Showing posts with label complaint. Show all posts
Showing posts with label complaint. Show all posts

Monday, April 28, 2008

Guest Writer: An Open Letter to Alan Cordle

Dear friend and mentor, Alan Cordle,

You can't imagine how hard this is for me to say, but I still feel what you wrote in your Comment following my last post is just plain unacceptable. What you threatened to do on Poets.org was to tell dirty secrets about someone if they didn't knuckle under, and I say that even if you're right that "if" makes it wrong. It always does and it always will, and I wish you would decide never to threaten that way ever again.

I wish you would come out and say that too, Alan. Go ahead, spill the beans on Roy Cohn or Max Mosley all you can, or Karl Rove, but only if you have to spill them to make the world a better place, never just to control it! Come out and say you've learned that the hard way, and that you want everyone to know you stand for that too.

Having said that, dear friend Alan, I understand entirely where you're coming from, the monumental frustration you feel, and above all the anger that someone who blew that golden whistle so well and so far should have to suffer so much for it. The ignominy that in the end Alan Cordle should be the one who's so often attacked under the cover of darkness, and disgraced!

So I want to say right here is that you are in very good company in your war, Alan Cordle, and to be sure everyone understands exactly what I mean by that, I'll just call a spade a spade. I myself received several harassing e-mails from Janet Holmes just this month, for example--and I had never even heard of her until she assumed "Christopher Woodman" must be Alan Cordle, and thought she would demolish his cover and, of course, little old ME in Thailand (what a shock it must have been to find out I didn't have any—I tried to talk to her on the phone but she refused!). Indeed, Janet Holmes is quite a well-known critic and poet at Boise State University, I think, but was involved in a number of scandals that Foetry uncovered. That's why she's so vindictive. Indeed, I have watched her try to get at Alan Cordle ever since—I've seen it with my own eyes on my own iMac screen!

I also got savaged by Joan Houlihan a number of times on the internet, and she's another quite well known critic and poet, and certainly not someone who should be doing such dirt. Moreover, now that she has admitted on her own blog that she is 'rperlman,' I want to say that I saw with my own eyes 'rperlman' lurking on the pw.org Speakeasy Forum every time I got near Joan Houlihan in my posts, and since I entered the site to respond specifically to her Nov/Dec 2007 Letter in P&W Magazine, I had occasion to talk about her views quite a bit. Most striking of all, 'rperlman' made a visit to the Speakeasy just 30 minutes after I got banned from pw.org for talking about among other things her Colrain Manuscript Conferences, her partner in it, Jeffrey Levine, and her publisher (EUREKA! the same). The lightning post-ban visit was co-incidence perhaps, but she hadn't looked in for 10 days before that—and she visited over and over again during the shambles that immediately followed my departure—I always had another Login as "CSWoodman" so I watched with my own eyes.

And of course that's why I got banned from Poets.org too. It's a no-brainer, but could never be said. Indeed, Joan Houlihan's name has been central every time I have run into trouble anywhere this year, indeed ever since she wrote that letter in Poets & Writers ["Rotten Grapes"] and I objected--including twice at Poets.org, of course. She has also attacked me personally at least three times on the net in broad daylight, "that Christopher Woodman guy," she calls me. "Why does he think he's owed an apology?" she asks, as if she didn't know exactly what I'm talking about!

Finally, I have seen the cyber logs posted on the web so I know where else she visits over and over and over again, obsessively.

Not a pretty picture at all--also not my scene, and I have no intention of pursuing it further. On the other hand, many of you do, even some of you 'respectable' poets, teachers, critics, editors and publishers, and I say you are tarred with exactly the same brush if you do. The difference between you and Alan Cordle is that he tells the truth, you just stalk and you stab because you've been found fiddling the books--and that's the right image when you're talking about publishers and poets!

Just before I sent my Open Letter to Tree Swenson to Poets.net yesterday, I deleted a paragraph that might have made all the difference. I regret that now very much, because I feel that had I supported Alan Cordle more fully he might not have lashed back at you all as he did. This is what I deleted--indeed, I want you to see the deleted words in the context so you'll understand exactly what they mean:

And one word about another famous name, Alan Cordle--a man whom I deeply admire. Alan invented the Foetry movement all by himself, and went on to reveal and substantiate in very great detail the unthinkable all by himself--through very hard work, persistence, and uncanny intelligence. He was eventually outed in a most unconscionable way, and he and his wife are still being harassed almost daily for their service to humanity--he's writing a book about it so very soon everybody will know--and the same names will resurface, don't worry. So I understand Alan Cordle's impatience completely even if I don't share his tactics in threatening you as he did. Never will I compromise on that!

On the other hand? On the other hand, who asks for scruples from the Scarlet Pimpernel, after all? Even Simone Weil was ready to parachute behind the lines and wreck havoc among the innocent in the Second World War, even this angel so pure she couldn't eat! I compare Alan to both. He's a hero for me, and I place him right up there with the world's greatest RI (La Résistance Intellectuelle!) fighters.

With very best wishes,
Christopher Woodman

__________________________

(Admin note: I know for a fact that Alan Cordle and Christopher Woodman are two distinct people; I can see that Christopher Woodman's visits originate from Thailand.)

Sunday, April 27, 2008

AN OPEN LETTER TO TREE SWENSON, President and Executive Director, Academy of American Poets

Dear Tree Swenson,

This letter is part complaint and part apology—a difficult stunt to pull off!

The complaint first

--I think in its context you and your colleagues may be surprised at the apology!

As I feel sure you will all be only too aware, I got banned from the Poets.org Forum very recently. Indeed I got banned TWICE—the first time for talking about what eventually became the huge, fertile, sprawling thread called "On Aspiring Writers Becoming Successful Writers." The second time was for saying exactly the same thing yet again--same cause, same effect!

But what was the cause, that's the question? What was it really?

For a start, both expulsions were sudden—and in neither was I provided with a coherent explanation. After the axe fell the second time I couldn’t even track down the Site Administrator, the forum [at] poets.org address was malfunctioning (!), and it was only through the good graces of my Thai wife, Maw Homprang, that I eventually forced Christine Klocek-Lim to explain that I was banned for "harassing" Moderators and sending them "flaming" PMs. No evidence was provided, just the word of the Site Administrator on the thread.

To make a long story short, in the end Christine Klocek-Lim admitted that there was only one offending PM, so we don’t have to do a lot of research to take the next step to arrive at a conclusion.

Well, I've posted that PM now for all to examine here on Poets.net, and if it's neither "harassing" nor "flaming" (Christine Klocek-Lim's own terms), which I think everybody agrees it isn’t, then you've got a problem. At the very least you’ve got to acknowledge that I was banned for something else--and that that something else was what I had been saying in public, not in private. The problem with the trumped-up “harassing/flaming” charge is that it would suggest the management doesn’t want to admit to the real reason, that it was, in fact, certain persons and issues that could not be discussed on the site that got me banned--not my style or my tone. And this is a very serious difference, and has very serious implications for Poets.org as it's managed today.

Here's the link to the document in question--you can judge the evidence for yourself:

And the apology?

Oh dear, oh dear. It's for what a poster called 'Foetry' said to you on-line—something which, dear Tree Swenson, I want to say is completely and utterly unacceptable. Though not involved in expressing that threat myself, I want to apologize for it anyway—as somebody has to, and profoundly. On the other hand, I do want to say in the same breath that in my experience there is no such thing as a Foetry Gang out there, if such a group ever existed. Foetry has always been just a loosely associated brother/sisterhood of mavericks like me—look up the word for the image to really get teeth. Also read Matt Koeske, who talks a lot about that phenomenon in both his letters just below.

As to myself, I only discovered Foetry.com just a few months before it was dissolved last year. At that time I wrote quite a lot for it, having been very badly abused, and very personally too, by two important editors to whom I had been sending my work for 10 long but hopeful years. Call me naïve if you wish—I’d rather call myself the very rare poet who had never passed through the PoBiz system and was therefore blissfully unaware of it! So when the mask fell away and I saw the Machiavellian deceit of the faces behind it, I looked for help, and Foetry was the only relief I could find. I was 67, lived on the moon, had published my first poem at 52, and had no connections with any poetry community anywhere on earth! And then I went on to write for Foetry, quite a lot too, because it helped me. Indeed, I have come to admire what it stood for, and to admire it a lot—just like Matt Koeske.

I want to assure you, dear Tree Swenson, that what I am doing on Poets.net will never include smearing people, and that indeed if I feel anyone is being treated vengefully, being humiliated, or threatened with exposure on the site just to gain points or advantage, I will do my best to stop it--and if I can't stop it, I will quit. As simple as that.

I have also discussed this with the Poets.net owner/editor, Jennifer Semple Siegel, and she is in complete agreement with me on this. She will never let this happen on her site.

On the other hand, we all know there are a lot of things in the world that have to be said that some people would do anything to cover up, like the Bushes oil, or Enron--or Roy Cohn or Max Mosley their sex lives. Of course, there are moments when such private information is so relevant it has to be leaked, like the fantasies of the perpetrators of Watergate or Abu Graib. In Roy Cohn’s case it was not the sexuality but the hypocrisy, and we needed the essential sexual information to get closer to Joe McCarthy's own will to destroy so many lives. In the case of Max Mosley it's also not about the sex but the politics--and of course they were masquerading as each other!

I'm writing this letter to you partly because as President and Director of The Academy of American Poets, you need to be aware of aspects of your very worthy cause that may be in trouble and/or inappropriately supervised. I feel it was a great mistake to ban me at all, and if you read what I was writing I think you will see that both my posts and PMs were always well-focussed and dealt with even the most sensitive issues in a constructive and humane way.

I myself have used The Academy as a major resource in my exile for many, many years, and I am very grateful for its existence. I have nothing but positive feelings about your personnel as well--I just think you have to be very careful about the issues that are so advanced they are almost unthinkable, and one of them is that certain figures in the poetry establishment, among them perhaps some of your own friends, are engaged in business activities that cannot be publicized without serious moral questions being asked. You must be very careful that the Academy does not cover up for such people, especially when the going gets rough--and the names are right there in my own personal banning!

And one word about another famous name, Alan Cordle--a man whom I deeply admire. Alan invented the Foetry movement all by himself, and went on to reveal and substantiate in very great detail the unthinkable all by himself--through very hard work, persistence, and uncanny intelligence. So I understand Alan Cordle’s impatience completely even if I don't share his tactics in threatening you as he did. Never will I compromise on that!

On the other hand? On the other hand, who asks for scruples from the Scarlet Pimpernel, after all? Even Simone Weil was ready to parachute behind the lines and wreck havoc among the innocent in the Second World War, even this angel so pure she couldn’t eat! I compare Alan to both. He’s a hero for me, and I place him right up there with the world’s greatest RI (La Résistance Intellectuelle!) fighters.

I wish you the very best in all your good work.

Christopher Woodman

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