Barbara M. Jones

Zachary Bos

On the Indifference of Poets to the Censorship and Exclusion of Others
It has been my sad experience that most poets would not lift a finger to protest against the censorship, banning, and/or exclusion of a lone dissident poet. Indeed, to do so, would imply risking offending the poet herd responsible for the censorship, banning, and/or exclusion. The logic is there. The principles and courage, however, are not. Not one of the high-and-mighty chancellors—not even famous Beatnik chancellor Gary Snyder—of the Academy of American Poets came to my defense when I contacted each of them regarding the Academy’s censorship of my comments. Not one of them dared say, ‘you know, this is poetry, after all, and we’re even encouraging comments on our website, so maybe we should not be eliminating comments we don’t like, even if we do have the legal right.’

In any case, Zachary Bos is yet another one of those poets who dares not act alone and against the poet herd. He and I had a rather lengthy email discussion recently. Out of the blue, he’d sent me a group email regarding his Boston Poetry Union, which I’d never heard of. In fact, I’d never heard of him either. In the missive, the usual poet suspects Pinsky, Gluck, and Wright were revered, so I hammered. To his credit, Bos responded over and again and then some. Most established-order partisans do not respond at all to criticism because they do not believe in vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy. They prefer dismissing adversaries (and their arguments) as “malcontent cranks,” in Bos’ words (with my regard). However, Bos made some, at least from my “malcontent crank” perspective, amazingly daft or outright shameful comments, including the one depicted word for word in the cartoon. He disagreed with everything I presented to him including the fact—I repeat, THE FACT—that my flyers have been banned by Sturgis Library director Lucy Loomis (see a previous post). Below is that segment of our long conversation. If anyone, besides Bos, can explain his reasoning, please do. Evidently, something deep within compels him to disagree with everything vis-a-vis The American Dissident and its editor, no matter how FACTUAL.

Bos argues that my statement of fact is “simply unrecognizable.” BANNED FLYER. Yes, that’s “simply unrecognizable.” Another fact, he cannot seem to recognize is the fact that my comments were CENSORED by the Academy of American Poets, which also BANNED me from participating in its online forums. The AAP actually uses the term BANNED.

Bos likes to ramble on the semantics of the words “censor” or “banned,” diverting the conversation away from pertinent points made. Eventually, I was able to corner him in an area he’d rather not discuss: the fact that his employer, Boston University, has a rather pitiful free-speech record. Bos had stated, prior to my pointing that out, that he was very much against speech codes. So, I asked what he’s done vis-à-vis BU’s speech codes. Well, I’m still waiting for the response… unless of course it was “tearing down flyers” that question and challenge those very speech codes. I suspect that most gatekeepers, including Bos, who censor, ban, prohibit, and/or tear down, likely argue that they too are proponents of free speech and vigorous debate. Hypocrisy is, after all, rampant amongst the educated.

PM (P. Maudit)—The fact is simple: my broadside was prohibited by the library director. It’s mind-boggling that you and likely others would reject that fact as fact.
ZB—You are calling it a fact that what the director did was something that could be called "prohibition." Actually, this isn't a fact, but an interpretation. I can observe the same events, and come up with a
different set of facts. That isn't relativism; just an outcome of your ideological orientation. It's like you're looking through glasses smeared with oil on the lenses. "Everything's filthy!" Well, not really, George. Some things are, sure. But the way you describe events is simply unrecognizable.

Lucy Loomis

Lucy Loomis stands as an example of an authoritarian gatekeeper. She banned an American Dissident broadside and even banned me from discussing the banning with library staff. For this, she is mocked on the front cover of the latest issue of The American Dissident. The banned broadside follows.

An American Dissident Free-Speech Broadside (distributed 02/14/2011)-
The American Dissident, a 501 (c)3 Nonprofit Journal of Literature, Democracy & Dissidence, Offering a Forum for Vigorous Debate
G. Tod Slone, PhD, Editor (todslone@yahoo.com) (www.theamericandissident.org) 217 Commerce Rd., Barnstable, MA 02630
Open Letter to the Director of the Sturgis Library, Lucy Loomis
Libraries, far from being bastions of democracy, tend to be de facto opponents of free speech
Truth, it seems, is always bashful, easily reduced to silence by the too blatant encroachment of falsehood.
—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Gatekeepers are authority figures who seek to limit the choices of others. Gatekeepers are good at justifying their actions through circular reasoning.
—Chris Guillebeau, The Art of Non-Conformity

N
ot long ago, I was sitting in the Sturgis Library when I overheard a brief discussion: “They’re putting in good windows! They’re Andersen!” Then it arrived next to me: “Let me take a look at these nice windows!” I interjected, noting the library could afford expensive windows but not a $20 subscription to a nonprofit journal devoted to democracy. The people didn’t quite understand me.
A
s you know, your Board of Trustees and you decided to prohibit this free-speech broadside on your public premises, which is why it is being circulated elsewhere. As you also know, you refused to consider subscribing, even at a future date, to The American Dissident. By subscribing to Poetry magazine, which clearly presents an established-order viewpoint, and rejecting The American Dissident, which clearly presents the opposite viewpoint, you directly and knowingly violate your own Collection Development Policy, especially “Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.” Despite the dubious financial argument, your comments about “family friendly” and “too much negativity” indicate “doctrinal disapproval.” Your reluctance to discuss these issues with me underscores a certain rejection of democracy. Why not instead promote the latter and erect a FREE-SPEECH bulletin board? You could place on top of it: WARNING: CHILDREN TAKE NOTICE. POSTINGS ON THIS BOARD MIGHT BE OFFENSIVE TO YOUR ADULT PARENTS.
Y
our Collection Development Policy is an excellent one, by the way. Unfortunately, you do not abide by it and, worse yet, have probably convinced yourself that you somehow do. “Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy,” states the ALA’s “Freedom to Read” segment. “Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and leaves it the less able to deal with controversy and difference.” How can you not perceive your banning of this broadside, as yet another instance of “silencing of a heresy”? How can you not understand that your insistence on positivity and “family friendly” not constitute yet another instance of “enforcement of an orthodoxy”? Has diminishing the toughness and resilience of our society become the true role of librarians today? Well, if you are representative, then I think so. And indeed, you are not unique. As confirmed by my decade’s long experience knocking on the doors of librarians and cultural-council apparatchiks, contrary to the lofty ALA statements, most doors remain firmly closed to the heretical viewpoints expressed in The American Dissident. Indeed, the journal has been an ardent critic of the close relationship often maintained between the art and literary milieu with the local chambers of commerce and the resultant censorship (call it what you like) of anything deemed too critical. Hypocrisy is rampant amongst far too many librarians! The ALA’s own Office for Intellectual Affairs refuses to even respond to my grievance.
Regarding the one flyer I left on a car windshield, an adult staff member, as you know, complained to you like a child. You called the instance “harassment”—a grotesque exaggeration! Please have that staff member, whoever she may be, examine the cartoon below. Why does she flaunt the bumper sticker—“Everything I Need to Know about Life, I Learned from Reading Banned Books”—when she is clearly a proponent of banning periodicals and broadsides? Why can’t she and you see the egregious hypocrisy? Your prohibition of my free-speech flyers on public-library grounds might be unconstitutional, as might also your prohibition of my discussing any of this with your adult staff. You behave not as a director, but as a high-school principal, and encourage your staff to act as if children. From the glorious Age of Reason, we’ve sadly retreated into the infantile Age of the Offended, thanks to those like you. “Do you do this everywhere you go?” you asked, deflecting focus from your anti-free speech policies. Well, I do question and challenge everywhere I go. Is that not my citizen’s duty? “If you don’t like it here, why do you come here?” you then asked sadly echoing the refrain: America, Love It or Leave It. But how dare you make such a statement when my tax dollars help pay your very salary? I like the library. You are not the library. You also lazily dismissed this broadside as a “diatribe,” instead of pointing out where you think truth to be lacking. You said I called you “marm.” Well, that term was only used in the cartoon below. But are you not a gate-keeping marm? As director, will you not keep me from obtaining funding from the Cape Cod Cultural Council because of my viewpoints? How far will you go to keep free speech out of your fiefdom: a no-trespass warrant?
Finally, the cartoon watercolor I sketched on you as gatekeeper is now the front cover of the current issue of The American Dissident (see above). A subscription was kindly donated. Will you reject the gift and censor my scheduled art exhibit in September? Will you continue to shame Barnstable’s own revolutionary patriot Mercy Otis Warren with your censorial decrees? This broadside was sent to a number of Cape Cod newspapers. Only the Barnstable Patriot responded with interest. As you know, I met with two of your trustees, both of whom refused to discuss the banning of this broadside and expressed no interest whatsoever in the principles at stake—the First Amendment et al. On another note, library director Anne Cifelli, summa cum lauda Wellesley College graduate, argued regarding her rejection of a free subscription offer: “It is outside the scope of this library's periodical collection.” “Why doesn’t that scope include democracy and free speech?” I asked. “The Yarmouth Port Library is a popular lending library,” she replied. She rejected a dictionary donation, but accepted a box of quilting books. Your library holds jewelry sales, wine auctions, and antiques shows, but will not erect a First Amendment bulletin board.
…………….
N.B.: The purpose of The American Dissident is to question and challenge what normally is not questioned and challenged: the cultural-commercial established order, its gatekeepers, institutions, and icons, especially on the local level. As for poetry and art, they are left undefined and ought not to be limited to abstract landscapes, the female nude, and high-brow metaphorical feelings, but also include harsh criticism, the kind gatekeepers disdain. Let the poet and artist take risks, go against the grain, and stand apart to speak, as Emerson stated, the “rude truth in all ways.”

Issue #22

Dear Friends and Foes of The American Dissident:
The latest issue of The American Dissident (#22) has just been mailed out to subscribers. Please note the new address: 217 Commerce Rd., Barnstable, MA 02630.

Besides the usual critical (i.e., offensive) poems, literary letters to and from the established order, and satirical cartoons, this issue contains a negative review of the journal, the editor’s rebuttal of it, a contributor’s negative poetry review, notes on gatekeepers, comments from a contributor on his having been censored by Huffington Post, an article by an activist against welfare fraud, and more notes on urination from a 93-year-old poet. To date, the editor has still not received any public funding, despite requests. To date, only one English professor in America has proven sufficiently open-minded to not only invite the editor, but also to actually use the journal in class. Below is the issue’s table of contents. Thanks again to those who dug deeply into their wallets to help the fragile cause.
The Editor

Editorial 4
New Poetry et al
Alan Garvey (Carlow, Ireland) 5-6
Doug Draime (Ashland, OR) 7-8
Notes from the Offended—Becky Tuch (Somerville, MA) 9-12
M. P. Powers (Boynton Beach, FL) 13-14
Gary Goude (Riverside, CA) 15
Notes from the Censored—By Rick Ferris (Akron, OH) 16-17
David Ochs (Santa Maria, CA) 18-19
Craig Shay (S. Setauket, NY) 20
Poetry Review—Leonard J. Cirino (Springfield, OR) 21-22
Daniel Senser (Cincinnatti, OH) 23
Kathryn Weinberg (Beverly, MA) 24-25
Notes on Gatekeepers—The Editor 26-28
Ted Stein (Bloomfield, NJ) 29-30
David Pointer (Murfreesboro, TN) 31
Notes from Activists—Russell Streur (Atlanta, GA) 32-33
Mather Schneider (Tucson, AZ) 34-35
Charles Portolano (Fountain Hills, AZ) 36
Notes from Students 37
John Cantey Knight (Metairie, LA) 38-39
Jody Azzouni (Brooklyn, NY) 40-41
Notes from the Golden Years—Ed Galing (Hatboro, PA) 43
The Editor (Barnstable, MA) 44-45
Literary Letters 46-56

Craig Teicher

Cheryl Young

Per usual, the target of the satirical cartoon was informed of the blog entry. Will she respond? It is likely she will not. Most citizens hate unexpected and unauthorized criticism, cannot deal with it, reject it viscerally, refuse to deal with the possible truths therewithin, and do not favor vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy. Sorry, that's been my experience.

Letter Sent (12/29/10) to Cheryl Young, Executive Director, MacDowell Colony:
It will be highly unlikely for you to fathom anything written in this email. In fact, the sad state of art, literature, and higher education in America today would make me believe that it would be equally unlikely for most college students of art and literature to fathom anything in it. In any case, I just read the NU magazine snippet on you… almost enough to make me vomit… almost. But your ilk—smiley-faced, moneyed artist or poet in tie and jacket—has become so banal in America today, I just couldn’t heave. It is people like you, former commodities traders turned CEO artists and poets, who have become the gatekeepers, permitting voice exclusively to bourgeois-friendly art and bourgeois-friendly literature. If only you could see the damage being done. Yes, “the marketplace,” as you stipulate. That says it all. But do we really need more ladder-climbing CEO “midwives” in the milieu or do we need more hardcore rude-truth tellers with balls? Well, I know your response… and you know mine. Women in power have proven no less corrupt then men in power. The old Sixties thought that if women ran things, things would be much better, turned out to be a pipedream load of horseshit. I’ve collided with your ilk frequently over the years. Just recently, the Cape Cod Cultural marm in power and director of Sturgis Library proved her dictatorial nature by refusing anything she deemed not to be “family friendly,” which of course is just another term for MacDowell-friendly or Chamber-of-Commerce friendly. You note that your Colony is a “starstruck place.” Yes, that too says it all. But I’d rather refer to it as a starblind place instead. That’s art today: icon worship. So, you’ve got a BA in Economics. Yes, I’m sure that’s helped you determine what art and literature to allow through the Chamber of Commerce gates and what art to prevent. Whoopee, your endowment has quintupled! That too says it all—MONEY as your artistic goal. How sad that you cannot see. How truly sad for you. So, your Colony received the highest award from the US government, which is really a reflection of the US Chamber of Commerce. When artists and poets shake the hands of businessmen, business women, and politicians, something has really gone awry in the milieu. These things said, how about inviting me to speak at your colony? I live in Massachusetts, so could easily make the trip to NH. Or how about subscribing to The American Dissident (only $20). Yes, you could leave the journal on a coffee table in an effort to expose your art fellows to an alternative point of view. SILENCE is golden, goes the old Chinese proverb. Well, I don’t agree with it. BTW, I’m class of ’72. Yes, I should do a cartoon on you. As you know, I’ve already done one on your Colony.

No response was recieved.

Denis Dutton

Professor Denis Dutton created “Arts & Letters Daily” on The Chronicle of Higher Education website and died recently. "I think that he has been an incredibly passionate advocate for ideas and truth,” noted his son. Yet Dutton refused to permit the ideas and truth of The American Dissident on that website, despite my requests. Dutton was a little-caesar gatekeeper, keeping the doors closed to ideas and truths that he did not like. Should we mourn his death? Not in the least.

Does the following, on the Arts & Letters Daily website, represent passionate advocate for ideas and truth... or business-as-usual in the established-order literary milieu? "Allen Ginsberg had a serene air about him, like Yoda, but with bigger ears. At least that’s what Tyler Stoddard Smith remembers about him. Oh, and that Ginsberg peed on his shoes..."

The cartoon above is a satire of Dutton's book.