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.”

Frozen in Blind Acceptance

A friend brought to my attention a couple of rather predictable essays on poetry contests appearing in Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century. Contrary to assertions, the real problem with contests is not so much the transparent corruption of some contest judges, but rather autocratic aesthetics. “Manuscripts are more likely to be evaluated solely on their merit today than ever before,” writes contest-winner David Alpaugh, who believes instances of sweaty literary incest rare. BUT what is artistic or poetic excellence (i.e., “merit”)? You’ll know it when you sniff it tends to be the usual implied response. Sadly, Alpaugh seems to think that “merit” is an objective term. Sadly, I doubt he could ever be made to consider it otherwise. Sadly, Rattle operates to keep the very idea that “merit” may indeed be subjective out of the agora of ideas. It has banned my opinions, for example, and backs the censorship effected by the Academy of American Poets, Poetry Foundation, and Poets & Writers, Inc..

“A well-advertised contest, judged by a well-known poet, will attract hundreds of manuscripts, each accompanied by a $15 to $25 reading fee,” notes Alpaugh. BUT what does that really say about the judge? What does “well-known poet” really imply? It implies playing the game, never bucking the system, never daring to go against the poesy grain, and simply opening ones mouth, saying ahhhh, and swallowing the gob of bourgeois verse fed by some blank face. Does that really make a good judge? Is Billy Collins a good judge? “I mean, I write about saltshakers and knives and forks—and talk like a politician,” he stated proudly. AND what does it say about the herd of contest-prize seekers? So few seem capable of questioning and challenging anything today! Well, perhaps it’s understandable since likely many of them are college grads used to groveling for letters of recommendation, those certifications that one is likely not to question and challenge what shouldn’t be questioned and challenged.

“They [contest administrators] are also free to solicit work from poets who have an established track record with at least a segment of the poetry reading public,” notes Alpaugh. How it pains/irritates me to contemplate this fellow who writes a seemingly analytical article on contests, but fails to examine the very underbelly of the ugly creature. What the hell does “established track record” mean? He can’t even ask himself that question. It’s as if it’s become taboo for those who want to be poet “success” stories. So, I’ll do it for him and even supply the response: “Established” always implies accepted by the established order. Instead of blindly sucking up to that order, we need poets willing to question it and question why it promotes certain kinds of poetry, discourages criticism of it (Rattle sure has done its part!), and why it promotes the likes of Billy Collins et al.

And what about the poets like me who NEVER apply to contests? Alpaugh never even poses the question as a possibility. Oh, but of course, all real poets seek to be contest winners! Christ, it’s like the back of a box of Wheaties or Cheerios! Alpaugh fails to even sniff the very bourgeois stench of the literary established order and the bourgeois type of poetry it peddles today. [Note how the very term “bourgeois” seems to have conveniently gone out of use today.]

“Though English professors would probably be more objective and impartial referees, they lack the name recognition crucial for a successful poetry contest,” argues Alpaugh. But why the fuck would they be more objective? Alpaught can’t seem to ask himself fundamental questions either. Name-recognition? Is that what it’s come down to? What is wrong with these scribbling poets? Tenure implies a certain degree of indoctrination. English profs are likely indoctrinated in the bourgeois mindset of bourgeois aesthetics and bourgeois poetry. “The more famous the judge, the more entry fees. As always, po-biz trumps ars poetica,” notes Alpaugh. BUT why doesn’t he even ask why poets act like a herd trampling towards the famous? Why don’t they behave as individuals instead and question fame? What all of this nonsense is really about is the taming of the poet and literature in an effort to render it sin cojones innocuous highbrow entertainment. Look at the immense difference between the samizdat literature during Stalin’s day and that in America today. It’s a question of powerful and threatening versus tame and playing the poesy game. By the way, Alpaugh wants everyone to know he is “winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize and owner of Small Poetry Press, David Alpaugh has both won and run a Poetry Book Contest.” Whatever the fuck happened to the SIXTIES??? Headline: HIPPIES HATCH BUSINESS-MINDED POETLINGS!

Gerald Locklin Too Many for the Road

Some for the Road: Poems for Gerald Locklin. Edited by Paul Kareem Tayyar. World Parade Books. Huntington Beach, CA. 44pp. 2008. ........................................................... 

Poets ought to take a moment midway through one of their numerous verse-hatching sprees to contemplate Brecht’s “Schlechte Zeit für Lyrik” (“Bad Time for Poetry”). Some for the Road is an anthology of poems praising “outlaw” poet/professor Gerald Locklin, who has gained fame in the small press for, as noted in Fred Voss’ poem, “he even knew Charles Bukowski/ had gotten drunk with him/ exchanged letters with him.” Has it really gotten that bad in the milieu? Todd Fox’s foreword reads like a speech delivered at the annual Used-Car Salesman of the Year Banquet. It’s as embarrassingly eulogizing as it gets in poetry, and that’s pretty damn embarrassing. Do we really need hagiographic volumes like this, considering the state of the world, not to mention the state of the literary established-order? “And to make finding the words even more daunting is the fact that Gerald Locklin is a writer who needs neither our praise nor our criticism!” writes Fox. So, why the slobbering praise? “What does one say about a writer with over 200 published books, a few thousand poems in magazines too many to number…” he continues. For one thing, it says Locklin produced far too much innocuous crap like Bukowski, Lifshin, and so many other “established” poets. But even more revealing, it indicates he was not a threat to the established order. Unsurprisingly, Lifshin is one of the eulogizers in this thin volume: “…How can I write a poem/ about Bukowski and I/ and Locklin looking for a liquor store for Buk…” Why are poets so admiring of poets who publish like beavers with pens up their asses? Rather than Fox’s two pages of vacuous tribute, it would have been interesting to read a compilation of Locklin’s own words of wisdom—are there any? “Do not be mistaken!” hails Fox. “This could easily be about Billy Collins…” Yeah, no doubt! “I mean, I write about saltshakers and knives and forks—and talk like a politician," wrote Collins. “When does a writer know he is unimportant?” asks Fox. “The answer is easy—no one reads or talks about him.” What a simplistic assertion! So, if someone reads or talks about me, then I’m important? It doesn’t matter what I have to say? That assertion underscores just how much Fox and so many other poets so easily and willingly gravitate to the herd-yoke of adulation of the popular and famous. Who were the teachers who taught this guy? They ought to be fired on the spot. Well, it turns out that Locklin was actually one of Fox’s university professors. He was also one of Patricia Cherin’s, who writes in “An Occasional Poem for the Toad”: “I learned panegyric from you/ and encomium/ so here it is.” Perhaps the toad should have also taught the fledgling poet manicomio and suckup. “As his successes, decade after decade, in both the academic and mainstream publishing world piled up, he continued to welcome and make room for us in his classroom and English department,” fawns Fox. It’s enough to make one vomit. What Fox needed was a professor to push him to question and challenge what being accepted really tended to mean in America. Donna Hilbert’s “Ode to the Toad,” as in “O Gerald our toad,” should have perhaps been titled “Ode to the Toadie.” Poem after poem in this volume should not have been published, but rather sent directly to the toad god himself. To add to the inbred nature of the anthology, there’s even a syrupy poem written by son Zach, which ends thusly: “…I remember seeing the cover of Poop,/ the picture of my father naked in the bathtub,/ bearded, longhaired, spectacled,/ with a rubber ducky and an open beer can,/ and thinking,/ But Dad doesn’t drink Coors Light.” Perhaps those lines sadly sum up the reality of the average hippie recycled into tenured university professor. Finally, these poems represent the kind of pap one would expect from poet laureates extolling the hand that feeds. They do not make one think at all. They question and challenge nothing at all. They offer no new insights or interesting thoughts. They are entirely socio-politically disengaged. If they do anything at all, they likely put a smile on Locklin’s warty face and add to the endless publication credits of the poets who wrote them. If Locklin had had any sense at all, he would have told Fox and company: no thanks. This volume epitomizes what poetry has become and is becoming in the USA today. Don’t buy it! Don’t support it!

Praise Song for the Wealthy… White and Black

Why beat a dead horse… poet? The "change" mantra was why. Being unmoved by the "change" promises of DemRep politicians, I did not watch the Obama brouhaha on CNN hosted by fawnalist Wolf Blitzer, who made the brilliant observation that "It looks like the new president is taller than the old one."

However, a couple of days after the "event of a lifetime," I thought I’d take a look at the inaugural poem to be published in an initial 100,000 chapbook copies by Graywolf Press for $20 each. That's an initial $2,000,000. The poem was on the Internet (www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-poem.html?ref=books), so I read it, as well as diverse articles with its regard. Evidently, a dissident like me would not like it.

Elizabeth Alexander was a tenured professor poet at Yale University, from a moneyed black family, and quite comfortably distant (like Wolf Blitzer, Bush and Obama) from the strife currently felt by the average American citizen. Yet she seemed to equate herself with the latter, as in “I know there’s something better down the road./ We need to find a place where we are safe.” Well, there wasn’t much better or safer than the Yale tenured life! Alexander was selected because she was a friend of the new president, not because she was a concrete manifestation of the “change we can believe in” mantra, which she evidently was not. Selecting her was rather a manifestation of the business-as-usual faux-change we couldn’t believe in. Selecting friends or friends of friends was perhaps as commonplace in the literary established-order milieu as it was in the political milieu.

As for the poem, it was the kind of verse that would have been given the stamp of approval by the former Union of Soviet Writers because of its utter innocuousness. The Huffington Post dared not even criticize it, while The Yale Daily News titled its article: “Inaugural poem garners praise.” “It’s a beautiful psalm of praise, celebrating an extraordinary historical event by means of praising ordinariness, or the heroism of everyday life,” noted John Rogers, director of undergraduate studies for the English Department at Yale. But could one actually have expected gut truth from someone in a position like that? Certainly not! What one could expect, however, was the reigning collegiality provoking widespread blandness in academe. Indeed, blandness like the inaugural poem itself.

“I heard, I wept, I took great pride,” noted Yale English professor Leslie Brisman. “Elizabeth Alexander did most admirably in a particularly difficult genre. The poem makes us feel we are all heirs of those who have died so this day could come to be. Praise to her song for walking us forward in that light.” Brisman too was likely bathed in the comfortable light of wealth and the Yale easy life. So, it certainly didn't take much at all to walk her in it. The only thing I liked about the poem was its lack of mention of Jesus and God, though it was nevertheless bathed in an aura of blind positivism in a time where most of us would likely have preferred some gut anger in the poetry--most of us, that is, with the evident exception of the corrupt bankers and their political puppets that stole our life savings. Fuckem. Yes, why wasn't "fuckem" in the poem?

“It reminds us of the way democracy in America is ideally the chance for all people to speak in the public sphere,” noted Yale literature professor Amy Brundage regarding the poem. But what the hell was Brundage talking about? Only the moneyed had voice in the “public sphere”! Only the moneyed would be able to get Obama's ear... just like they got Bush's.

"Elizabeth Alexander is a superb choice for the Obama inauguration: She is from Washington, she represents Obama's generation, and she has written about the civil rights conflict and other historical events that have shaped the character of this country," noted Tree Swenson, executive director of the Academy of American Poets. "At the same time, her intense personal vision reveals the commonplace life illuminated from startling new angles as good poetry always does."

Only an established-order poet like Swenson could have written such a well-turned vacuous statement on a lousy poem. Swenson, by the way, was an evident proponent of politically-correct censorship (see www.theamericandissident.org/AcademyAmericanPoets.htm). Was Alexander also such a proponent?

"I don't envy her," noted ex-U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins. "Such poems are nearly impossible to bring off. Because of the heaviness of the subject the risk is that you will end up under it rather than on top. I wish her well and I'm certainly glad Obama is making room for a poet." But sometimes, perhaps often, no poet was better than a poet. Of course, the highly buffered like Collins wouldn't be able to understand that. Contrary to what he stated, such poems ought to have been very possible indeed to bring off, especially for a president calling for CHANGE! Of course, Obama would have had to select a poet, not of the established order, but rather one with a track record of daring to risk now and then, daring to make waves, and daring to go against the static grain! Change was what was called for! So why the same ole thing, though with a black face? True, the last inaugural poet, Maya Angelou, also had a black face, but wrote Valentine verse. Wanda Coleman, on the other hand, would have been a breath of fresh air… a real CHANGE… and with a black face!

"I think what I hope to symbolize and demonstrate is the important role that arts and literature can play in this moment when the country is thinking so keenly about moving forward and coming together," noted Alexander regarding her poem. Unfortunately, the only role the arts and literature had been playing was an entertainment and diversionary one, certainly not a critical one. And the problem with “coming together” was that it mandated the rejection of critical voices and reality. "You're always trying to catch a rhythm," noted Alexander. Well, while she was always trying to catch a rhythm, I was always trying to catch a corrupt intellectual in flagrant delit, which of course was perhaps a lot easier than trying to catch a rhythm.

Salon.com ran a long blathering open-wide-just-say-ahh article “How to write a poem for the president” by Jim Fisher. “What poet today would allow his or her voice to be yoked to the policy of a presidential administration, even one as popular as Obama's?” asked Fisher. Yet the answer was more than evident: 99% of the poets in America, including Fisher and Alexander. Money, prizes, tenure, sabbaticals, invitation and publication possibilities served to muzzle most poets because most poets did not possess strong principles. Alexander would be making a ton of money by “yoking.” “At what point would the poetry become propaganda?” asked Fisher. Sadly, he must have been keeping his head ostrich-like in the sand. Most American poetry was propaganda by eagerly fulfilling a diversionary role.

Finally, as evidence of the poem’s utter blandness, the established-order itself seemed unable to present a common front of praise. A reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, for example, called the poem “less than praiseworthy,” a euphemism for lousy, while a reviewer for the Chicago Tribune labeled it “prosaic,” another euphemism for lousy.

The inaugural poem was inevitably a poem written in service of the politician, lobbyist, and Wall Street financier oligarchic culture. It would not shake up the status quo because it was the status quo. It was a cliché poem serving to further entrench the cliché of the poet as a harmless personage unlikely to make trouble, which of course served the power structure. It was the kind of poem that only someone entrenched in a safe, comfortable cocoon could write. For a moment in time, Alexander had held the national podium and attention. Imagine the great poem that could have been written and read to surprise, shock, shake up, piss off, and move… perhaps even a poem that would have challenged the demi-god Obama himself! Why couldn't Yale seem to give us more than a Bush or Alexander?

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.  [...]

Anne Waldman

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From the Preface of Triumvirate of the Monkeys
(One of my new poetry chapbooks)

Estoit-il lors temps de moy taire ?

—François Villon

A triumvirate is a political regime dominated by three powerful people.  For the title of this collection of poetry, I thus chose to depict the three infamous see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkeys as a sort of omnipotent intellectual triumvirate reigning, as unwritten rule of law, over the firmly entrenched Academic/Literary Established Order in America.  The god-like figure of intellectual corruption standing behind the triumvirate, William Bulger, was former president of the Massachusetts State Senate. then University of Massachusetts, where he was forced to resign, though had overwhelming support from the faculty. He’d refused to testify in a 2003 Congressional hearing about communications he’d had with his brother, Whitey, mass-murderer, Boston crime boss (today serving a life-sentence in prison). From political hack to university hack has become Massachusetts in a nutshell.  As for the three monkeys, I chose Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets Anne Waldman, Poet Laureate of the USA Natasha Trethewey, and Obama’s PC-Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco.  Of course, many others could have illustrated them, including Robert Pinsky, Gary Snyder, Ferlinghetti, Maya Angelou, Andre Dubus III, Billy Collins, John Ashbury, Mark Doty, Nikki Giovanni, Louise Gluck, Martín Espada, C. D. Wright, and Franz Wright. 

Much of my creative criticism has been directed against the triumvirate, though the latter is essentially impervious to such criticism.  Why therefore bother?  In early 2010, an anonymous personage, pseudonym’ing as Mr. Spock, posed that question on The American Dissident blog site: 

If you really disdain the academy, then why this blog and journal that seem to be obsessed by it and its petty squabbles? How can you afford to spend so much energy on your bitterness? I grant that I'm not responding to your arguments but I don't understand, from a mental health standpoint, how you can go on making them and making them.

In the above message, four derogatory terms are used with my regard—disdain, obsessed, bitterness, and petty squabbles.  The “academy,” or as I term it the Academic/Literary Established Order, represents the very core of the nation’s intellect.  So, why shouldn’t I be interested in it?  In fact, why are so few poets and artists interested in how it tends to scorn FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and VIGOROUS DEBATE, preferring instead speech codes, collegiality, cronyism, and resultant toadyism?

What I disdain is not the “academy” per se, but rather its cogs—professors, poets, deans, librarians, publishers, cultural apparatchiks, etc.—who disdain debate and freedom of speech.  If the majority of those cogs were open to those cornerstones of democracy, I would not have any disdain.  As for the ivory tower, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education notes that about 60% of universities possess policies that seriously restrict freedom of speech. Even in the institutions not possessing such policies, many professors clearly do not appreciate the First Amendment.  Speak the PC-party line, or keep your mouth shut constitutes their prevailing rule of order. 

Moreover, it is not a question of obsessed, but rather one of creative impulse.  In essence, provoking academics and poets often provides me with interesting material.  If writing poetry and drawing satirical cartoons from such material constitute obsession, then any interest can be subjectively deemed thusly.  I mentioned this to the  anonymity in question, but he or she remained silent. Epithets serve to divert attention away from uncomfortable truths.  It is likely the anonymity was an academic and/or poet, who did not possess the courage to do as I do and thus felt compelled to dismiss what I do as disdain, obsessed, and bitterness.  Standing up and speaking openly, not behind closed doors as most professors tend to do, enables me to maintain a certain human dignity that so many willingly sacrifice for career, fame, and money. 

How to explain to poets why I chose to stand up and read poems critical of the poetry-event organizers, who in 2001 paid me $800 and provided a hotel room gratis for 10 days as an invited poet in Canada?  Of course, I was never invited back.  But I kept my dignity, while sacrificing who knows how much money.  If I had been a nice smiley-face poet, I probably would have been invited back every year like many of the other smiley-face poets.  That’s about $10,000 or more since 2001!  But the 149 other remunerated poets at the Festival International de la Poésie de Trois-Rivières would not understand.  Evidently, the anonymity would not understand.  So, I suggested he or she consider moving to Saudi Arabia and perhaps adorning a burqa. From my perspective, the time I spend denouncing intellectual fraud is well spent. But from the “cog” perspective, it could only be perceived as a sign of bitterness.  The important question regarding these things is why so many citizens—the vast majority—, from a mental health standpoint, do not give a damn about intellectual corruption and tend to dismiss anybody who does as bitter. Most citizens seem to prefer Stepford-wife positivism, censorship, self-censorship, and authoritarianism to the First Amendment. That certainly reflects my experiences testing the waters of democracy. 

Finally, at the end of this collection are poems written during my two-month winter stint teaching English on the USS Boone, a military frigate, which sailed from Norfolk, VA to Columbia, then back and dumping me off at Panama City.  I’d also done a stint several years earlier on the battleship USS Bataan.  Those two experiences were unique.  Once I was a tenure-track professor at corrupt Fitchburg State University (MA).  If I’d succeeded in getting tenure, I’d probably be writing dull articles on geolinguistics today and wouldn’t have gotten to do stints at sea, nor in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Martha’s Vineyard Island. BTW, Estoit-il lors temps de moy taire is a refrain from a poem written in 1463, “Ballade du Guichetier Garnier.”  Imagine, a lone poet stood up for Freedom of Speech in the darkness of the Middle Ages.  “Should I have kept my mouth shut?” he wrote over and again. Most say, yes.  Villon and I say, no. 

 

Kate Ryan

Issue #18                                        Winter/Spring 2009

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Editorial Issue #18/ 2009

Against the Established Order—Check out the new AD blog wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com—

Given the times, The American Dissident ought to be receiving a lot of submissions decrying corrupt politicians, left and right, corrupt lobbyists, corrupt CEOs, intellectually-corrupt professors and poets, etc.  On the contrary, it does not.  And what it does receive tends to be scribbled by writers who cannot seem to comprehend the journal’s focus and guidelines. Poets, editors, and other writers seem content relegating American literature to mere ornamentation. Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics boasts, for example, a blurb from Howard Zinn, but publishes interviews with Pinsky, Hass, Kooser, and others anointed by the established order.  In that light, how could it possibly take my criticism of the National Endowment for the Arts seriously (see pp 30-38)?  “We don't do rants, which is what your piece reads like to me. It's really self-involved and paranoid,” wrote co-editor Joel Whitney, who does not have the guts to publish those who would criticize the NEA, preferring instead to publish self-admitting sellouts like Billy Collins, who states unabashedly:  "Suddenly you're asked to stop looking at specifics—I mean, I write about saltshakers and knives and forks—and talk like a politician.”  Well, I don’t write about saltshakers, nor do I talk like a politician (left or right-wing), therefore I must surely be, in the words of Whitney, “blinded by ego and rage.”  A decade ago, Michael Parenti (Z Mag) simply wrote me: “we’re not interested in literature.”  In retrospect, his statement makes sense.  
          The NEA will not be according The American Dissident public grant monies because its panelists unanimously proclaimed: the “artistic merit of the publication is low; the design and readability of the publication is [sic] poor.”  Some pipedream that was, eh?! In vain, I challenged the NEA on its negative unanimity, asked for precision, and got none at all (read the essay). After all, I’m just a citizen “blinded by ego and rage.”  Clearly, the NEA’s decision was a political one, and such political decisions should not be legal… and perhaps are not, but what the hell can I do against the vast government wall?  
          On a positive note, the Concord Free Public Library allowed me to hold a watercolor display in its art gallery for the month of August. There, I was actually permitted to criticize the local pillars, while advertising The AD.  One curator noted: “The only thing I know is that I have never seen anything like your work in the Gallery.  You don't soothe, you awaken.”  That alone made it worthwhile. I asked curator Nick Capasso of DeCordova Museum to check it out. He did.  “While DeCordova Museum does have a long track record of presenting politically engaged contemporary art, I’m afraid that we will not be able to include your work in our exhibition program. Good luck fining [sic] other venues for your work.”  So, I painted a watercolor depicting him as a Nazi at the gates of the art museum autocratically determining acceptable aesthetics (see p. 3).  He’s depicted in the center of the illustration surrounded by colleagues Kois and Rosenfield.  The pig and hearts actually exist at the museum, which tends to promote, despite Capasso’s assertion, diversionary art that doesn’t question or challenge much of anything at all. Now, when was the last time you’ve heard of an artist satirizing an art curator? The editor wishes to thank subscribers for making The American Dissident possible.  Robbins Library (Arlington, MA) is a new institutional subscriber!  

Michael Dirda

Notes on Michael Dirda's Review of Ted Kooser's Splitting an Order

You need to write a book on how to get so excited over such a banal poem, “Painting the Barn,” by established-order ex-insurance executive, former poet laureate of the USA Ted Kooser, “the most [apart from Billy Collins] accessible and enjoyable major poet in America,” according to you.  Have you ever wondered what “major poet” implies besides linguistically deft?  Clearly, it implies a poet who never makes waves, never goes against the grain of literary established order, and thus never bucks the ivory-tower system.  Is that good?  Methinks not at all! 

Perhaps Kooser is “enjoyable” to you, but why should he be enjoyable to me and other individual thinkers?  Sure, hordes of academics could likely write 350-page dissertations on that poem, but does that make it great… or even simply good?  And isn’t great subjective?  Yet you and so many other established-order cogs would have people believe it is an objective term.  Now, what I look for in a poem is obviously NOT what you look for:  unusual wisdom, as opposed to sentimentality, for example, over a dead dog.  What you and other literati of the established-order do is promote the innocuous, like Ted Kooser, because the innocuous does not upset established-order literati.  It is really quite that simple.

Few poems contain unusual wisdom like, for example, Villon’s “Estoit-il lors temps de moy taire?,” Jeffers’ “Finally I say let demagogues and world-redeemers babble/ their emptiness/ To empty ears; twice duped is too much./ Walk on gaunt shores and avoid the people” and Neruda’s “Nací para golpear las puertas, para empuñar los golpes,/ para encender las últimas y arrinconadas sombras/en donde se alimenta la araña venenosa./ Serán nombrados.”    

What we need are poets with guts like Villon, who dared criticize the ruling Parisian theocrats during his time and risked death by hanging.  Where are those poets today in America who RISK in their poetry upsetting established-order apparatchiks, who promote coopted, innocuous poetry… and thus weaken literature, dulling its blade, rendering it palatable for the established order? 

Why not try being original and not push celebrity literati in your literati columns?  Why not seek out rare poets who really do RISK speaking rude truth in their verse—RISK not getting tenure, RISK not getting grants, RISK not getting invitations, RISK not getting awards, RISK not getting reviewed in your columns?  Nature and feelings are fine in poetry, BUT poetry should NOT be limited to those things.  “Such imagery from a vanishing America further enforces the overall autumnal quality of these recent poems,” you write regarding Kooser’s new book.  Wow.  “Overall autumnal quality”!  Now, that’s a good one!  What about overall RISK and bold TRUTH TELLING? 

“But if you reflexively dismiss modern verse as dauntingly esoteric or embarrassingly corny or tediously singsong, you need to try Ted Kooser,” you conclude.  Rather than “dauntingly esoteric,” I find modern verse devoid of any criticism at all of the academic/literary established order machinery, professors, and favored icons diligently working to keep poetry castrated. 

 

 

 

Billy Collins

Diversionary Rhetoric, an Unconscious Defense Mechanism... and Two Poems

When regarding particular individuals, my blog entries did not seek to malign those individuals per se, but rather to underscore points in need of further discussion or obstruction to vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy. The blog entries served to illustrate general principles, as opposed to underscoring the mere shortcomings of the individual poet, editor, librarian, or whomever in question. If in fact, a statement was wrong, it was up to the individual to respond and bring that to my attention. I had no problem admitting to and rectifying errors. What was the big deal? Well, apparently, it was a big deal for perhaps many, many citizens.

David Alpaugh, a poet, wrote me out of the blue to suggest I read a poem he published on Rattle’s website. His name rang a distant bell and got me wondering, especially due to the last denigrating sentence of his email.

G. Tod Slone:
My visual poem "Strip Taze," published last summer by Rattle, has now been archived on their website, along with an audio of my reading.
Since my poem is about "dissidence," I thought you'd enjoy seeing and hearing it. Just click on the link below (and do read and listen to the entire poem, Tod, before rushing to your p.c. to attribute it to Lois Gold or one of the many other poets and artists who appear on the Rattle website). www.rattle.com/blog/2009/01/strip-taze-by-david-alpaugh/ [see the poem below]
Best, David Alpaugh

A while ago, I’d waged “battle” with Tim Green, editor of Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century (whatever the hell kind of poetry that was). Eventually, it dawned on me what Alpaugh was referring to in that last sentence. It was his review, which I’d incorrectly attributed to Lois Gold because a picture she'd done appeared embedded in it with her name under it. When it was brought to my attention, I rectified that error.

According to Wikipedia, “A Red herring is an argument, given in reply, that does not address the original issue. Critically, a red herring is a deliberate attempt to change the subject or divert the argument.” Indeed, diversionary rhetoric includes the focusing on one or several details, while avoiding the general argument in question. Tim Green had excelled in it. Mather Schneider had also excelled in it. In Alpaugh’s case, he focused in on two errors I'd made regarding my critique of his essay on poetry contests. We were still working it out. In order for me to rectify an error, the individual must somehow present his argument in a cogent way.

In any case, I finally decided to take a gander at Alpaugh’s poem. Of course, it was only one poem. Thus, one would be hard pressed to generalize regarding Alpaugh's poetry in general. After all, who hasn't written and published a bad poem? Alpaugh wanted me to include its URL: http://www.rattle.com/blog/2009/01/strip-taze-by-david-alpaugh/. Also, I include the poem below,which illustrates several pertinent points regarding the general direction poetry had been taking today. Alpaugh evoked several interesting points that needed to be addressed.

“I'm surprised to learn that at a time when there are so many flesh and blood issues for a 'dissident' to speak up about you plan to expend so much time and energy swatting a gnat like me," he noted.

Actually, I seemed to get most of my creative inspiration from gnats—NEA gnats, Rattle gnats, Chamber of Commerce gnats, Concord Cultural Council gnats, Thoreau Institute gnats, DeCordova Museum curator gnats, selectmen gnats, reference-librarian gnats—you name it.

It was such an easy thing to express criticism of distant wars and presidents. Still, it was important to do so. But what was perhaps more difficult and even more fruitful was to express criticism of events and persons in ones immediate backyard—grassroots, as they said! To do the latter was certainly more RISKY… though convincing those who never did the latter of that RISK was likely not possible. One fellow, who countered me on the concept, argued that Homeland Security might come after him because he'd criticized the war. Tell me about it, gnat! In any case, pertinent issues and principles often stemmed from debate with gnats. Recall that Alpaugh had called himself a "gnat," not I. We've corresponded. He was an intelligent person... not a "gnat."

“Strip Taze” was a bad poem, something Billy Collins or Robert Pinsky might have written. How could Alpaugh have thought I might have actually appreciated it? It was the kind of poem I received, as editor of The American Dissident, all too often and immediately threw into the garbage bucket. Why?

Well, it manifested zero risk on the part of the poet, zero confrontation with the established-order status quo, zero experience base, and jaded language as in that “don’t taze me bro” inanity. In that sense, it was an innocuous poem amongst thousands and thousands of innocuous poems. Poets who never RISKED were poets who simply could not comprehend the concept of RISK. That had been my experience. Most poets could likely not comprehend it because most were too cowardly or too unimaginative to RISK their paltry poet careers.

What Alpaugh first needed was to be tazed prior to writing a poem on being tazed. And I’d be first to want to publish it! What were the nation’s professors and teachers teaching future poets? What a lame world of poets they’ve been creating. Why were so many of them not willing to show their students that there was indeed another way besides the established-order Rattle way? RISK and confrontation with the established-order way!

Needless to say, I sent my comments to Alpaugh, who responded. Now, that was called vigorous debate! Bravo to him… seriously! And wasn’t that what a poet ought to do… engage in vigorous debate, cornerstone of democracy? Wasn’t that what a professor and teacher ought to do?

Alpaugh, however, could not, as predicted, seem to comprehend the RISK concept. “Although I'm no fan of the cliché workshop-word ‘risky,’ if ‘Strip Taze’ can be shown to be ‘innocuous’ and used to encourage the real thing I'll gladly be your whipping boy!” he noted. Was that a clever way to disparage the concept?

Again, I was not looking for a “whipping boy.” Alpaugh had actually inspired me regarding diversionary rhetoric, which could indeed often be an unconscious ploy, rather than a conscious red-herring one. He'd provoked the idea's final concretisation.

Anyhow, that was my humble opinion on Alpaugh’s poem, the one Rattle must have thought a very good one indeed. I also did not like the cutesy impression of the poem upon the picture of a tazer.

One might compare it with the poem I wrote several years ago after being tricked, then jumped, kicked relentlessly while on the ground, and robbed by three black youths in Baton Rouge at nine in the morning in front of the public library. Not one of the literary journals I sent it to in Louisiana would publish it. The Baton Rouge newspaper, The Advocate, wouldn't touch it either. Evidently, it was not sufficiently PC. Would Rattle publish it? Certainly not! Except for here, it remains unpublished today.

Guard Down in Louisiana
(A Welcoming Initiation to Getting Older in the Deep South)

Self-assured the black youth chatted me up, and
insufficiently leery, if not like a damn old fool,
I bit the bait, for readily I talked with strangers

In a split second he scurried round me, a large
red-eyed rodent with a dated Afro and,
as my eyes followed instinctively,
my face received a sharp-ringed punch
from one of his black lieutenants, though
I don’t even recall it—the scars bear witness—,
and down I went over the cretin now crouched
behind me, cracking my head on the cement

What brilliant street-wise strategy! Bravo to the
parents and educationist pedagogy!

An endless bout of vicious kicks assailed my body,
head, and mind, leaving me upon my back
like a stunned carcass in the slaughterhouse,
steel-piked in the skull, or perhaps more like a Jew
at the mercy of Brown Shirts stomping jackboots.

Quickly realizing the three soul-less souls serious
in intent, I hollered for help until finally they fled,
running off with my wallet and keys, salivating like
pit bulls back to their cliché hip-hop dawg horseshit.

Dazed, still clutching my camera with the right hand,
I stood up and stumbled on back to the car,
reluctantly humiliated, for I was a man getting older,
caught off guard and failing to defend myself.

Later, they’d go on a $1,000 shopping spree at Wal-Mart
—not for food, but for guns, sneakers and play stations.
Later still, they’d lay in wait for another unsuspecting citizen;
sure, I’d try publishing an account of it in The Advocate
which, bound to the local Chamber of Commerce,
would evidently want no part of it.

My blood coagulated in multiple droplets
—dried dark purple in a large area upon the cement
in the bright Louisiana sunshine
there by the public library, by the city theater, there
by the opera house in downtown Baton Rouge
—no longer quite part of me.

In my past I’d seen similar splotched areas elsewhere,
but only now did I fully realize what they meant
for in them lay part of a man’s soul.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
N.B.: As a white professor at the time at Grambling State University, an all black public institution, the assault would leave me nevertheless paranoid and distrusting of black youth. Also, the lack of justice or even interest therein would leave me somewhat angry; for the cops, The Advocate (Baton Rouge), Wal-Mart, and credit card companies, I was a mere business statistic—a write-off. Needless to say, the literary journals in Louisiana (Southern Literary Journal, Turnrow, Louisiana Literature, New Orleans Review, Exquisite Corpse et al) were not interested in publishing this poem.

Kevin Larimer

What has changed, in the last few years, is that the advice to at least act in a positive way has taken on a harsher edge. The penalty for nonconformity is going up, from the possibility of job loss and failure to social shunning and complete isolation.
—Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

This review-essay was perhaps triggered by the rejection of my request by Poets & Writers to list The American Dissident with other journals listed. Notice of its existence was sent to P$W staff members, not one of whom responded. Unfortunately, I could not locate the email addresses for the magazines 24 board members, so could not inform Celia Currin, CEO of WhisperStreet.biz; Allison J. Davis, Director of Communications and Media for The Riverside Church; Lynn C. Goldberg, CEO Goldberg McDuffie Communications, Inc.; John W. Holman, Jr., partner at Hintz, Holman, & Robillard, Inc.; Ellen R. Joseph, attorney/partner at Kaye Scholer, LLP; Susan D. McClanahan, entrepreneur and education specialist; Theodore C. Rogers, general partner at Private Equity Investments American Industrial Partners; Shen Tong, president of VFinity; or Galen Williams, founder of P$W, Inc. and owner of Galen Williams Landscape Design, Inc.

Nor could I inform P$W ‘s Secretary of the Board, Helen Macioce, former President of Merrill Lynch Bank & Trust Company. Merrill Lynch and poetry? Yep! Evidently, reviews were never objective, even when reviewers would like us to believe they were. Just the same, a number of objective observations were included in this particular review and culled from the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Poets$Writers.

Perhaps nonprofits like P$W, receiving thousands of dollars in public monies, ought not to be in the business of blacklisting literary journals like The American Dissident, a non-capitalist magazine of democracy-friendly poetry, writing, and debate. Well, P$W’s “Literary MagNet” rubric reported on certainly more “worthy” journals, including Monkeybicycle, which was “considering submissions of one-sentence stories,” Literary Bird Journal (i.e., LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts), and McSweeney’s known not for its ideas or original focus, but rather for its “innovative packaging.” Evidently, those journals would likely please and certainly not upset the easily offended bourgeois clientele nourished every other month by P$W. Yet should “pleasing” be the purpose of writing? Wouldn’t writing better serve society if it questioned and challenged and otherwise went against the grain of entrenched politicos, business leaders, and their poet/writer/professor puppets content with the intrinsically corrupt status quo?

Of the myriad poetry magazines and journals in America, Poets & Writers magazine certainly best represented the business of poetry and writing, which was, of course, precisely what was wrong with poetry and writing. In fact, that thought provoked me to Google “business poetry.” Numerous entries, of course, were listed. “Nick has visited various company websites, found the closest thing to a Corporate Overview, and then set about rearranging the words into poetry,” stated Nick Asbury, who included the following poem to illustrate his book, Corpoetics:

KPMG
I am strong.
I am vibrant.
I am committed to a vision.

I am tremendous.
I am quality.
I will lead people to excellence.

I am delighted.
I am respected.
I am very greatly valued.

What am I?
I am the best.

In any case, the well-remunerated staff of Poets $ Writers had to confront, every several months, the task of filling the 140-plus pages of the next given issue of the magazine. Well, pages 79-140 actually consisted entirely of ads, while even pages 1-79 contained many full and partial-page ads. So, how to fill perhaps 20-30 pages with actual writing that, at least on the surface, might appear to be minimally fresh? Hopefully, subscribers weren’t simply content reading through the mountain of ads and celebrity-writer rehash, though it was quite possible they were. Part of the likely role of P$W was to act as a social community like Tweeter or Facebook, thus serving to comfort the many poets and writers, especially of the younger tie-and-jacket set, for whom solitude was unbearable. But the main role of P$W was to obviously push and bolster the academic/literary established order of writing for the sake of writing.

On New Year’s morning, I’d picked up the copy of P$W off my table and began leafing through it, which immediately provoked a flurry of negative thought. It had been hanging around on my table for over a week and was the last issue of J’s subscription which, thanks to me, would not be renewed. I’d avoided opening it… because deep within me I didn’t feel like tangling with the inevitable crap I knew I’d damn well find within it. Even a battler like me needed a moment of peace.

What certainly characterized that issue, more than anything else, as mentioned above, was the plethora of advertisements. Indeed, more than anything else, the magazine constituted a compendium of money-making ads pertaining to the writing industry. It would have been interesting to discover how much P$W raked in every year from advertising revenues, subscriptions, and taxpayer monies in the form of grants, etc. Perhaps each issue pulled in well over $100,000. In any event, the cover illustration was so bland that I didn’t even notice it until reading Kevin Larimer’s editorial on just how “stunning” it was. Self-vaunting (thinly-veiled or straightforward), backslapping, and positivity had become the prime traits of the literary established order today. Negative critique of poets and writers was simply not permitted. Larimer informed that Chip Kidd, the artist, always created “prize-winning ideas for book jackets.” Larimer was too far indoctrinated (his career depended on it) to ponder what “prize-winning” so often really implied, including base popularity and bourgeois-friendly. Sadly, most poets and writers simply groveled for prizes. Few wondered about thee often intrinsically corrupt nature of prizes. The writer today had become an amazingly incurious, conforming creature. In any case, Larimer’s editorial was as innocuous as it got and ended with the following happy-face message: “When inspired, you are an inspiration.” Moreover, his little interview with Kidd informed that the latter had been designing book jackets for the last 24 years. “I’m mainly seen as a book-jacket person,” noted the latter. Not a word of wisdom in that interview—just 100% filler fluff.

When I first opened the magazine, I noticed the first two pages were full-page ads. Now, that was honest in a sense. One of the ads was for Norman Mailer’s Writers Colony in Provincetown, MA. That spurred me to say something to J since we’d visited PTown less than a month ago. I’d mentioned how the Writers Colony served to further Mailer’s name and image more than anything else and that as a nonprofit it also served to shield his estate from taxes. A lot of dubious money issues were involved behind the glorious doors of the 501 c3 nonprofit designation. A large picture of Mailer was featured, not as the old guy with two crutches I’d seen several years ago in PTown, but as a much younger man. That kind of ageism was rampant in our society and was intrinsically fraudulent. I’d much rather see the wrinkled face of life than the young face of yesteryear. But youth oblige was the name of our society’s deceitful mask.

Page 3 was also a full-page ad, featuring the big smiling goateed face of a Fairleigh Dickinson University student praising the university in an egregious example of thinly-veiled academic self-vaunting business as usual. Indeed, was it not aberrant that colleges and universities spent so much money today on fortifying and distorting their images? Was it not aberrant for them to actually have majors in PR and even worse yet, to use students to push their smiley-faced messages?

“Juan, you’re the first student we’ve asked to be in our new ad campaign,” asked FDU.
“I’m honored,” replied Juan Gaddis.
“Do you know why we asked you?” asked FDU.
[“Because I have black skin and a Latino name?” said I.]
“Because I’m a gifted writer and a fine human being,” said Juan.

And on and on went the cutesy ad. Page 4 featured the first page of the table of contents with the photo of a nameless Latino face with the words: “Poetry gives a sense of beauty… It reminds us to feel human again.” Nothing like banality spewed from the mouths of happy-faced poets and writers! On the bottom of the page was a smiling young black female with no words. The next page was yet another full-page ad! P$W evidently incarnated the happy-face nature of writing today. That thought led me to hunt for an appropriate quote to preface this review. Then it was time for more java. In the kitchen, I thus microwaved a cup and suddenly found myself bellowing out a tune, no doubt out of tune: “Inspiration shoves me into negative phases! Inspiration shoves me into nay-gative phases! Always I am inspire-errred by craaaaaaap!” I chuckled aloud, then walked back to the writing table or rather chaise longue in the alcove where I wrote. Ah, then I noticed “INSPIRATION” written on the front cover of the magazine. Truly, the cover’s blandness had somehow de-highlighted that highlight.

Cecilia Ward Jones’ essay was featured in what editor Larimer announced as a new rubric, “Why We Write.” So, I forced myself to read through it only to discover Jones wrote because at first she was bored, then now because she was simply compelled. No wisdom at all was to be found in that essay—just an autobiography of an underachieving positive “perseverer.” Would editor Larimer be open to the negative as inspiration? If so, that would have certainly turned off his advertisers! Imagine him publishing this review under that rubric, as an example of why I write. No way, Jose! “Discover the Writer’s Life in New York City,” noted the full-page ad purchased by The New School, which was of course nothing but The Same Old School. “You’re Not in Iowa Anymore,” noted the next page, another full-page ad, purchased by Emerson College, which then simply listed its writing faculty. Thus, beaver poetling debutants would hunt through the names in search of a literary icon and when they found him or her, they’d send off an application form.

What one found in P$W, more than anything else besides the ads, were names, tonnage of names and banal cutesy one-liners like Ashbery’s famous “Writing is a meatloaf sandwich.” One would be hard-pressed to find anything remotely touching on unique ideas, including the shoving of steak knives into the heart of flatulent poetry. Instead, it was the ole name-game celebrity at its basest: Gluck, Pinsky, Dove, Wright, Angelou, Hall, Collins, Ryan, Ashbery, etc., over and over again, raking in the huge bucks on their names, not on anything unique they had to say. It was as if filling an article with well-known poet names, backslapping, and general positivity somehow made it good or rather worthy as a P$W contribution.

From every page I turned, the crap jumped right out at me trying its best to suffocate me. “There were two kinds of truths, good truths and hurtful ones,” noted T. C. Boyle under the “Page One Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin” rubric. Oh my, hurtful truths! “It was the cruelest winter,” noted Joshua Ferris. Et alors? In today’s New York Times, one of the headlines read: “When Everyone Is an Honor Student.” Well, the same was evidently applicable today to the poets in P$W: “When Everyone Is a Prize Winner.” Kevin Nance informed that TriQuarterly had eliminated the (well-remunerated) position of longtime editor Susan Hahn and would cease publishing as a print journal, and we were all supposed to be deeply saddened. Hahn of course was deeply saddened. But why didn’t Hahn, if she was really passionate, offer to run the journal for nothing? Hell, I did that with The American Dissident. The passion kept me publishing it… even if at a slight monetary loss. When there was sincere passion, there was no need for expensive paper and paid staff.

There was truly just so much crap I could bear reading, but I pushed myself onwards just the same. John Dufresne’s essay, “Writing Your First Novel,” began with a load of banality: “Where do you begin writing a novel? At the desk, of course. And how do you begin?” And blablabla. Why couldn’t I write essays like his for money? Evidently, money didn’t sufficiently compel me to do so. What compelled me instead, as mentioned, was crap or in more presentable terminology, “I write because there is some lie I want to expose” (Orwell). Embedded in Dufresne’s essay was a list: “Nine Ways to Begin Writing.” What so many needed instead were “Nine Ways to Stop Writing… Crap.” Yet the established order certainly depended on filler crap—tonnage of filler crap—, opium of bourgeois poets and writers. Dufresne stirred us to think of intriguing ideas like the “taste of Play-Doh” and “Happy Puppet Syndrome” to help inspire us to write… more crap.

Next I waded through an article on—surprise!—writer’s block, “How to Get Unstuck.” There must be anthologies now on writer’s block. Dennis Cass, author of the article, specialized in the psychology of writer’s block. Soon, if not already, we’d have specialists in the neurology, sociology, anthropology, and mulitculturalology of writer’s block. There was no end to the writer’s inanity rainbow as long as cash, prizes, and tenured posts lay awaiting in a golden bucket at the other end. If one could get over the tediousness, one would likely discover the sad hilarity. But how to get over the tediousness of the history of academic scholarship in creativity and writer’s block? Sorry, I couldn’t. “If you’re experiencing mechanized thought, then the answer might be as simple as going for a walk or reading poetry,” suggested Cass. “If you’re struggling with functional fixedness, the answer might not be so clear.” Now, if that incited you to read more of his essay, then surely there must be an academic post with tenure waiting for you. Next, Drew University and Lesley University presented themselves in two full-page ads.

The special section in this issue was on inspiration. Managing editor Suzanne Pettypiece, who thought up the brilliant idea to interview “Five Writers Who Practice Other Arts,” posed some pretty fluffy questions: “Do you paint as you’re writing or as you’re revising?” “Are there certain periods in which you dedicate more time to painting or writing?” “Do you ever feel pulled between the painting and the writing?” I mean, who gave a damn? In fact, I’d feel bad for the writer, Michael Kimball, who had to answer them, if he weren’t starving for publicity and fame. And what about the writer who cooked or was it the cook who wrote, Michelle Wildgen? “How does cooking play into your writing process?” “Do you ever use cooking when you’re stuck in a certain spot in a story?” “Are there certain periods where you turn more to cooking or more to writing?” “I cook in the same way that I write,” brilliantly responded Wildgen.

Then there was the list of 50 celebrity living authors who were supposed to “shake us awake.” Let’s see, for example: “Tom Wolfe—The white suit” (Yes, that was all!); “Billy Collins—He’s made accessible a dirty word…”; “Kay Ryan—The quietness and measured quality of her poetry…” [did that imply that unmeasured quality of poetry was bad?]; “Cormac McCarthy—He made it okay for literary snobs to read bloody westerns…”; “John Ashbery—One of the best and most enduring poets that this country is lucky enough to have. Period.” (Yes, best unquestioning and unchallenging poet cheerleader for the literary established order. Period.); “Lawrence Ferlinghetti—The last bohemian [multimillionaire]… his audience treats him like a rock star [because it has been Beatnik and celebrity-indoctrinated and didn’t want to know that he acted as grand censor at City Lights Bookstore]; and “Frederick Seidel—Sure, he’s filthy rich, but the man knows how to spend his money. He owns four Ducati motorcycles and writes poems about them.” Number 50 was the darling of the Democrat-party-lining, PC-herd Barack Obama. Give me a freakin’ break! Could we imagine George W. on the list for his book? Of course not!

Okay, I was beginning to feel as if I were toiling as a specialized skin-diver trying to unplug a massive blockage in a great literary cesspool. Well, the last time I enjoyed (more or less) such skin-diving was back in 2008 when I ripped out a 15-page plug on Best American Poetry of 2007 (see www.theamericandissident.org/Reviews-BestAmericanPoetry2007.htm).

Under the rubric “First Things First,” editor Larimer as poet-god chose 12 poets, noting that over the past four years he’d “shined a spotlight on fifty-four poets at a crucial moment in their careers: the beginning. For some reason, each “beginner” possessed an MFA. Perhaps Larimer had struck a deal with his many MFA advertisers to highlight their MFA grads. The verse highlighted was quite innocuously bad in general. Unsurprisingly, none of it questioned and challenged the status quo… even remotely. Indeed, these were up-and-coming poets of the literary-septic system here to spread diversion. Some of the worst verse was perhaps the following: “Spring-stink, the world heaves with lust” (Kate Darbin); “I Google myself,/ and I’m a racecar driver” (Justin Markes); “Thomas Edison loved a doll/ with a tiny phonograph inside/ because he made her speak” (Robin Ekiss); and “the gold rope, the wick pierces a flower’s heart/ to be blue this way of flame is to be new always (Ish Klein). As for the advice these “beginners” gave, not one of them mentioned questioning and challenging. Instead, the advice tended to be, well: “it may sound hypocritical, but try not to fixate on contests” (Darbin); “read book contest winners and the work of the poets who selected them” (Kristin Naca); and “just keep writing and revising your work” (Kiki Petrosino). Yes, brilliant student-poetlings indeed!

Unsurprisingly, the final essay of this issue, “Inside Indie Bookstores,” pushed the commerce of writing. “Once the authors, agents, editors, publishers, and salespeople have finished their jobs, it’s up to these stalwarts to get books where they belong: into the hands of readers.” The essay highlighted Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books bookstore. As for the last rubric, “Bullseye,” one literary journal (Subtropics—University of Florida) got a free ad (unless of course it paid for it) and was highlighted vis-à-vis how to submit to it. Not much in that little article with the exception of the same-old, same-old celebrity name droppings—we published blabla and blablabla. Didn’t anyone besides me get tired of seeing that same-old, same-old crap?

Finally, more amazing than the writing stuff in P$W were the readers of the stuff, who far from rejecting the crap as I did, ingurgitated eagerly and thankfully. Cite Mike Powell: “I stumbled upon your publication and felt compelled to reach out. Within your pages, I felt sincerity, pride, and truth. The type of sincerity that makes you feel accompanied, the type of pride that only the proud can possess.” And blablabla. Cite also Erin Steeley: I just finished turning the pages of Poets & Writers Magazine and was astounded when I saw the black bar at the top of the last page informing me of your nonprofit status and mission. I had chosen the magazine originally for its quality writing, but found this to be a great treat at the end. I am glad that I unknowingly chose a magazine that is doing something as meaningful with its profits as you are.” Steeley was yet another reader who never learned to question and challenge. Indeed, some nonprofit organizations paid their CEOs six-figure salaries. Perhaps P$W paid its CEOs six-figure salaries. Other nonprofits backed America’s wars all the time. P$W as a nonprofit backed the established order, which backed war all the time… currently orchestrated by #50, Obama. Yes, P$W “supports the all-important work of cultivating literary activity in urban and rural communities throughout the United States.” Sadly, however, the type of “literary activity” it supported would always be the kind that did not question the established order.

MONEY would always be detrimental to the health of poets and writers, for MONEY would always be distributed by organizations like P$W, Academy of American Poets, Poetry Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts to those not questioning that MONEY or those organizations. MONEY would always serve in the interests of the established order to bury the rare voices of dissidence. Business would always thrust its controlling fingers into everything. Just take a look at the board of directors of P$W!