Tyehimba Jess

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From The Editorial of Issue #36

[...] In any case, the front cover of this issue was inspired by a New York Times article,“How CUNY Became Poetry U,” written in blind praise of university poet/prof prize-winners, by Elizabeth A. Harris: 

The City University of New York is many things. It is vast. It is accessible to students without a lot of money. It is exceptionally diverse. It is not, however, particularly fancy, the kind of place that oozes exclusivity or prestige. And yet CUNY is home to a surprising number of extremely accomplished, recognized—some might even say fancy—poets.

Harris of course is incapable of wondering what precisely “accomplished” and “recognized” really tend to mean, as in coopted, conformed, and castrated.  Moreover, “accomplished” is clearly a subjective, not an objective, term. “Accomplished” for Harris might imply “sellout” for someone else. And “recognized,” but by whom? Well, by others who are likely also “recognized.” To reach the “accomplished” and “recognized” poet status, clearly, one must not be a rare poet who goes against the grain of the academic/literary establishment.  CUNY chancellor James B. Milliken (see front cover) argued, 

I’m not sure that ‘fancy’ is the key to creativity. CUNY has to be one of the most diverse universities in America, and it seems self-evident to me that diversity of all kinds contributes to creativity. Add to that the fact that we’re in New York City.

“Diversity of all kinds”?  Hardly!  Certainly not diversity of opinions regarding CUNY’s backslappery. Featured from left to right are Harris; Elizabeth Lund (WaPo), Tyehimba Jess, Pulitzer English Prof, College of Staten Island; Kimiko Hahn, PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry, Prof, Queens College; Ben Lerner, MacArthur Fellow, Prof, Brooklyn College; Poet Laureate Billy Collins, Prof, Lehman College; Alison Hawthorne Deming, Pulitzer Jurist Social Justice Prof, University of Arizona; and Wesley McNair, Pulitzer Jurist Poet Laureate of Maine.  [...]

Elizabeth Lund

Gregory Orr and Elizabeth Lund

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Perhaps I should have called the above cartoon, "The Silence of the Poet Lambs."  Lund does not provide her email at the Washington Post, so I could not send it to her.  However, I did send it to establishment-poet Doug Holder of Ibbetson Press, since I finally managed to obtain an image of Lund, after hunting for a while on the net, from an interview/hagiography video she did with Holder.  Also, I sent it to Gregory Orr, the subject of Lund's hagiography.  Will either poet respond?  Or will they automatically abide by the Poet Lamb creed:  thou shalt not respond to criticism from critical plebe poets, no matter how truthful?  The key in all of my cartoons is TRUTH.  The goal of satirical targets should be to find something, anything, in the cartoons that is not TRUTH.   Then they should inform me of their finding(s) and, if indeed an error, I will correct it and apologize for it.  BUT poets, especially when criticized, tend to hate vigorous debate and freedom of speech, democracy's cornerstones...

Elizabeth Lund

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Poetry-as-Usual:  A Brief Review of a Brief Review

“The key reason for the smallness of the audience for poetry is that people associate poetry with school…”

—Billy Collins

What to scribble when famous poets and their hagiographers have nothing to say and never dare transgress the space space of literary careerism?  Well, Elizabeth Lund, publishing house pusher, uh, literary critic at Washington Post, illustrates the problem in her brief essay, “Best poetry of the month: New collections by Billy Collins and Robert Pinsky,” where not an iota of criticism… just the kind of praise one might expect from a court jester introducing a poet laureate to a Hillarius, the First.  In this case, it’s two poet laureates.  

Well, at least Lund didn’t take the leap to best poetry of the century.  However, she still piles it on.  For Collins’ The Rain in Portugal, it’s “dry wit,” “subtle twists,” “fanciful landscape,” “richness,” “biting moments,” and “evocative and lovely.”  The subjects Collins writes about, anything but critical of the academic/literary hand that feeds him so royally, include conversations with an imaginary sister, thoughts of Shakespeare on an airplane, Keith Richards holding up the world, a weathervane, a “veggie platter that suggests the impermanence of life,” and “an encounter with a brown rabbit that could be the late Seamus Heaney.”  Yes, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud!  No, I am not making these things up, nor apparently is Lund, who argues:  “The constant shifting in these pieces provides both pleasure and a vivid example of how one’s thoughts, when unrestrained, can lead to unexpected destinations.”  Allow me to paraphrase with a touch of hard-core critique: “how one’s thoughts, when restrained, can lead to expected destinations… of utter fluff.”  

As for the other academic careerist and distinguished fellow, Pinsky—you know, that working-class guy from New Jersey—, it’s always quite safe to write about subjects distant from his little cocoon in the intellectually corrupt academy, in this case, Boston University, which was accorded the worst rating for freedom of speech by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (see 

https://www.thefire.org/schools/boston-university/ and https://www.thefire.org/speech-code-of-the-month-boston-university/).  Does Pinsky care about that rating?  Not in the least!  Yet how can a poet survive chained down by speech codes (i.e., without freedom of speech)?  Well, Pinsky apparently has no problem at all with that!  

His latest book, At the Foundling Hospital,” concerns “infants, slaves and immigrants.”  Perhaps a plea for open borders or support for Black Lives Matter?  Again, Lund lauds with unoriginal high-brow laudanum:   “tremendous range of thought,” “ability to weave together complex ideas into resonant poems,” “sophisticated,” “refined music,” “gives voice to various gods,” and forces “readers to rethink the wisdom they know.”  Man, Pinsky must be a god himself to be able to do all of that!  Lord, I better get down on my prayer rug.  Hmm.  And brilliantly Lund decides the poems themselves are foundlings.  Oh, she’ll surely bring a smile to Pinsky!  

Yes, poet laureates Billy Collins and Robert Pinsky not only have the stamp of Congressional approval, but, according to Lund, provide fascinating, if not brilliant, examples of… absolute fluff.  

Collins is wrong regarding the key reason for small poetry audiences.  The real reason is gutless, boring poets, not to mention gutless, boring poetry reviews, and poetry devoid of purpose.  Well, he gets it right with that regard: “Poetry is aimless, not purposeful. The poem is dancing with itself.”