Becky Tuch and The Review Review

A Review of Becky Tuch and Her Review Review
Well, I was looking through NewPages.com and bumped into "The fastest growing literary magazine in the PNW, Belletristmagazine is 'breathtaking, a joy to read!' (The Review Review)."  Breathtaking... oh, yeah!  Vaguely, I recalled having a mano a mano with Mme Review Review.  So, I checked to see if I'd done a cartoon with her regard.  Sure enough I had (see  https://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2012/10/becky-tuch.html). 

Below is Becky Tuch's 2010 review of The American Dissident (and comments), unsurprisingly not very positive.  The bold print is mine.  After the review is the brief exchange I had with Tuch, who then essentially did not respond to any of the points made in my critique of her review.  

Ideologues generally never respond to point-by-point counterarguments.  For them, there is no room for REASON that challenges their ideology and certainly no room for VIGOROUS DEBATE.  Clearly, Tuch learned her lesson:  it is best not to respond when one does not have any cogent responses.  For ideologues, there is plenty of room, however, for broad nonsensical groupthink echo-demonization epithets as in RACIST!  ISLAMOPHOBE!  NAZI!  NEOCON! HATER! WHITE NATIONALIST!  If you do not agree with the Tuchs, then you are automatically branded with a scarlet letter A, or rather R for right-winger...

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http://www.thereviewreview.net/reviews/politics-poetry-propaganda

Politics, Poetry, Propaganda

Review of American Dissident, Winter 

2010

by Becky Tuch

Rating: 

G. Tod Slone has a bone to pick. With academia, the literary establishment, state cultural councils, and with many editors of literary magazines. Thus his literary magazine American Dissident pays tribute to his ideals, publishing poetry, cartoons, correspondences and essays which treat themes of injustice and corruption, both within the literary establishment and elsewhere.

Slone’s effort is an admirable one. As someone whose favorite summer pastime was Bread and Puppet—a giant puppet show in Vermont which united puppeteering with politics—I love to see the worlds of art and activism converge. I agree when Slone says there isn’t nearly enough of this happening in literary communities, and it is trenchant of him to observe that academia has turned many a would-be-activist into a tenure-seeking-hand-shaker.

Yet when it comes to the arguments put forth by much of the poetry in American Dissident, I am not in agreement. Nor do I find much of the poetry particularly moving. The language is often prosaic, the message as clear as a bludgeon to the head. In some cases, the politics offended me. In other cases, it was grammar mistakes and/or spelling errors which offended. 

But, the good: Lauren Fleck-Staff’s “What Would They Say” is a lovely reflection upon the disconnect between global atrocities and academic comfort—“And who am I to stick out my lip/considering famine/ between lunch and dinner?” Similarly Mather Schneider’s poem “Social” admirably addresses the flaws of health care: “It was the end of an 11 hour day and I was thinking/ the only way to get health insurance/ is to be either wealthy/ or DIRT poor.”

It’s important to note that instead of the usual cover letter with a list of qualifications and publishing credits, Sloane invites submitters to describe a time they dissented in public, fought for free speech, or, as Sloane is fond of saying, spoken “the rude truth to power.”

I think this is a neat endeavor. I love the idea of caring more about writers’ activism than about their credentials. I certainly enjoy reading about people’s personal lives more than about where they went to school. In a particularly personal note, Rosalyn Becker writes that she “took tranquilizers and sleeping pills to force myself to work a job I hated—telephone operator for Ma Bell.” And Doug Draime tells of us his lifelong struggle to be a poet, giving up, starting over, giving up again, starting over again.

But mostly the poems in this journal celebrate individualism. Lauren Horth’s “Why Is It” ends with a plaintive cry for “free speech,/ individualism, reality.” Marina Sanot’s “Outsider” tells the reader that “You don’t have to do what they say/ Or believe what they think or/ Listen to their knowledge that/ they force upon you.” The editor’s own poem, “Poem #3 for a Hack of Bourgeois Hegemony” begins, “For democracy,/ I stood alone.”

Is the best way to combat political corruption by standing alone? By asserting one’s individualism? American Dissident seems to think so. Thus while the journal seeks to celebrate “literature, democracy and dissidence” it often reads as little more than libertarian propaganda.  

Or, in some cases, right-wing diatribe. Andrew Cook’s “Freedom” might find a suitable audience at a Republican rally with its nostalgia for a simpler time in America, its use of the pronoun “we” to assume an audience of alienated whites, as in “We are immigrants in our own country.” This poem's nostalgia for an old-fashioned America is both offensive and naive, as are its narrow-minded racial remarks. And it is sloppy with its grammar—“Chain-link fences and barred windows/have replace white picket fences” (italics mine.)

I found Doug Draime’s “Writers Writing Graven Images in Time” similarly offensive, but in a different way. Draime writes, “what is truth never changes/ never alters/ never stops being/ and is the only thing/ that is real.” This emphasis on the “truth” as being fixed and immutable is utterly ridiculous. Whose truth? Whose reality? Is the poet really claiming that there is one fixed truth which does not change, and is this not the very sort of claim used to justify social oppression for centuries? 

Comments

#1 Hate speech 

Posted by Ron (not verified) on Dec 21, 2010 at 7:06AM

Hate speech by its very nature self-immolating. Someone who descries not having health care insurance under an oppressive capitalism should not then rail against it because it is part of a socialist takeover. It is a blind infuriating fury that is expressed by these dissidents, no self-awareness of contradictory rhetoric, no logical development of a coherent ideology, just rancorous rage and paranoia at anyone who disagrees with them. If you don't publish their poetry you are part of a power structure that does not recognize their greatness, if you reject their ideas you are oppressing them and marginalizing them, if you don't take their fliers you are holding back the TRUTH that is the greatest truth of all truthfulness, the truth that is truest of all truth, their Truth. In psychology they call that delusional paranoia.

• reply 

#2 Ron, you are correct that one 

Posted by Ian Thal (not verified) on Dec 21, 2010 at 11:07AM

Ron, you are correct that one aspect of G. Tod Slone's on-going tirade against corruption is how his work isn't being published, how he isn't receiving grants, and how people are dismissive of his views. All of these things, to him, pointed towards a conspiracy.

This was manifested in his rage against the people associated with the (now discontinued) Foetry website, which had proved itself to be quite effective at identifying genuine corruption within the most high-profile poetry competitions.

• reply 

#3 Hi Becky, Thanks for alerting 

Posted by Ian Thal (not verified) on Dec 20, 2010 at 11:26PM

Hi Becky,

Thanks for alerting me to your review. I too have noted in my exchanges with Slone that his "dissidence" seems mostly motivated by his personal paranoia and that he often toys with extremist rhetoric (though I haven't delved into it as deeply as you have-- simply due to lack of interest in spending any more time on him.) My back-and-forth with Slone is recounted here:

http://ianthal.blogspot.com/search/label/G.%20Tod%20Slone

I've also had my own experiences with Bread & Puppet and found a similar tone of extremist ideology lurking in the background of the idealism that originally attracted me, so given that similar background, you may find this of interest:

http://ianthal.blogspot.com/2007/04/breaking-with-bread-and-puppet.html

• reply 

#4 B&P 

Posted by TheReviewReview on Dec 21, 2010 at 11:00AM

Ian,

Thanks so much for your comments. I will have to check out your blog on Bread and Puppet. I was going when I was a teenager, so of course didn't think too deeply about what views might be lurking under the surface. But it's always good to consider everything carefully before being too quickly swayed by a point of view...or by puppets!...Thanks again for reading the review, and best of luck with your own work.

• reply 

#5 You're very welcome. 

Posted by Ian Thal (not verified) on Dec 21, 2010 at 11:19AM

You're very welcome. Becky.

For a couple of years, I became quite notorious in Bread & Puppet circles and that particular blog entry developed into a series of analyses and interviews.

I enjoyed my time working with Bread & Puppet, but quickly came to see Schumann's frequent heavy-handedness defeating his more poetic tendencies-- and as a consequence some of the same tendencies we see in The American Dissident make themselves manifest. Of course, a major problem is that Schumann never really got over the fact that Germany lost WWII-- and every now and then this will come up in an interview, or more subtly in his art.

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From: George Slone [todslone@hotmail.com]
To: 99review@gmail.com
Sent: Mon, January 3, 2011 10:46:49 AM
Subject: Review of a Review

Hi Becky Tuch,

A friend just told me yesterday that your review of The American Dissident was up on your site.  If you’d told me you’d posted it, I would have responded a lot sooner.  Perhaps you didn’t want me to see it or respond?  After all, your review is a far cry from your initial email sent in October.

Hi Mr. Slone,
My name is Becky Tuch.  I just came upon American Dissident while doing a search for "Literary Industrial Complex." Your journal looks awesome. Of course, I'd seen it before at bookstores, but am especially excited to see all the past essays posted on your site.
I edit a website that reviews literary magazines, The Review Review. I was wondering if you might like to add us to your mailing list? I would love to review an issue of AD, to get the word out to readers about what a great journal it is.
Thanks so much, and keep up the great work,
Becky

“G. Tod Slone has a bone to pick,” begins your review in a rather “offensive” fashion, to use your term of predilection.  Yet could an independently thinking citizen actually not have a “bone to pick,” given the intrinsically corrupt nature of our society, including the academic/literary establishment sector?  Since you live in Massachusetts, are you totally unaware of the intrinsic corruption in state and local government?  Only a non-thinker or perhaps a thinking ladder climber, who’s learned the fine art of turning a blind eye and muzzling herself, would not have a “bone to pick.”  

Anyhow, thanks for the initial compliment, though one-star is not exactly laudatory.  Does every review get at least one star?   Or do some actually get no stars at all?  I’d love to consult a review you gave five-stars.  Now, that would really be fun.  Yes, I’d love to see that poetry!  

You note, “Nor do I find much of the poetry particularly moving. The language is often prosaic, the message as clear as a bludgeon to the head.”  As you likely know, most poets do not write dissident verse.  They tend instead to write anything but.  In fact, that’s why I like to bludgeon.  In that sense, I certainly stand at antipodes to the flowery, court-jestering poet herd.  My message is blindingly clear that way.  Who said poetry had to be obfuscatory and wordy?  Art for art saking is evidently not my purpose.  It’s the purpose of the poet herd.  Who said TRUTH cannot be BLUNT and BLUDGEONING?  Ralph Waldo Emerson did pair the word RUDE with TRUTH ("go upright and vital and speak the RUDE TRUTH in all ways").  And that makes a lot of sense, at least to me.  The RUDE TRUTH pisses people off… or, in your words, is offensive, prosaic, bludgeoning.  

“In some cases, the politics offended me,” you state.  As I tell my university students, always include an example or two to back such statements.   I also tell them to buck up and not be so easily offended!  What precise politics offended you?  If you remain vague, I can’t possibly counter-argue.  

“In other cases, it was grammar mistakes and/or spelling errors which offended,” you state.  Reading that statement, one would think The American Dissident to be loaded with botched grammar and spelling errors.  I know that not to be even remotely true.  Your implication is botched reportage.  BTW, you’ve misspelled my name several times!  Should I therefore be offended and conclude that your reviews are riddled with offensive spelling errors?  Likely, you’ll ignore that riposte.  

 “Is the best way to combat political corruption by standing alone?” you state regarding your belief that that’s my belief. Yet never do I state such a thing… anywhere.   On the contrary, the best way is likely via compromise and that means compromising ones principles.  That’s not my way.  My way is not the best way.  But democracy demands different ways be given voice in the marketplace of ideas.  It demands the possiblity of the RUDE-TRUTH way, which is evidently my way, not your way.  My purpose is to denounce corruption, be it in academe, the public-funding process, and/or in the poetry milieu.  It is to stand up and express myself with as little self-censoring as possible.  I do not filter my writing in order to get published and climb the literary ladder, which seems to be the litmus test for “success” applied by one of your commenters, Ian Thal.  Speaking the truth as I see it, as opposed to how you want me to see it, is what I try to do.   And like others, I too know damn well when opening my mouth might prove detrimental to my literary or career “success.”   However, it is likely that I break the taboos much more often than most poets or artists, you and Thal included, would ever dare.  That’s what makes me different.  That’s what gets me ostracized.  That’s what works against “success.”  That’s what doesn’t get me cultural-council grants.  That’s what did not get me tenure.  That’s what pissed Thal off.  

“Thus while the journal seeks to celebrate ‘literature, democracy and dissidence’ it often reads as little more than libertarian propaganda,” you write.  “Or, in some cases, right-wing diatribe.”  Again, you fail to present one precise example of “libertarian propaganda.”  And your one example of “right-wing diatribe” is not at all clear.  Of course, one would have to ask what your definition of right-wing might be?  Do you define “right-wing diatribe” as anything critical of the left-wing?  If so, then, yes, certainly accuse me of “right-wing diatribe”!  But who cares?  Your accusation only serves to divert attention.  It would be a lot more pertinent if you’d point to one precise example of a LIE in The American Dissident.  Where precisely have I, as editor, prevaricated?  That’s the real question, not whether or not I’m right-wing or libertarian or tea party or neocon.  The question is not whether or not I RAGE or BLUDGEON.  

Criticize the left, and the left will ineluctably dismiss the criticism as “right-wing diatribe,” no matter how true.  That’s been my experience.  That’s become both the shame and weakness of the left.  Just the same, I am certainly not right wing.  I detest the corporations that Obama snuggles with.  I detest the wars that Obama wages.  I detest religions:  christian AND muslim.  I detest the lack of transparency that Obama surrounds himself in (thanks Wikileaks!).   Yes, but I also detested those things when they involved Bush.  I’ve never voted for a Democrat or Republican.  I did vote for Ralph Nader in 2000.  Is he now viewed as a right-winger because he upset Gore?  I wouldn’t be at all surprised.  I am against the corporate feeding frenzy on illegal CHEAP labor.  Since that is not the PC-party line, does that automatically make me a racist or someone who publishes racists?  Or perhaps that makes you right-wing, since, if you favor illegal immigration, you must also favor that corporate-feeding frenzy.  Ideologues can never reason with clarity.  Am I automatically racist because I criticized Obama?  Is that how you think?  Wasn’t your remark on alienated white people a racist remark against whites?  You write as if the Republican Party had no black members at all!  Oh, yes, those aren’t blacks, they’re Uncle Toms.  Is it right-wing to note that the death of Ted Kennedy’s DOG was front page news in the Cape Cod Times recently, while the deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan in the same paper were listed on the last page?  In what sands do you bury your head, Mme Review Review?  I’m really curious!  

You’ve used the PC-leftist mantra “offensive” three times in your review.  Should I conclude therefore that you are a PC-leftist?  Can a few spelling errors actually “offend” you?  What did your mother teach you?  Mine taught me, “sticks and stones…”  In other words, she taught me to toughen up and build spine.  The PC-left wants everyone to wimper down, not to question and challenge, so it can control and live in un-ecological mansions, drive in un-ecological limos and fly in un-ecological jets, while parading around as green.  No thanks!  And who gives a damn if you’re offended… by the TRUTH?  I for one certainly don’t.  

You note that “narrow-minded racial remarks,” are present in The American Dissident as if the journal is a racist review.  But I do not publish racial negativity… unless TRUTH.  Besides, what precisely are those remarks?  Are they made throughout the journal?  

As for your two commenters, Ron Anonymous sounds like his mind is also anonymous.  He puts all dissidents into one narrow “rancorous-rage” basket.  How easily bourgeois.  For him, I quote Leonard Weinglass, Defense Attorney for dissident Daniel Ellsberg:  “And the psychiatrist said to us you don’t want on this jury men of middle age because these are people who in the course of their lives might possibly have sacrificed principle for the sake of career, for the sake of family, and they live with that compromise and they will have and they will have a lot of disdain, even contempt for two men who did it for the sake of principle and took the risk.”   

Principle vs. Career.  Yes, they’ll hate you if you choose the former!  I do not sacrifice my principles for a dubious literary or academic career.  As for Ian Thal, he ought to focus on that quote.  I decried his nonsensical courtjester poet stage act.  Does poetry really need more jesters on the stage?  Christ, Thal even dresses up like a jester during his performances!  In any case, he too needs to support his general dismissal of me with a concrete example or two.  How else can I defend myself against his “tirade” of  my purported “on-going tirade against corruption”?  Thal too lives in Massachusetts.  Can he be blind to Democrat-party corruption in state government?  Is it a “tirade” that PEN New England (“defending freedom everywhere”… except in New England) refuses to respond to my criticism?  Is it a “tirade” that the Massachusetts Cultural Council refuses to respond to my criticism?  Is it a tirade that Doug Holder, Ian Thal, Charles Coe, Joan Houlihan, Fred Marchant, and others in the state refuse to open their doors to vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy?   They shamefully reject criticism of their incestuous milieu.  

And how does Thal know I am not being published?  I’ve had things published and without doubt much more than he.  The list of my publications runs well over 10 pages long, single spaced, New Times Roman 10 pica.  But I don’t broadcast those things every time I write!  In fact, I never do… unless I have to defend myself against unfounded accusations like Thal’s.  A new book of my caustic cartoons will soon be published (and not by me or a friend).  Recently, I had a bilingual book of poetry (French/English) published by Gival Press, and a chapbook published by Petroglyph.  Why does Thal insist pushing the lie that I’m not published?  Does my being published break his stereotypical view of me?  My cartoons are published on National Free Press’ website (see www.nationalfreepress.org/cartoonists) and the Camel Saloon recently did a special on them (see http://camelsaloonmaudit.blogspot.com).  I’ve even had highly dissident essays published (and not by friends).  But these things will not change Thal’s view.  Slone is not published.  That’s all Thal’s mind will accept.  It doesn’t matter how much proof is thrown before it.  Hell, I’ve even got a doctoral degree from a French university and wrote a 335-page thesis in French, a language I worked my ass off to learn.  What the hell does Thal have?  I’m fluent in French and Spanish, and read in Italian and German.  In fact, almost every day I read through the headlines (and articles of interest) in Der Spiegel, El Pais, Le Monde, Le Devoir, and Il Corriere della Sera.  

The public-grant according machine is corrupt and generally run by PC-leftists who practice viewpoint discrimination.  I will never get a grant from the MCC or NEA as long as such leftists favor bourgeois-type art and literature with the PC-stamp of approval.  There is indeed a kind of conspiracy against critical art and critical literature.  But it is not the kind of conspiracy where people sit together in a dark room.  It is a general conspiracy of dogmatism.  Thal can keep his head buried in the sand if he likes.  That’s his problem, not mine.  All Thal seems capable of is ad hominem insult.  Just call it “rage”.  How facile.  No need to disprove any points made.  Just dismiss it as “rage” or “personal paranoia.”  For the cartoon that ENRAGED Thal and provoked him to carry an interminable grudge with my regard, see http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2010/01/ian-thal-poet-court-jester.html.  

Now, these things said, Becky, is my “effort” still “an admirable one”?  If so are you still going to do that interview, so we might get into a little more than Thalian name calling?  We could deal with some facts and I can show you actual documents, although it seems the paranoid do not have actual documents.  Yes, I can show you the no-trespass order issued by the Watertown Free Public Library without due process or the no-politcal culture regulation created by the Concord Cultural Council to keep me from funding or the letter from the NEA refusing to provide any concrete examples of why it designated The American Dissident as “low” and “poor” or the email from Doug Holder stating he would stand up on his hindlegs to insist that all viewpoints have voice in the Massachusetts poetry scene.  Sadly, Holder never did stand up.  His friend Harris Gardner refuses to allow my voice at his National Poetry Month festival in Boston.  Do you care?  Of course not!  There’s more of course… if you’re at all interested.  You might wish to look at the syllabus I created for a course in literature, democracy and dissidence, a course that so far not one college will permit me to teach.  Or how about the director of the Cape Cod Cultural Council arguing that art in the public library, which she also directs, must be “family friendly” and that there is a thin line between provocative and offensive.  Perhaps you know each other since you both seem to favor the knee-jerk, PC-offensive mantra.  

It would be interesting to discuss what a poet ought to be.  Perhaps for you a poet is an adept juggler of words, someone who fits in.  But for me, a poet should be much, much more, as should his poetry.  In any case, hope to hear from you soon and hope you have a little spine and will not be offended by this review.

Best,
    

G. Tod Slone, Founding Editor

The American Dissident, a 501 c3 Nonprofit 

Journal of Literature, Art, Democracy & Dissidence

www.theamericandissident.org

todslone@yahoo.com

217 Commerce Rd.
Barnstable, MA 02630

From: Becky Tuch <99review gmail.com="">
To: George Slone
Sent: Tue, January 4, 2011 1:12:52 PM
Subject: Re: Review of a Review

Hi Tod,

Thanks for your in-depth reply to my review. Your comments are much appreciated.

It is true that my initial email to you was upon first discovering AD. I had a lot of excitement over what I thought the journal was, or could be. Alas, upon taking a more careful look at its contents, I found myself to be in strong disagreement with many of the expressed sentiments and values contained within. I have already stated my beliefs in my review, and don't think they need to be reiterated here.

As for the misspellings of your name, I made the appropriate corrections.

Take care,

Becky

From: George Slone
To: 99review@gmail.com
Sent: Fri, March 4, 2011 12:42:14 PM
Subject: The Amer Diss

Becky,
Your review appears in the current issue of The American Dissident followed by my revised rebuttal.  You inspired me.  Inflexible minds always seem to inspire me.  And so many there are out there!  I wrote a poem.  You can read it and see your name here:  

http://thecamelsaloon.blogspot.com/2011/01/frozen-in-mind-donkeys-vs-elephants.html.  I know you probably won’t understand it.  No matter.  You’ve also inspired me to do a cartoon/aquarelle on you further inspired by a Goya print.  It too appears in next issue.  Please do not think I am angry or think that I think that you’re angry.  I am a satirist a la Juvenal and Daumier.  En avant!

Sincerely,

G. Tod Slone

www.theamericandissident.org

Anita Walker

Open Letter to Anita Walker,
Executive Director, Massachusetts Cultural Council
Currently I am working on the new front cover illustration for The American Dissident, a 501 c3 nonprofit journal devoted to literature, democracy, and dissidence. I have a photo of you, O’Leary and others handing a check to Lucy Loomis, director of Sturgis Library in Barnstable. Since you will be depicted naked with Loomis and O’Leary on the front cover (“The Little Emperors Have No Clothes”), I wanted to give you a chance to respond prior to my completion of the illustration. My complaint regarding Loomis and Sturgis Library is quite simple.  

The library’s own policy stipulates “Libraries should challenge censorship […].” Yet Sturgis not only banned my flyers, but also permanently banned me from its premises on June 19^th without due process or even warning. Why? Well, I’d had the audacity to WRITE criticism regarding Loomis’ egregious hypocrisy vis-a-vis that written library policy. No threats, four-letter words, or sexual innuendos were made in my WRITTEN comments. Mind-boggling? You bet!

My question to you is quite simple: Why would you wish to support such a fascistic director and institution with taxpayer monies?

Finally, it is sad that the MCC refuses to help support The American Dissident, a unique literary journal that actually dares criticize cultural institutions… like the MCC itself. In fact, I no longer apply for local MCC grants. Why bother when state culture tends to be defined as politically-correct, anodyne smiley-faced?

Surprise me with a response. Surprise me that you are not so entangled in politics that you can actually think with clarity. If I do not hear from you, this letter will appear in the issue. Thank you for your attenion. 

 

[NO RESPONSE!]

 

Walker is depicted above in the watercolor as a state toadie wearing a crown.

 

 

Chloe Garcia-Roberts

Why Poetry Doesn't Matter
Dear Chloe Garcia-Roberts,
Since you have refused to respond to my correspondence (three emails since last November!) and my request that The American Dissident be listed on the publicly-funded Mass Poetry Festival website as a "partner" next to other such Massachusetts literary journals, I have satirized you in a P. Maudit cartoon. The little fellow on the stick with court jester hat is, of course, Charles Coe. What else is a common, unconnected citizen to do in the state of Cronychusetts? It is absolutely shameful that you head a publicly-funded organization as a director and call yourself a poet. Clearly, you don't give a goddamn about free speech, vigorous debate and democracy! The cartoon is attached and also constitutes this week's American Dissident blog entry together with this email. See http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-poetry-doesnt-matter.html. You are, of course, encouraged to engage in vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy, on my blog site. Unlike you, I would never CENSOR comments, no matter how unusually TRUTHFUL.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone

Charles Coe

 

As part of an ongoing experiment to test the waters of democracy, especially in the academic and literary arenas, notice of this blog entry was sent to each of the persons depicted in the above watercolor (see below). Will any of them dare comment? Likely not. Their shame is that they do not cherish, but rather scorn, vigorous debate, democracy’s cornerstone. Their shame, at least those in the teaching profession (Pinsky, Marchant, Houlihan, Wright, and Espada), is that they do not seek to expose their students to all points of view and all possibilities for inspiration with regards writing, including and especially dissidence and purposeful conflict with power. Their shame is their contentment that dissidents like me and others are kept out of their festivals, kept from public funding, and kept from the eye of youth. Their shame is that my freedom of expression and that of other American dissidents is being crushed at every corner. Some of them have even become millionaire professor poets. Indeed, how can one possibly expect raw, visceral truth from such persons?

The idea for the above watercolor brewed over several weeks time and was likely sparked by the probable clique connection existing between Joan Houlihan, Director of the Concord Poetry Center, Karen Wulf, Director of Pen New England, Joan Bertin, Director of the National Coalition against Censorship, and Fred Marchant, Director of the Suffolk University Poetry Center. Both Wulf and Houlihan operate from Lesley University (Cambridge, MA). Both Wulf and Bertin refuse to address the freedom of expression and censorship issues I’d brought to their attention. Why?

Again, the only concrete explanation I could come up with was the clique. Houlihan often reads paired with Marchant, who is depicted in a photo hugging Charles Coe of the Massachusetts Cultural Council and Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Coe refuses to address my request to be invited to the Poetry Festival. To that concoction, I added Doug Holder of Ibbetson Press, who interviewed Coe and gave Robert Pinsky, also depicted in the watercolor, a medal or award.

Pinsky seems to be the established-order poet poster boy, invited left and right and everywhere else to read his flaccid poem about a shirt. How mind-boggling can it get? I first contacted him in 1996 or 7, when he was invited to give the commencement speech at Fitchburg State College. I contacted him because of the inherent corruption festering at that institution. He of course was indifferent and did not respond. All he wanted was his 5-10K honorarium. He really does disgust me as a poet.

Doug Holder, on the other hand, has certainly been more open than most poets of the established order. Poesy mag, which he co-edits or co-edited, interviewed me. Doug certainly could have prevented that interview. Also, he did place a link to this blog on his site and even manifested rare established-order poet curiosity by buying an issue of The American Dissident at Grolier's in Harvard Square. So, hats off to Doug... sincerely. Just the same, it is too bad he doesn't push others of the clique like Coe and Houlihan and Marchant to open their doors to dissent. So, come on Doug, give those poet cohorts a little boot in the rump... not for me, but for democracy!

To fill out the picture, I added Martin Espada of the University of Massachusetts for diversity’s sake and for his indifference to dissident poets. Also, I added Franz Wright of Brandeis University, who was invited by Houlihan to read and for his indifference.

Of course, many others could have been added to the picture. Duke University professor Gary Hull, Director of the Program on Values and Ethics in the Marketplace, for example, could have been added. He refused to respond to my emails requesting he place my signature, as editor of The American Dissident, on a petition he created to decry Yale University’s decision to censor cartoons. Has it perhaps gotten that bad that petitions are only open to certain categories of citizens?

In America, perhaps we are indeed now in the Age of Aberrancy, where censorship has become rampant and censors extolled as moderators of pre-approved bourgeois aesthetics. George Orwell would have gone nuts with so much material to write about!

In essence, the rancid odor of cliquishness characterizes the established-order academic/literary scene. Offend the clique and risk ostracizing. It’s quite that simple. What really concerns the clique is not literature per se and certainly not democracy, but rather the marketing of clique members and their books. It is sad that public cultural councils endorse this kind of cliquishness and hermetic resistance to dissent.

As noted in the watercolor, its idea was also inspired by Brueghel’s painting, “The Cripples” (or “The Beggars”) and Léo Ferré’s 1956 preface to "Poète...vos papiers !" (see www.theamericandissident.org/Essays-Ferre.htm) In the quote, Ferré mentions that poets cut off their own wings, leaving just enough “moignon” (stump) so they may flutter about in the Literary Poultry Yard. He also mentions that we may expect little, if any, hope from poets of that sort.
.......................
From: George Slone
To: Charles.coe@art.state.ma.us; ibbetsonpress@msn.com; pen-ne@lesley.edu; Bertin@ncac.org; mespada@english.umass.edu; fjmarchant@aol.com; rpinsky@bu.edu; joan@concordpoetry.org; cpc@concordpoetry.org; fwright@brandeis.edu
Cc: gahull@soc.duke.edu; mina.wright@art.state.ma.us; dan.blask@art.state.ma.us; voltairepress@live.com
Sent: Fri, December 11, 2009 11:57:37 AM
Subject: The Age of Aberrancy, the Poetes moignons & Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy

Dear Poets et al:
You are the subject of a new watercolor and blog entry, which is why you're being contacted. Go ahead, curiosity didn't kill the cat. Apparently, it only killed the poet, which certainly must explain his and her incredible incuriosity! http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2009/12/age-of-aberrancy-and-poets-of-moignon.html

Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, PhD and Founding Editor (since 1998)
The American Dissident, a Journal of Literature, Democracy & Dissidence
A 501 c3 Nonprofit Providing a Forum for Vigorous Debate, Cornerstone of Democracy
todslone@yahoo.com
www.theamericandissident.org
1837 Main St.
Concord, MA 01742

Open Letter to Americans for the Arts

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Open Letter to Americans for the Arts
Indirectly, I received your urgent email, “Breaking News,” regarding the approval of the “egregious amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK)” to the economic recovery bill, which stipulated, as noted in that email: "None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project."

You, of course, were disappointed: “Unfortunately, the amendment passed by a wide vote margin of 73-24, and surprisingly included support from many high profile Senators including Chuck Schumer of New York, Dianne Feinstein of California, Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and several other Democratic and Republican Senators.”

However, I was delighted! Indeed, why should DISSIDENT poets, writers, artists, and editors be at all upset by what seemed to have upset you so much? After all, we did not receive funding. We did not receive awards. We did not receive lucrative fellowships. We did not receive grants. We did not receive NPR invitations to jabber on the air with PC-bourgeois tonality. The easy public monies were simply not for us!

The Boston Globe ran an article rightfully against the push by multimillionaire Quincy Jones to get Obama to establish a Ministry of the Fine Arts. What it failed to realize, however, was that the nation already had such a Ministry. The NEA served that function, while NPR acted as its voice. Former director Dana Gioia served the role of arts tsar, a good term for it, since the arts tsar served as dictator of aesthetics and taste, inevitably favoring the bourgeois over the dissident. Indeed, the art the NEA tended to push was ineluctably of the established-order variety. What the Boston Globe needed to do was examine the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which acted as the state Ministry of the Arts. Why did it not do that?

As long as all political artistic persuasions were not treated equally by state cultural apparatchiks, public money should not be spent on the arts. The nation did not need more NPR smiley-faced multimillionaire artists with effete sounding voices a la Quincy Jones or Herbie Hancock! What it needed was more artists daring to “go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways” (Emerson) and who let their lives “be a counterfriction to stop the machine” (Thoreau). Of course, such artists would not make successful careerists, let alone cultural apparatchiks like Charles Coe and Mina Wright of the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Money, like it or not, determined which art would be promoted and end up in the nation’s museums. Lack of money, connections, and networking prowess would likely relegate the artist (or writer), no matter how good, into the oubliettes.

Indeed, why would dissidents wish to see more public taxpayer monies flow into the hands of cultural agencies and projects? Why would they wish to see such monies flow into the hands of the Concord Cultural Council, for example, which recently adopted a rule eliminating from funding any project it decided to deem of a “political nature.” This year it gave public money to Friends of the Performing Arts of Concord, for its “Concord Messiah Sing.” Yet how could one possibly conceive according public monies to religious song events as apolitical? In fact, it was perhaps unconstitutional! The new “political nature” rule was adopted, by the way, to keep me from obtaining public funding. The Concord Journal refused to publish my criticism of the Council.

Why would dissidents wish to see more public monies flow into the hands of the National Endowment for the Arts, which made autocratic determinations? Indeed, it deemed The American Dissident “low” and “poor” and refused to provide any specific information with that regard, despite my citizen requests. Why would dissidents wish to see more public monies flow into the hands of the Academy of American Poets, which acted as bourgeois censor and held bourgeois panels of "distinguished" bourgeois poetasters on bourgeois aesthetics? As for the Massachusetts Cultural Council, its hack-appointed apparatchiks simply refused to respond to my citizen questions:

1. Why did taxpayers fund Agni and Harvard University Museums, for example, when both organizations were connected to private billion-dollar corporate-educational institutions? Did that not indicate something rotten in the very hearts and minds of grant-according panelists and in the MCC in general? SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILENCE!

2. Why did the MCC only fund literary journals that didn’t really need the funding? In other words, why did a journal with a budget under the necessary $10K minimum not even merit consideration for funding? As editor of The American Dissident, a highly unique literary journal devoted to unusual vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy, I could not even get funding from the local Concord Cultural Council. Nothing! And I’d been trying for over a decade! SIIIIIIILENCE!

3. Why did the MCC rarely, or perhaps never, have as panelists individuals whose very creation was focused on hardcore criticism of the academic/literary established-order milieu and canon itself? If a project highly dissident in nature with such a focus were to be presented before established-order type panelists, evidently it would immediately be deemed not of “artistic excellence.” After all, it would take a rare panelist who could look at criticism of the panelist him or herself… and actually proceed objectively. How could I become a rare dissident panelist for the MCC? SIIIIIIIIIIIILENCE!

4. Dan Blask, MCC Program Coordinator, stated: “Since we rely on panelists solely for their artistic opinions, when selecting them we focus on their artistic expertise and accomplishments…” Since “accomplishments,” however, inevitably translated as popularity in the established-order milieu, didn’t that rule for obtaining panelists exclude someone with a dissident outlook and focus (i.e., someone not popular in the milieu, thus not “accomplished”)? SIIIIIIIIIIILENCE!

5. Since the MCC was a public organization, should it not make a special effort to open its doors not simply to multicultural viewpoints, but to dissident-political viewpoints as well? Would that not benefit democracy, as opposed to literature as usual in the status-quo oligarchy? SIIIIIIIILLENCE!

Clearly, those were tough questions without simple answers. For democracy, however, they demanded answers.

Finally, funding the projects Americans for the Arts wanted funded would likely not produce jobs in a time where jobs were desperately needed. As an unemployed professor, I was perhaps unemployable in my profession because I had spoken out against the likes of Americans for the Arts, NEA, MCC, etc. Indeed, until your group spoke for all artists, poets, and writers, how could one not perceive it as just another hissing snake head of the established-order GORGON, enemy of democracy?

Herd poets, writers, artists, professors, cultural council apparatchiks and others in the “Arts” seemed to harbor a clear preference for bourgeois tone and etiquette over vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy. Because of that egregious preference, it would be surprising if you responded to this open-letter blog entry. Miracles, however, did happen… though quite rarely.

Crony Capitalism Paving the Way to Crony Culturalism: the Massachusetts Poetry Festival… Brought to You by State Cultural Apparatchik, Charles Coe

What really pains—deeply pains—is the bourgeois grip upon poetry and the literary milieu. It is an iron grip not unlike that of the Soviet Writers Union under Stalin. It silences dissent effectively. Indeed, if one wants to be a “successful” poet (or poetry editor), one must not upset it, let alone question it. Thus is the sad state of the literary milieu today in America. The voice of dissent is out there, but it is up against a massive, impervious brick wall. So, for a poet today, the choice must be a conscious, deliberate one, between “success” and failure, repression and truth. For some poets, however, we do not have the choice. Truth is our muse.

Why, one could wonder, was I not invited to the Massachusetts Poetry Festival since I have been a long-time Massachusetts poet and an editor of a poetry journal based in Concord, Massachusetts since 1998? Why, one could also wonder, was The American Dissident, the journal in question, not invited to exhibit at the Festival’s small press fair? Well, the answer to those two questions is simple. Charles Coe, the Festival’s chief organizational apparatchik (i.e., Project Administrator—I just love the corporate titles these fellows adorn) and Massachusetts Cultural Council (see www.theamericandissident.org/LitCCC.htm) career cultural functionary does not like dissent at all, let alone vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy. Only a month ago had I attempted, in vain of course, to obtain from him some rather simple answers to some rather damning questions regarding MCC policies, including the public funding of organizations that form part of multibillion-dollar endowed private universities like Harvard Museums and Agni (Boston University) and the refusal to fund any literary journal not having a budget over $10,000—a very strange policy indeed, or perhaps not for it likely works against the dissident spirit.

As for the CEO of Concord Poetry Center (www.theamericandissident.org/LitCPC.htm), an active participant in the Festival, Joan Houlihan also detests dissent and vigorous debate. Once upon a time, she’d written me:

“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.”

How odd! Or am I the only one who can see the oddity? Later she wrote: “We welcome dissidents! All the best poets were dissidents.” But then I informed her that I was going to protest and to hell with the workshop possibility. Her response was again an odd one: “What are you protesting? Seems like you’d welcome a place in your area for poets who are not part of the poetry establishment.” But what was Houlihan talking about? Not part of the poetry establishment? Horseshit! She is part of the establishment, regularly gets funded by the establishment and only invites poets of the establishment to read at the Center.

Thus, I’ve been around protesting lame poets, poetasters, and poetophiles for the past decade and even longer for back in 1995 or 96, I’d protested against the corruption at Fitchburg State College and brought it to the attention of Pinsky, who was chosen as graduation speaker. Pinsky, of course, chose to take the money and, like a good establishment boy, remain deaf and dumb. Evidently, for the average established-order poet or established-order wannabee, protest is fine, as long as not against the poetry milieu. “Pissing off politicians, corporations, zealots, and/or lawyers is acceptable and, in fact, encouraged,” writes M. Scott Douglass, editor of MainStreet Rag. Well, I challenged him on that and asked why it was apparently not acceptable to piss off poets and poet organizations. He did not/could not respond. Logic has died or never did thrive in the hearts of established-order poets and editors.

On another note, though really always the same note, why the NEED for egregious, ubiquitous self-vaunting in the poetry milieu, as in “The Massachusetts Poetry Festival is a three-day celebration of the poets, poetry, and literary heritage of a state whose contribution to American poetry is unsurpassed in the nation”?Is Massachusetts, a state plagued by rampant cronyism in all sectors including the cultural one, really “unsurpassed” in the realm of poetry? Perhaps in the realm of cronyism, but certainly not in poetry. Why the NEED for such feel-good exaggeration? Shouldn’t we expect more from poets and poet organizers? Moreover, a thinking poet—how few of us there are!—ought to ask him or herself who were the appointed judges who selected the appointed poets to read at the festival and, in fact, who appointed the judges in the first place. One could also ask why the judges (Coe?) chose to invite the usual suspects Pinsky, Espada, Sanders (The Fuggs?), and Dubus. Likely, they (or he) did so because they are dazzled by literary celebrity, know the chosen poets are safe, inoffensive, and do not question and challenge (i.e., think as individuals, disconnected from the crony careerist network). BUT does poetry really need INOFFENSIVENESS or does it need DISSIDENCE, QUESTIONING AND CHALLENGING of poetry events made safe for the bourgeois pillars of society, and POETS WHO WOULD DARE GO AGAINST THE GRAIN OF POETRY AS USUAL? Given the sad state of the nation, and not simply with regards the economy and war all the time, the answer to that question ought to be crystal clear. Crony capitalism has given way to crony culturalism.

Well, since I stand in direct opposition to the hypocrite Houlihan and for the sake of democracy, shouldn’t the Massachuestts Poetry Festival at least place a link to The American Dissident (and this blog!) in the list of links on its webpage? Let’s see what Coe has to say about that, though I already know what he has to say about it: NEIN!

Today, I swam across Walden Pond likely for the last time this year. The water is getting chilly! A dissident needs to stay in top physical shape, while on the other hand, a cultural council apparatchik will likely get as flaccid as a porker.