I go by Jepson on poets.org. I am new to the site. Sadly, I joined poets.org shortly after your departure. I have enjoyed my time so far there. The moderators have been very helpful and friendly with me so far.
I respond to you [Christopher Woodman] as a gentleman representing nobody but himself. I have no sides in this argument. I’m here out of my own personal interest.
Would it be fair to say that the discussion you bring to the table involves the ethical and business reputations of some well known individuals? If I owned a forum I would be wary to allow personal attacks to continue. A site is not obligated to give any individual a platform for public defamation, especially at the expense of the organization’s own reputation, whether it is credible or not. You’ve listed names and have drawn some very convincing dots, but do you believe it is a ‘me vs them’ fight going on? Maybe the site wishes to remain neutral for now. It would be impossible to remain neutral when a member is ‘naming names’ while calling the reputation of American poetry into question. The situation might’ve been that you flew a little too close to the sun. The actions of the AAP might not have been to cover up and protect a couple of individuals, but an attempt to keep their own integrity intact.
Of course, all of that is speculative. I don’t know the specifics surrounding your banning. The best I could gather from the threads is that it dealt with a PM behind the scenes. However, all of this becomes a distraction from this message that you have been campaigning.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that you are accurate in your discussion. There is corruption in poetry from the very top. A massive cover up operation has been taking place, because they don’t want the truth out. The question now is this: What do we do about it? Should we aspiring writers grab our pitchforks and torches and riot outside the gates, demanding the heads of those leaders responsible? Should the ‘who’s who’ in today’s poetry create a committee to investigate the matter internally? Should we do away with poetry contests? What direction should we move in? What is your solution to the problem?
Eliminating poetry contests won’t solve the issue that dominates in almost every field of entertainment and politics: It’s not what you do, but who you know. People are people both good and bad. There will always be an ‘in’ circle. Will taking down the reputation of a few individuals save poetry?
Will it hurt it?
If I submitted a manuscript to a contest for publication and was rejected then began hearing about ‘corruption’ that would make me wonder. Did my manuscript get turned down because I wasn’t sleeping with the judge, or was it really crap anyways? It would be easier to accept the first scenario. I’m not implying you in this situation, but a hypothetical “me” instead. Regardless, the fact is that hardly anybody in America is reading poetry today. They aren’t turning it down because of conspiracy theories either. There aren’t many outlets of poetry publication anymore. What will fill that void if we tear down what’s left? Will it get people reading again?
____________________________________
This comment has been elevated to a post because Jepson has raised some good questions and is deserving of his own thread.
Posted with author's permission.
Jennifer
admin
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Comment on Poets.org Secret Survey
In response to the poets.org secret survey, I emailed (on May 23) the following to Larwar:Larina,No answer, of course.
This survey ought to be conducted in a PUBLIC THREAD, not behind the scenes.
As a member of poets.org (I joined long before I started Poets.net), I am not afraid of the results, even the ones that disagree with my views.
What are you people so afraid of?
The truth?
Jennifer
Poetry: BIG BUSINESS
If you don't think poetry is big business, guess again.
Today, as I was going through my gmail, I noticed the following targeted "sponsored links" hawking contests, publications, MFA programs, and even writing gigs for poets:
-----Dorothy Prizes
-----Xlibris
-----Helium
-----Create Space
-----Rattle
-----Poetry LA
-----Antioch LA MFA
-----Sheetz Poet (Sheetz is a local convenience store chain.)
----------More About...
---------------Humorous Poems
---------------Short Poems
---------------Poetry
---------------Romantic Poems
No doubt that many of the ads on this blog are targeted toward the poetry money-making machine.
And, guess what? I am thoroughly unapologetic about the possibility that poets might make money from their work and that this site might keep afloat because of ad revenue.
Capitalism! It's the American Way!
In my opinion, the Jeffrey Levine and Joan Houlihan publications, contests, and conferences are no different from Poetry[dot]com or any other poetry money-making enterprise.
Here's a comparison and contrast of Tupelo and Poetry[dot]com:
*****
Tupelo: Fee-based contests
Poetry[dot]com: Free contests
*****
Tupelo: Organizes and runs expensive conferences filled with celebrity poets (albeit mostly unknown outside of poetry).
Poetry[dot]com: Organizies and runs lavish (and expensive) conferences filled with big name mainstream celebrities, who often have little to do with poetry.
*****
Tupelo: Publishes books of the so-called elite (often friends and cronies of the owners), primarily funded by reading and contest fees collected by unsuspecting poets.
Poetry[dot]com: In lieu of a contest fee, publishes vanity books and then hits up poets to buy the volume in which their poems appear, thus basing their on profits from its published poets directly.
*****
Tupelo and other "non-profits" simply hide behind credentials and the sacred word of
POETRY
and act outraged that this haloed word would be besmirched by those who would dare to make major money from poetry and then have the audacity to question the Levine/Houlihan "mission" of promoting poetry.
At least with Poetry[dot]com and others like them, one quickly figures out their main mission: to make scads of money off the young, naive, and ignorant.
The so-called literary mainstream hides behind shell non-profit corporations, thus perpetuating a huge con designed to snare young and not-so-young hopefuls into sending money to contests where winners have been decided in advance.
Do you, at the expense of your own career and pocketbook, want to fund the career of a foet?
Do all literary contests fall under this umbrella? Of course not, but enough do that one would do well to do a thorough search before committing to sending money. On both Post Foetry and Poets.net, this has been my mantra.
Christopher Woodman learned this lesson the hard way: for his Tupelo reading fee, he was promised a short personal review of his poetry collection.
What he actually received: a form letter.
Big business, indeed.
Come to think of it, I actually prefer poetry[dot]com's business model--at least its antics are fairly easy to figure out.
Today, as I was going through my gmail, I noticed the following targeted "sponsored links" hawking contests, publications, MFA programs, and even writing gigs for poets:
-----Dorothy Prizes
-----Xlibris
-----Helium
-----Create Space
-----Rattle
-----Poetry LA
-----Antioch LA MFA
-----Sheetz Poet (Sheetz is a local convenience store chain.)
----------More About...
---------------Humorous Poems
---------------Short Poems
---------------Poetry
---------------Romantic Poems
No doubt that many of the ads on this blog are targeted toward the poetry money-making machine.
And, guess what? I am thoroughly unapologetic about the possibility that poets might make money from their work and that this site might keep afloat because of ad revenue.
Capitalism! It's the American Way!
In my opinion, the Jeffrey Levine and Joan Houlihan publications, contests, and conferences are no different from Poetry[dot]com or any other poetry money-making enterprise.
Here's a comparison and contrast of Tupelo and Poetry[dot]com:
*****
Tupelo: Fee-based contests
Poetry[dot]com: Free contests
*****
Tupelo: Organizes and runs expensive conferences filled with celebrity poets (albeit mostly unknown outside of poetry).
Poetry[dot]com: Organizies and runs lavish (and expensive) conferences filled with big name mainstream celebrities, who often have little to do with poetry.
*****
Tupelo: Publishes books of the so-called elite (often friends and cronies of the owners), primarily funded by reading and contest fees collected by unsuspecting poets.
Poetry[dot]com: In lieu of a contest fee, publishes vanity books and then hits up poets to buy the volume in which their poems appear, thus basing their on profits from its published poets directly.
*****
Tupelo and other "non-profits" simply hide behind credentials and the sacred word of
POETRY
and act outraged that this haloed word would be besmirched by those who would dare to make major money from poetry and then have the audacity to question the Levine/Houlihan "mission" of promoting poetry.
At least with Poetry[dot]com and others like them, one quickly figures out their main mission: to make scads of money off the young, naive, and ignorant.
The so-called literary mainstream hides behind shell non-profit corporations, thus perpetuating a huge con designed to snare young and not-so-young hopefuls into sending money to contests where winners have been decided in advance.
Do you, at the expense of your own career and pocketbook, want to fund the career of a foet?
Do all literary contests fall under this umbrella? Of course not, but enough do that one would do well to do a thorough search before committing to sending money. On both Post Foetry and Poets.net, this has been my mantra.
Christopher Woodman learned this lesson the hard way: for his Tupelo reading fee, he was promised a short personal review of his poetry collection.
What he actually received: a form letter.
Big business, indeed.
Come to think of it, I actually prefer poetry[dot]com's business model--at least its antics are fairly easy to figure out.
ON BUTTERFLIES, BROTHELS and, Oh Yes, POETRY
Anonymous #1 said… [May 26, 2008 8:29 PM]
Huh? Anyone writing any poetry here?
I thought not.
Anonymous #2 said... [May 26, 2008 8:52 PM]
If you were a poet looking for life insurance and you decided to go for a policy that had been written by a poet, do you think you could have spotted Wallace Stevens at Hartford?
Anonymous #3 said... [May 27, 2008 12:58 PM]
"Anyone writing any poetry here?
I thought not."
This sums up the stupidity of a certain kind of 'poet' offended by any machinations in the poetry world which don't boil down to 'writing poetry,' as if everything is OK as long there are great assembly lines 'writing poetry.'
According to this silliness, 'writing poetry,' is the only criterion necessary.
Thinking what it means to 'write poetry' in a wider context is a waste of time. We should just be 'writing poetry.'
There is indeed truth to the remark: "I thought not."
This opinion contains no thought.
Christopher Woodman said... [May 27, 2008 11:59 PM--This is an edited version]
It's like all attacks on orthodoxy. If a criticism contradicts a tenet of faith it's an invalid criticism.
If the tenet of faith is that guns make you free, then guns are a non-negotiable matter. If it's a tenet of faith that sex is bad then sex-education is a non-negotiable matter. If it's a tenet of faith that men have a much higher sex drive than women, as it is in a great many cultures in the world today, including where I live, and that true men are truly driven by sex, then you get boys taken by their fathers to brothels at 14 while the mothers wait at home with the daughters until they can be married off as pure virgins--and the crowning irony of that absurd tenet of faith is that in addition to brothels on every street corner you get men who are butterflies and women who run the whole show!
The tenet of faith in American poetry is that the true poet is the product of not just higher but higher and higher and even higher "assembly lines," and that the more a poet pays for it the more right he or she has to be truly successful in it.
Anyone who suggests that the poets, critics, editors or publishers who are running this extravagant industry are self-interested, or even, God-forbid, in it for profit or life insurance, is considered not a real poet. Indeed, I myself am mocked as a jealous loser and amateur all the time, and every word I speak is dismissed as “the product of a willful misunderstanding of the process of editing and publishing poetry!”
And you know who said that? A famous contemporary poetry “critic.”
And you know where? In Poets & Writers Magazine, the bastion of our contemporary faith in exactly what sort of training you need to become a poet in America today, plus the retreats, conferences, camps, travel groups, summers abroad in castles and wine tastings and weekends you have to attend, and what they cost.
But you say you think the son should at least wash the dishes before he goes out to the brothel at 14 with his father?
Just ask the mother for an answer to even that question. "You must be joking," she’ll reply. "Any true mother would keep her daughter carefully cleaning as well as clean at home so she can attract a true man for a husband!"
So that's a monstrous problem, both for their sex and our poetry.
Yes indeed, tenets of faith always polarize, always lead to intolerance, always lead to abuse.
There's nothing wrong with virginity per se, of course there isn't, any more than there's anything wrong with sex--but oh the heart-ache when too much stock is placed in either!
There's nothing wrong with training poets either, even in castles, it's just when you make a religion out of it, install priests at all the altars, and charge an entrance fee not only to get into church but heaven!
And, of course, excommunicate those who say it ain't necessarily so!
Huh? Anyone writing any poetry here?
I thought not.
Anonymous #2 said... [May 26, 2008 8:52 PM]
If you were a poet looking for life insurance and you decided to go for a policy that had been written by a poet, do you think you could have spotted Wallace Stevens at Hartford?
Anonymous #3 said... [May 27, 2008 12:58 PM]
"Anyone writing any poetry here?
I thought not."
This sums up the stupidity of a certain kind of 'poet' offended by any machinations in the poetry world which don't boil down to 'writing poetry,' as if everything is OK as long there are great assembly lines 'writing poetry.'
According to this silliness, 'writing poetry,' is the only criterion necessary.
Thinking what it means to 'write poetry' in a wider context is a waste of time. We should just be 'writing poetry.'
There is indeed truth to the remark: "I thought not."
This opinion contains no thought.
Christopher Woodman said... [May 27, 2008 11:59 PM--This is an edited version]
It's like all attacks on orthodoxy. If a criticism contradicts a tenet of faith it's an invalid criticism.
If the tenet of faith is that guns make you free, then guns are a non-negotiable matter. If it's a tenet of faith that sex is bad then sex-education is a non-negotiable matter. If it's a tenet of faith that men have a much higher sex drive than women, as it is in a great many cultures in the world today, including where I live, and that true men are truly driven by sex, then you get boys taken by their fathers to brothels at 14 while the mothers wait at home with the daughters until they can be married off as pure virgins--and the crowning irony of that absurd tenet of faith is that in addition to brothels on every street corner you get men who are butterflies and women who run the whole show!
The tenet of faith in American poetry is that the true poet is the product of not just higher but higher and higher and even higher "assembly lines," and that the more a poet pays for it the more right he or she has to be truly successful in it.
Anyone who suggests that the poets, critics, editors or publishers who are running this extravagant industry are self-interested, or even, God-forbid, in it for profit or life insurance, is considered not a real poet. Indeed, I myself am mocked as a jealous loser and amateur all the time, and every word I speak is dismissed as “the product of a willful misunderstanding of the process of editing and publishing poetry!”
And you know who said that? A famous contemporary poetry “critic.”
And you know where? In Poets & Writers Magazine, the bastion of our contemporary faith in exactly what sort of training you need to become a poet in America today, plus the retreats, conferences, camps, travel groups, summers abroad in castles and wine tastings and weekends you have to attend, and what they cost.
But you say you think the son should at least wash the dishes before he goes out to the brothel at 14 with his father?
Just ask the mother for an answer to even that question. "You must be joking," she’ll reply. "Any true mother would keep her daughter carefully cleaning as well as clean at home so she can attract a true man for a husband!"
So that's a monstrous problem, both for their sex and our poetry.
Yes indeed, tenets of faith always polarize, always lead to intolerance, always lead to abuse.
There's nothing wrong with virginity per se, of course there isn't, any more than there's anything wrong with sex--but oh the heart-ache when too much stock is placed in either!
There's nothing wrong with training poets either, even in castles, it's just when you make a religion out of it, install priests at all the altars, and charge an entrance fee not only to get into church but heaven!
And, of course, excommunicate those who say it ain't necessarily so!
Monday, May 26, 2008
Christopher Woodman: "The chick that’s in him pecks the shell, 'twill soon be out."
"The chick that’s in him pecks the shell, 'twill soon be out," Stubb whispers to Flask before the voyage has even begun. Ahab strides back and forth on the quarter deck consumed by thoughts which will, as Moby Dick unfolds, motivate perhaps the greatest struggle between good and evil the world has ever been privileged to read. Yet it’s just a whale of an odd color, the object of this extreme vendetta, and all those diverse individuals that will eventually go to their violent deaths serving willy-nilly Ahab’s obsession are just innocents. Save one. Ishmael alone survives to tell the tale.
If the crew members of the Pequod were rather members of the good ship Speakeasy, they would complain bitterly that none of this concerns them, that there are no white whales where they live in New Hampshire or upper New York State, and that they can do very well without having to ride somebody else’s fabulous hobbyhorse to their deaths, thank you very much.
Indeed, just after getting banned yet again from Poets.org, I went back to Pw.org and tried to reintroduce the matter of Captain Christopher’s aborted ‘voyage’ on the Speakeasy for discussion, and one of the leading members replied, “You think Christopher is some sort of brave hero because he argues with a handful of prominent people who occupy one small corner of the poetry world. I think he's a brave person because of his aid work in Thailand, which as I understand it puts him in actual personal danger on a regular basis. That's real. This? It’s just so much hot air, with very little at stake.” (Just a detail here. I don’t do aid work in Thailand, but I do do human rights work and, even worse, I do write about politics--and my wife is sure it’s for that I’m going to get killed!)
Another, more politically active Speakeasy member then wrote, “[Christopher’s] attitude is as tyrannical, as unforgiving, as the tyrants he'd depose. None of us, no matter how we tried to see his points, could quite live up to the standard he was setting, for independent thought, for commitment, for whatever.”
“Why does it always return to the issue of corruption in the literary world?” the same Pw.org poster asked a little later. “Not only is it becoming a great big yawn, but it distracts from the bigger (and much more interesting) issue of engaged poetry (and poets).”
Now “corruption” is one of those words like “whales” that is so hugely emotive it can propel even quite ordinary people to take huge risks, and may in the end even sink ships as if they were presidents, or vise versa. On the other hand, it’s so easy to say, “corruption,” and everybody says it about just about everything these days, and that makes people just as easily yawn. “Can’t they think of anything better to do than block the streets with all that shouting and foul smelling stuff? What do whales have to do with issues that really matter like abortion, or MFAs, or God’s work in the Middle East?”
And so the word “corruption” can reduce anything to just a whale, not a Moby Dick!
In any case, the word "corruption" simply isn’t the word to describe the overall malaise that besets American poetry anyway—"corruption" is a relatively minor manifestation of the rot in poetry, I’d say, and I rarely use it myself. Even corrupt contests are just the tip of the iceberg, for example—poetry contests get a lot of publicity because they're so easy to see, and to document too, of course, and to prove. Also, they’re sometimes actually illegal, and nothing else I think of as a serious poetry abuse is illegal, any more than Moby Dick is illegal!
What seems to me far more interesting is to look at the personalities of those who get caught scamming the contests, or whatever--the MFA entries, or the tenure appointments, or the critical reviews even, or the lists--and then to examine not only the activities of those people in the poetry community, including their jobs, but at the poetry they write. The poet who got caught more often than any other “fiddling the books,” so to speak, and has lent her name to the "Jorie Graham Rule,” has just written her own interview at Poets.org, for example—yes, written her own interview at The Academy of American Poets. The Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University has just written her own interview at the AAP!
So what goes on in a mind like that, or in the minds of those who bow down before her, or in the minds of those who gave her that highest and most conspicuous poetry job in the world? Does integrity not matter in poetry? Does it have nothing to do with what we write, read, or study?
But even that’s just a whale, I agree, and we must move on even if Jorie Graham hasn’t, even if Jorie Graham is back judging contests we must move on, because that’s her whale of a problem, not our Moby Dick!
The problem comes about when the powers that be in the world of poetry decide that anything they do is just a whale, and that Moby Dick is just a red herring. That’s a key image—watch how it unfolds in one specific case, as follows.
In the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, a very well-known critic, poet, editor, publisher, conference organizer and poetry business person wrote a Letter called ROTTEN GRAPES, claiming,
(1) That the most treacherous of America’s poetry wheeler-dealers in recent history is in fact “one of poetry's most dedicated editors,”
(2) That the publisher who sent hundreds of xeroxed “personal reviews” to poets who were hoping to get real critical help from him, and then asked for $295.00 more to get them “up a level,” was “smeared,” and
(3) That any accusation against either of the above offenders was just “bullying,” “sensationalist,” and “the product of a willful misunderstanding of the process of editing and publishing poetry.”
Still a whale?
Yes, if it could have been left at that.
But what if a poet comes along who had been abused in both of the above scandals, and felt that someone should speak out against such a blatant white-wash published in such a conspicuous venue as Poets & Writers Magazine?
What if the editors of P&W refused to print that reply so the poet decided to go to the P&W Forum, the Speakeasy, to get a hearing for his complaint?
And what if he got banned from Pw.org for daring to name the name of the author of that letter along with her business partner and publisher in public, though the reasons given by the moderator were everything but: that he used a false IP, that he broke a contract, and that he misread other posters, whatever that means?
And what if that poet then moved on to The Academy of American Poets Forum at Poets.org, and was met by a whole gaggle of even fiercer moderators within a few minutes of his first post?
What if those moderators made it clear to the poet that he must not talk about anything controversial here at all, as if they didn’t know exactly who he was and what he meant?
And what if that same abused poet then got banned for just mentioning the name of the author of the Letter once again—and banned not once but twice this time, and each time for mentioning just that one name and her publisher?
And what if it emerged that the Chief On-line Editor at Poets.org was just in line to win a prize from the same publisher who had not only xeroxed the fake critique to the poet but was the business partner of the author of the P&W Letter?
And then, what if there was a lengthy tussle to find out what actually happened to the poet to get him banned, and it was clearly shown that the administrators and moderators had been frantically covering up the real reason, i.e. the naming of the names?
And what if that whole scramble to unscramble the mess then got all locked up and deleted in its own messy turn with one final, memorable remark by the Academy of American Poets' very own Site Administrator, Christine Klocek-Lim, "Apparently, rancor has a longer shelf life than a twinkie"?
Does that degree of Machiavellian intrigue, bad taste and manipulation spread over six months at two of the largest, most influential poetry organizations in America just to cover the asses of two poetry personalities not sound more than just a whale?
If it could be proved that two poetry personalities had that much power over the most respected poetry institutions in America, and that that power could be used to silence another poet just because they felt what he had to say might hurt their business interests, even though it was true and a valid public message, couldn’t that become a sort of Moby Dick for him? Couldn't it become so for all of us?
Indeed, if it could happen to him, are not all poets vulnerable to such negative forces, and American poetry with them?
If the crew members of the Pequod were rather members of the good ship Speakeasy, they would complain bitterly that none of this concerns them, that there are no white whales where they live in New Hampshire or upper New York State, and that they can do very well without having to ride somebody else’s fabulous hobbyhorse to their deaths, thank you very much.
Indeed, just after getting banned yet again from Poets.org, I went back to Pw.org and tried to reintroduce the matter of Captain Christopher’s aborted ‘voyage’ on the Speakeasy for discussion, and one of the leading members replied, “You think Christopher is some sort of brave hero because he argues with a handful of prominent people who occupy one small corner of the poetry world. I think he's a brave person because of his aid work in Thailand, which as I understand it puts him in actual personal danger on a regular basis. That's real. This? It’s just so much hot air, with very little at stake.” (Just a detail here. I don’t do aid work in Thailand, but I do do human rights work and, even worse, I do write about politics--and my wife is sure it’s for that I’m going to get killed!)
Another, more politically active Speakeasy member then wrote, “[Christopher’s] attitude is as tyrannical, as unforgiving, as the tyrants he'd depose. None of us, no matter how we tried to see his points, could quite live up to the standard he was setting, for independent thought, for commitment, for whatever.”
“Why does it always return to the issue of corruption in the literary world?” the same Pw.org poster asked a little later. “Not only is it becoming a great big yawn, but it distracts from the bigger (and much more interesting) issue of engaged poetry (and poets).”
Now “corruption” is one of those words like “whales” that is so hugely emotive it can propel even quite ordinary people to take huge risks, and may in the end even sink ships as if they were presidents, or vise versa. On the other hand, it’s so easy to say, “corruption,” and everybody says it about just about everything these days, and that makes people just as easily yawn. “Can’t they think of anything better to do than block the streets with all that shouting and foul smelling stuff? What do whales have to do with issues that really matter like abortion, or MFAs, or God’s work in the Middle East?”
And so the word “corruption” can reduce anything to just a whale, not a Moby Dick!
In any case, the word "corruption" simply isn’t the word to describe the overall malaise that besets American poetry anyway—"corruption" is a relatively minor manifestation of the rot in poetry, I’d say, and I rarely use it myself. Even corrupt contests are just the tip of the iceberg, for example—poetry contests get a lot of publicity because they're so easy to see, and to document too, of course, and to prove. Also, they’re sometimes actually illegal, and nothing else I think of as a serious poetry abuse is illegal, any more than Moby Dick is illegal!
What seems to me far more interesting is to look at the personalities of those who get caught scamming the contests, or whatever--the MFA entries, or the tenure appointments, or the critical reviews even, or the lists--and then to examine not only the activities of those people in the poetry community, including their jobs, but at the poetry they write. The poet who got caught more often than any other “fiddling the books,” so to speak, and has lent her name to the "Jorie Graham Rule,” has just written her own interview at Poets.org, for example—yes, written her own interview at The Academy of American Poets. The Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University has just written her own interview at the AAP!
So what goes on in a mind like that, or in the minds of those who bow down before her, or in the minds of those who gave her that highest and most conspicuous poetry job in the world? Does integrity not matter in poetry? Does it have nothing to do with what we write, read, or study?
But even that’s just a whale, I agree, and we must move on even if Jorie Graham hasn’t, even if Jorie Graham is back judging contests we must move on, because that’s her whale of a problem, not our Moby Dick!
The problem comes about when the powers that be in the world of poetry decide that anything they do is just a whale, and that Moby Dick is just a red herring. That’s a key image—watch how it unfolds in one specific case, as follows.
In the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, a very well-known critic, poet, editor, publisher, conference organizer and poetry business person wrote a Letter called ROTTEN GRAPES, claiming,
(1) That the most treacherous of America’s poetry wheeler-dealers in recent history is in fact “one of poetry's most dedicated editors,”
(2) That the publisher who sent hundreds of xeroxed “personal reviews” to poets who were hoping to get real critical help from him, and then asked for $295.00 more to get them “up a level,” was “smeared,” and
(3) That any accusation against either of the above offenders was just “bullying,” “sensationalist,” and “the product of a willful misunderstanding of the process of editing and publishing poetry.”
Still a whale?
Yes, if it could have been left at that.
But what if a poet comes along who had been abused in both of the above scandals, and felt that someone should speak out against such a blatant white-wash published in such a conspicuous venue as Poets & Writers Magazine?
What if the editors of P&W refused to print that reply so the poet decided to go to the P&W Forum, the Speakeasy, to get a hearing for his complaint?
And what if he got banned from Pw.org for daring to name the name of the author of that letter along with her business partner and publisher in public, though the reasons given by the moderator were everything but: that he used a false IP, that he broke a contract, and that he misread other posters, whatever that means?
And what if that poet then moved on to The Academy of American Poets Forum at Poets.org, and was met by a whole gaggle of even fiercer moderators within a few minutes of his first post?
What if those moderators made it clear to the poet that he must not talk about anything controversial here at all, as if they didn’t know exactly who he was and what he meant?
And what if that same abused poet then got banned for just mentioning the name of the author of the Letter once again—and banned not once but twice this time, and each time for mentioning just that one name and her publisher?
And what if it emerged that the Chief On-line Editor at Poets.org was just in line to win a prize from the same publisher who had not only xeroxed the fake critique to the poet but was the business partner of the author of the P&W Letter?
And then, what if there was a lengthy tussle to find out what actually happened to the poet to get him banned, and it was clearly shown that the administrators and moderators had been frantically covering up the real reason, i.e. the naming of the names?
And what if that whole scramble to unscramble the mess then got all locked up and deleted in its own messy turn with one final, memorable remark by the Academy of American Poets' very own Site Administrator, Christine Klocek-Lim, "Apparently, rancor has a longer shelf life than a twinkie"?
Does that degree of Machiavellian intrigue, bad taste and manipulation spread over six months at two of the largest, most influential poetry organizations in America just to cover the asses of two poetry personalities not sound more than just a whale?
If it could be proved that two poetry personalities had that much power over the most respected poetry institutions in America, and that that power could be used to silence another poet just because they felt what he had to say might hurt their business interests, even though it was true and a valid public message, couldn’t that become a sort of Moby Dick for him? Couldn't it become so for all of us?
Indeed, if it could happen to him, are not all poets vulnerable to such negative forces, and American poetry with them?
Friday, May 23, 2008
TomWest: On Locked Threads
Locking a thread affects all who had anything to do with that thread—readers, as well as posters. Locking deprives all rule-abiding posters from participating in a thread they intellectually own.
Even banned posters have intellectual validity in the atmosphere of reflective discourse, for both the good and the bad help to formulate those ideas which make any discourse valid. All ideas, even ideas which give rise to discourses (and even behavior) we don’t like, feed the atmosphere of self-conscious, universalizing discourse which should be held sacred in any community which values intellectual freedom.
We have laws, prisons, and the military for state defense; we have police, laws and manners for community defense.
Poets.org permits powers to revoke membership and silence speech to defend its internal integrity.
Locking a thread, however, can only be compared to shutting down a newspaper, for it censors general discourse, the protection of which ought to be unquestioned.
This goes beyond the issue of ‘moderator power’ or ‘rights of members.’ Shutting down discourse violates a principle both human and universal.
If moderators can ban posters and delete posts at will, what possible defense, or just punishment, or good, is served by locking/ending a current and active thread?
Locking a thread not only capriciously punishes, it violates a bedrock principle of civil and intellectual life.
Once a poster crosses a certain line, that poster gives up their rights to exist on poets.org.
When a post is deemed inappropriate, that post is whisked out of sight.
But a thread is different; a thread belongs to all; to censor a thread is to turn the will of a community--a principle which defines the very existence of the Academy--against itself.
TomWest
********
Even banned posters have intellectual validity in the atmosphere of reflective discourse, for both the good and the bad help to formulate those ideas which make any discourse valid. All ideas, even ideas which give rise to discourses (and even behavior) we don’t like, feed the atmosphere of self-conscious, universalizing discourse which should be held sacred in any community which values intellectual freedom.
We have laws, prisons, and the military for state defense; we have police, laws and manners for community defense.
Poets.org permits powers to revoke membership and silence speech to defend its internal integrity.
Locking a thread, however, can only be compared to shutting down a newspaper, for it censors general discourse, the protection of which ought to be unquestioned.
This goes beyond the issue of ‘moderator power’ or ‘rights of members.’ Shutting down discourse violates a principle both human and universal.
If moderators can ban posters and delete posts at will, what possible defense, or just punishment, or good, is served by locking/ending a current and active thread?
Locking a thread not only capriciously punishes, it violates a bedrock principle of civil and intellectual life.
Once a poster crosses a certain line, that poster gives up their rights to exist on poets.org.
When a post is deemed inappropriate, that post is whisked out of sight.
But a thread is different; a thread belongs to all; to censor a thread is to turn the will of a community--a principle which defines the very existence of the Academy--against itself.
TomWest
********
(This thread appears as a LOCKED thread on Poets.org as Locking Question. Reposted here with permission of the author.)
This thread is open for comments.
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