/literary established order.  Indeed, it questions and challenges, in the spirit of democracy, organizations like Poetry Foundation, the NEA, the Academy of American Poets, Massachusetts Cultural Council, and PEN America.  It has been critical of the knee-jerk ostracizing and banning of viewpoints subjectively deemed inappropriate or uncivil.  In fact, it also criticizes, in the spirit of democracy, the Library of Congress itself, including the aforementioned apparatchiks and its CEO Librarian James H. Billington.  The front cover of issue #18, for example, featured a satire on Billington and the poet he chose to be Poet Laureate of the USA (see https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=239569862679528067#allposts).  The front cover of issue #30 also featured Billington, this time with his new anointed poet laureate (see http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2016/01/juan-felipe-herrera.html).
Perhaps it was the watercolor I did on the Poetry Society of America that irritated Casper, former Programs Director of Poetry Society of America (see http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2014/08/alice-quinn.html)? Satire?  We no need no stinkin satire!  Is that it?  Sadly, those visiting the Library of Congress will not be exposed to such satire and criticism thanks to its gatekeepers.   Moreover,  one must wonder how American education failed not only them, but also the many American poets who manage to intellectually accept without question or challenge such an autocratic anointment effected by one man, Billington.  

Why have Casper and Wiggins decided to essentially ban The American Dissident from a publicly-funded library of the purported representative of the American public, the Congress?  Well, you’d have to ask them, for they have not been responsive at all.  After all, they do not have to be responsive, for they are public servants wholly unaccountable to the public.  As citizens are increasingly learning (hopefully!), public servants from President Obama to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on down seem to be less and less accountable nowadays.  

Essentially, Casper and Wiggins have decided to ban hardcore criticism of the academic/literary established order, including that targeting the Library of Congress itself, from the publicly-funded shelves of the Library of Congress.  What a twisted sense of DEMOCRACY they must possess!  Shame on those who gave them the power of selection (i.e., banning)!  Perhaps Casper and Wiggins might wish to reflect, stand up as men (as opposed to careerist ladder climbers), speak honestly for once in their lives, where few librarians would dare, and openly express their true scorn for and disagreement with the ALA’s core statement as noted above.   Pipedream?  Likely! 

Finally, as the PC-hammer and sickle, represented by Casper and Wiggins, continues making progress in America, how not to be outraged?  Casper and Wiggins illustrate the fundamental problem with America as a democracy.  The country is much too large to operate as a democracy.  Its public servants will often simply not respond to the public.  The powerful organization Judicial Watch serves as an example, for it must battle tooth and nail to obtain Freedom of Information documents from the Obama administration.  Now, how can a simple publisher like me expect to obtain a response?