The American Dissident: Literature, Democracy & Dissidence
Briar Cliff Review—Free Speech in Peril!
Literature should not be suppressed merely because it offends the moral code of the censor.
—Chief Justice William O Douglas
The selector begins, ideally, with a presumption in favor of liberty of thought; the censor does not. The aim of the selector is to promote reading not to inhibit it; to multiply the points of view which will find expression, not limit them; to be a channel for communication, not a bar against it.
—Lester Asheim, “Not Censorship but Selection” (Wilson Library Bulletin, 1953)
All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of all censorships. There is the whole case against censorships in a nutshell.
—George Bernard Shaw
Briar Cliff Review operates as one of many modern-day LITERARY CENSORING ORGANIZATIONS akin to the Catholic Church of yesteryear which put together the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Democracy continues its downward spiral thanks in part to the democracy-indifferent, censoring editors of BCR.
The following correspondence with English Professor Phil Hey of Briar Cliff University are pertinent because they bear witness to the aberrant lack of logic and reason on the part of a university English professor, especially with regards criticism of the hand that feeds. My 15 years of experience working as a professor lead me to believe that the Phil Hey-phenomenon is by no means the exception. On the contrary, it has become the rule in academe.
Subj: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/9/2004 10:33:35 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Enmarge
To: hey@briarcliff.edu Cc: Enmarge File: Cold Passion.doc
Phil Hey,
Well, it's been a while. I must credit you for being different from the vast herd of academics for you actually had responded, though not often with logic and reason… just the same, you responded. I'm in the midst of writing a book on academe and came across our pertinent correspondence of last year. I'd like to add BCU to the lengthening list of academic lit journal rejections with regards my seminal essay on poetry and risk. You'll find a list of the reviews in the appendix. Read the essay, then reject it, and join the club. You might wish to add a statement of the “oh, he's whining ilk” and I'll add that too… and maybe cite ole Cicero: “When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.” Well, read through it, you'll no doubt learn something.
Best,
G. Tod Slone
Subj: RE: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/9/2004 12:21:56 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: "Hey, Phil"
To: Sent from the Internet (Details)
It may surprise you, but I dislike Billy Collins at least as much as you do. "Poetry Lite" is about my best evaluation of him. Along somewhat the same lines, I think that Wynton Marsalis is a terrible jazz player. Oh yes, he has fine technique but as a jazz-loving friend said, he has no soul. About 95% of what he plays is imitation jazz -- not "this is how I play xxx," but rather something like "these are the notes that Louis Armstrong played at the head of West End blues." I know Armstrong's West End blues very well, and my conclusion is that Marsalis played all the notes and none of the music. He is a welcome popularizer of jazz and a pretty instructive speaker,but compare him with anyone good in playing, and he loses. {Ed. note: maybe the best trumpet player in the Lincoln Center orchestra is Ryan Kysor, from Sioux City. I played with him a few gigs before he won the Armstrong/Monk competition at 17 and went to the Big Apple. Funny, Marsalis hired him and uses him often on J@LC, but Marsalis was quoted as saying that white guys can't play jazz....) I think you're working along the same line with some poets. If there's music in Billy Collin's writing, it's music box stuff at best.
Next point. I don't have enough time or energy left to engage in any poetry wars, and I really don't think they're going to be won or lost on grounds of reason, however violently or gently stated. Alexander Pope was (and to some extent remains) a paradigm of reason, but there is nothing in his writing to defend against Keats's passing remark that Pope's couplets are "the little rocking horse." I want to preserve the time in my own writing (and reading) to seek the bearing of true witness, a matter of ethos at least as much as reason. From Plato's The Cave, "The gods may know otherwise, but this is how it seems to me." If I write and read poems about farming, my best audience is farmers. They don't complain or argue, but if I lie, if I misstate or misrepresent, they will react, very slightly, minutely, and I have lost them. (So far it hasn't happened to me, though I have seen it happen to others, and one of my best audiences is Tom Montag, a fine writer who grew up on a dirt farm and has done it all in that line.) Back to you: I tend to agree with the editors who have rejected you, at least in some of their comments if not wholly. As I recall, it was TSEliot who defined "sentimentality" as "emotion in excess of the facts;" and my inference is that he was extending along the lines of Longinus who pointed in that direction. When I think of what your animus might be doing in a more direct service of justice -- with a tone more apt to jeremiads about injustice -- then I think it's a bit wasted on mere poetry.
Last point. This is NOT a rejection. If you want one of your very own, submit a hard copy + SASE to Paul Weber, Nonfiction editor, Briar Cliff Review, Briar Cliff University, Sioux City IA 51104. Paul is always the first reader of essays, historical pieces, etc. Typically the Review hasn't published any extensive, scholarly literary criticism; it does print individual book reviews, most of them written by staff members or students (but we don't bar the door against external submissions in the area).
Well, after all that, you keep my regards.
There is always room for another Quixote or Jeremiah,
whichever you see yourself as.
Phil Hey
English and Writing
Briar Cliff University
Sioux City IA 51104-2100
hey@briarcliff.edu
(712) 279-5477
Subj: Re: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/11/2004 2:26:03 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: Enmarge
To: hey@briarcliff.edu Cc: Enmarge
Dear Professor Hey:
Thanks for the response. I'll try my best not to be sarcastic or deprecatory. To begin with, allow me to quote French author Marcel Ayme « Vive donc la poésie, du moins celle qui ne détruit pas notre confort intellectuel. » I'll translate for you: “Long live poetry, at least poetry that doesn't destroy our intellectual comfort.” Ayme was of course being facetious in his book, Le Confort intellectuel.
As for Billy Collins, I don't really hold an intense dislike for him, though I do criticize him because he has become a public official of poetry. All public officials, in my opinion, warrant close inspection and criticism, if need be. Criticizing or lampooning should never be equated with intense personal dislike… though that is certainly a possibility. My experience with many academics has revealed that when criticized they will often ignore the criticism and simply label the critic whiner, bitter and/or full of personal animus.
As for Marsalis, I probably agree with you—your argument, of course, seems to extrapolate nicely to English-professor writers. “Oh yes, he has [English professor writers have] fine technique but as a jazz-loving friend said, he has [they have] no soul.” Just the same, appreciation of music, art and literature are essentially subjective… though academics have essentially conditioned the populace to believe these things to be objectively determined by academics such that what is good is what academics tell us is good. Clearly, any art or writing that criticizes or lampoons academics to the core is automatically deemed not good. Gioia's famous poetry essay, for example, did not really criticize academics to the core, whereas my essay, the one I sent you, does. Obviously, this pseudo-objective determination of good and bad constitutes a fundamental intellectual point of difference between you and me. Designating a poem as great or lousy, for example, is purely subjective… though again academics have conditioned us to believe what is great is what they say is great. Indeed, if we were to believe the decisions of academic literati, then we'd have to believe that 10-pages of a Seinfeld episode is much better than a Robinson Jeffers poem (N.B.: The Norton Anthology of Literature included those 10 pages and not one poem by Jeffers.).
By the way, thank you for chewing the bait and allowing me to reel in yet another classic debate-avoiding fish: “I don't have enough time or energy left.” How often I've heard that sad, sad excuse! Academics have one of the cushiest metiers in the world (9-12 hour work weeks, 5-6 months vacation per year, and periodic six-month paid sabbaticals). I know because when employed I work as a college professor. And I do know one or two academics who at least can admit it. Time is what academics have. Debate, one would think, is what academics should do… not committee inanity and arcane, esoteric scholarly publications, yet the latter is what most do, not the former. I'm not sure where it all went wrong… this overwhelming refusal to debate in academe. Perhaps it has always been thus.
If you ever do decide to read my essay, you will perhaps come to understand that much creative and pertinent material can actually be obtained via debate and criticism and battling in “poetry wars,” as you term them. BTW, winning or losing the wars is not pertinent. (I am all too aware that I cannot possibly win against the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex). It is the debate or battle itself that is pertinent—in a Zen sense as in the voyage versus the arrival. You might also come to understand why poetry today does not matter and largely because of the overwhelming influence of the Complex, which has co-opted writers like you.
I know you won't like this comment or, for that matter, any of the comments in this letter, but how do you from your tenured position expect “to seek the bearing of true witness”… whatever that means? Perhaps you need to focus on writing poems about intellectual comfort in academe. Would not that be true “bearing of true witness”?
I do not respect academe's (and your) refusal to publish my essay and or comment on it… and by comment I do not mean lazy shooting of the messenger as you and others in academe tend to do. By comment, tell me precisely where the essay is wrong. You and they will not do that, a curiosity I can only explain by jealousy (not mine) and/or inferiority complex (again, not mine). You refer to “animus.” Well, that's an example of shooting the messenger. You also refer to “tone.” Tone is set by you and your colleagues to protect the intellectual-comfort paradigm set up by you and your colleagues. To diminish the tone to the point where you and your colleagues might feel comfortable would evidently diminish the message to the point of dissipation. The tone is the message. How often I've heard “tone” and “animus” evoked in an effort to kill the messenger and avoid the message altogether. Why is the message in my essay so reprehensible? It urges poets to stand up and be courageous. What is wrong with that? But apparently that thought constitutes the wrong tone. Why are you and your colleagues so fearful of strong emotion and personal involvement in the writing? Why do you and your colleagues seek to censor it by refusing to publish it in your vast network of periodicals or “share” it with your students? Why can't you and your colleagues extend your paradigm to include it as a simple option amongst other options? Again, the only answer to these questions seems to be jealousy (guarding of turf) and/or inferiority complex.
Your statement here is interesting, though I've heard it before: “When I think of what your animus might be doing in a more direct service of justice -- with a tone more apt to jeremiads about injustice -- then I think it's a bit wasted on mere poetry.” I think highly of “mere poetry,” which is why I waste my time on it. For me with my background and abilities, I can think of nothing more pertinent in a “direct service of justice” than criticizing and lampooning the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex and its cocooned academic proponents, who are perhaps often responsible for injustice.
Amazingly, you state: “There is always room for another Quixote or Jeremiah, whichever you see yourself as.” Well, I suppose that's a nice little banderole in the bull's belly, but you don't seem to get it: There is no room in the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex for Quijotes… thanks to you and your colleagues, not to mention the hundreds of acolytes you are producing.
You possess the essay. You have not read it. There is no reason for me to send it to one of your colleagues. I'll take your total disinterest as a rejection and add Briar Cliff Review to my growing list.
Thanks again for your response. By responding, you prove once again quite different from the general herd member of tasseled, chevroned, hooded, black-robed academics… who have no time for debate… except in the safety of the tower and with each other. However, you prove quite in line with their groupthink mentality by refusing to read or comment on the essay.
G. Tod Slone
PS: I think your students would get a hell of a lot out of the essay. I feel badly for them that their English professors are so paradigmatically paralyzed that they'd never hand out such an essay as an alternative viewpoint. Oh, if you could only comprehend? Why can't you? You're no doubt intelligent. What prevents you from comprehending? Perhaps Albert Camus had the answer: « J'ai toujours pense qu'il y avait deux sortes d'intelligence, l'intelligence intelligente et l'intelligence bete. »
I haven't yet read your letter. But yes, again you prove yourself different from the herd RE "bravery."
Subj: RE: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/10/2004 3:58:32 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: "Hey, Phil"
To:
Sent from the Internet (Details) And it occurs to me that I have never read any of your poems. I tried to go to www.geocities.com/enmarge but Yahoo! says that page doesn't exist. I invite you to direct me to a website where I can read your poetry, or you can send me some.
Phil Hey
Subj: Found your poems
Date: 3/10/2004 4:04:36 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: "Hey, Phil"
To:
--or rather Google did, at http://wiredheart.hispeed.com/jan02/g_tod_slone_102.html
I rest my case.
Phil Hey
> Subj: RE: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
> Date: 3/11/2004 1:22:12 PM Eastern Standard Time
> From: "Hey, Phil"
> To:
Dear Tod,
> > Did you ever hear of George E. Ohr? Definitely someone on the edge, of art. > His studio had a sign on the front door: GEORGE E. OHR, WORLD'S GREATEST > POTTER. -YOU PROVE OTHERWISE-
> > So might all of us poets inscribe our doors....
> > Phil Hey
> I'm brave (if not outright nervy), so am pasting in a recent poem. Is it on the edge? > Sure. No one taught me to write like this in an MFA program. But the MFA program > gave me a fine understanding of tools, which is something I > wish all aspirants had.
> The pool player
> > My dad would appreciate it, how I walk around
> the just-felled tree with the chain saw, looking
> for which branch to take off; how it takes
> some careful looking, how you have to approach
> from the angle that will give you the best leave.
> He would indeed, being the great pool player
> he was, and I mean that. In high school he used to
> hang around at a pool hall called Sharkey's,
> and sometimes when Sharkey would answer the phone
> he'd say only “He's here,” for whoever wanted to know.
> And my dad would just wait and take his time for
> hustlers to come through town -- can you imagine
> being one of them, and there's this young kid
> that runs 25 straight? That's what he could do, and
> that's what he did right up through the last time
> I played against him. (When you played against him,
> it's a sure bet that most of what you did was watch.)
> Well, I'm not much good at pool. Never spent the time
> at Sharkey's, never took the time with the stick.
> Though there's still something here he passed on to me,
> that gift of walking around and looking, lopping off
> this branch, then that one, cleaning out the brush so
> the main trunk lies there clean as a cue and then
> zip, zip, zip and so on until it's cut-to-length firewood
> ready to rack up. He'd be scared of the chain saw,
> any sane man is, but he'd see me moving around
> for those good shots and know his time hadn't been wasted.
Subj: RE: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/11/2004 3:09:25 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: "Hey, Phil"
To:
I'll insert responses in blue, within your comments.
Phil Hey
From: Enmarge@aol.com [mailto:Enmarge@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 1:26 PM
To: Hey, Phil
Cc: Enmarge@aol.com
Subject: Re: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Dear Professor Hey:
Thanks for the response. I'll try my best not to be sarcastic or deprecatory. To begin with, allow me to quote French author Marcel Ayme « Vive donc la poésie, du moins celle qui ne détruit pas notre confort intellectuel. » I'll translate for you: “Long live poetry, at least poetry that doesn't destroy our intellectual comfort.” Ayme was of course being facetious in his book, Le Confort intellectuel.
As for Billy Collins, I don't really hold an intense dislike for him, though I do criticize him because he has become a public official of poetry. All public officials, in my opinion, warrant close inspection and criticism, if need be. Categorically agreed. Criticizing or lampooning should never be equated with intense personal dislike… though that is certainly a possibility. My experience with many academics has revealed that when criticized they will often ignore the criticism and simply label the critic whiner, bitter and/or full of personal animus. Well, "fruit of a poison tree" is a basic argument in both rhetoric and law, and though never foolproof, it does cause a hearer to question the statement.
As for Marsalis, I probably agree with you—your argument, of course, seems to extrapolate nicely to English-professor writers. “Oh yes, he has [English professor writers have] fine technique but as a jazz-loving friend said, he has [they have] no soul.” Just the same, appreciation of music, art and literature are essentially subjective… though academics have essentially conditioned the populace to believe these things to be objectively determined by academics such that what is good is what academics tell us is good. Clearly, any art or writing that criticizes or lampoons academics to the core is automatically deemed not good. I beg to differ. Straight Man is very well received among my colleagues, as is Yeats's "The Scholars." Gioia's famous poetry essay, for example, did not really criticize academics to the core, whereas my essay, the one I sent you, does. Obviously, this pseudo-objective determination of good and bad constitutes a fundamental intellectual point of difference between you and me. Designating a poem as great or lousy, for example, is purely subjective… though again academics have conditioned us to believe what is great is what they say is great. Received opinion may be wrong, has been and will be again, but it is still an essential leverage against illiteracy. Indeed, if we were to believe the decisions of academic literati, then we'd have to believe that 10-pages of a Seinfeld episode is much better than a Robinson Jeffers poem (N.B.: The Norton Anthology of Literature included those 10 pages and not one poem by Jeffers.).Oh, stop lumping us all together. I wouldn't have made that decision, nor would any of my colleagues in this department, nor would any of my colleague friends at other institutions.
By the way, thank you for chewing the bait and allowing me to reel in yet another classic debate-avoiding fish: “I don't have enough time or energy left.” How often I've heard that sad, sad excuse! Academics have one of the cushiest metiers in the world (9-12 hour work weeks, 5-6 months vacation per year, and periodic six-month paid sabbaticals). I know because when employed I work as a college professor. And I do know one or two academics who at least can admit it. Time is what academics have. Debate, one would think, is what academics should do… not committee inanity and arcane, esoteric scholarly publications, yet the latter is what most do, not the former. I'm not sure where it all went wrong… this overwhelming refusal to debate in academe. Perhaps it has always been thus. Once again, I do not speak for others when I say I don't have time or energy. I have a heavier load of writing classes than anyone else here (and a lot of other places), and when I spend what I believe is a just amount of time responding to people trying to write well, I end up without much time or energy. Period.
If you ever do decide to read my essay, you will perhaps come to understand that much creative and pertinent material can actually be obtained via debate and criticism and battling in “poetry wars,” as you term them. I read, I read. BTW, winning or losing the wars is not pertinent. (I am all too aware that I cannot possibly win against the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex). It is the debate or battle itself that is pertinent—in a Zen sense as in the voyage versus the arrival. You might also come to understand why poetry today does not matter and largely because of the overwhelming influence of the Complex, which has co-opted writers like you. Not me, baby, not me. You can ask anyone who knows me, including lotsa non-academics.
I know you won't like this comment or, for that matter, any of the comments in this letter, but how do you from your tenured position expect “to seek the bearing of true witness”… whatever that means? Perhaps you need to focus on writing poems about intellectual comfort in academe. Would not that be true “bearing of true witness”? For someone else, perhaps, but not for me. If I wrote to your formula, how then could I be true to what genuinely speaks to me?
I do not respect academe's (and your) refusal to publish my essay and or comment on it… and by comment I do not mean lazy shooting of the messenger as you and others in academe tend to do. My God, nothing like all-or-nothing categories, is there? By comment, tell me precisely where the essay is wrong. Point 1: you demand that everyone be "on the edge," when in fact very few people of any occupation are on the edge. Point 2: you by reflex devalue anything that doesn't fit your formula for what poetry ought to be. Point 3: you slander good people who -- believe it or not -- are actually working to make the world a better place. Point 4: you seem unable to make your argument calmly. As I believe Samuel Johnson put it, "you do not reinforce your argument by raising your voice." You and they will not do that, a curiosity I can only explain by jealousy (not mine) and/or inferiority complex (again, not mine). You refer to “animus.” Well, that's an example of shooting the messenger. I can't resist: DON'T PAINT SUCH A BIG, BRIGHT TARGET ON YOURSELF. You also refer to “tone.” Tone is set by you and your colleagues to protect the intellectual-comfort paradigm set up by you and your colleagues. To diminish the tone to the point where you and your colleagues might feel comfortable would evidently diminish the message to the point of dissipation. The tone is the message. How often I've heard “tone” and “animus” evoked in an effort to kill the messenger and avoid the message altogether. Why is the message in my essay so reprehensible? It urges poets to stand up and be courageous. And by implication, damns all the poets you don't know who are standing up and being courageous IN THEIR OWN WAY. What is wrong with that? But apparently that thought constitutes the wrong tone. Why are you and your colleagues so fearful of strong emotion and personal involvement in the writing? Another blanket generalization, and wrong again. Why do you and your colleagues seek to censor it by refusing to publish it in your vast network of periodicals or “share” it with your students? Sorry, I'm not Rupert Murdoch. I have a small part in ONE publication, and we owe nothing to any other publication. So much for "the vast network." For students -- because they can learn more reading other things. Why can't you and your colleagues extend your paradigm to include it as a simple option amongst other options? No problem at all. If someone wants your opinion, they can search it out. Why should we feel obliged to publish any particular opinion? Again, the only answer to these questions seems to be jealousy (guarding of turf) and/or inferiority complex. Not here, sir, not here, and not a lot of other places I know.
Your statement here is interesting, though I've heard it before: “When I think of what your animus might be doing in a more direct service of justice -- with a tone more apt to jeremiads about injustice -- then I think it's a bit wasted on mere poetry.” I think highly of “mere poetry,” which is why I waste my time on it. For me with my background and abilities, I can think of nothing more pertinent in a “direct service of justice” than criticizing and lampooning the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex and its cocooned academic proponents, who are perhaps often responsible for injustice. Well then continue to do it! No one is stopping you.
Amazingly, you state: “There is always room for another Quixote or Jeremiah, whichever you see yourself as.” Well, I suppose that's a nice little banderole in the bull's belly, but you don't seem to get it: There is no room in the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex for Quijotes… thanks to you and your colleagues, not to mention the hundreds of acolytes you are producing. Unless you stop thinking of us as clones, you'll never really get to know us.
You possess the essay. You have not read it. Yes, yes I did. There is no reason for me to send it to one of your colleagues. I'll take your total disinterest as a rejection and add Briar Cliff Review to my growing list. Thanks for the compliment -- at least some of the time I hope I can achieve disinterest. Look up the word. But the Briar Cliff Review never rejected your submission.
Thanks again for your response. By responding, you prove once again quite different from the general herd member of tasseled, chevroned, hooded, black-robed academics… who have no time for debate… except in the safety of the tower and with each other. However, you prove quite in line with their groupthink mentality by refusing to read or comment on the essay. -sigh- I did read it. But sometimes I have students who think that just because I have read their arguments, I must therefore be automatically convinced and align myself with their position. I'm happy to plead disinterest.
G. Tod Slone
PS: I think your students would get a hell of a lot out of the essay. I feel badly for them that their English professors are so paradigmatically paralyzed that they'd never hand out such an essay as an alternative viewpoint. If they want it, they can find it. What you may not understand is that, for example, TSEliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is shockingly alternative for some of them. Let alone Randall Jarrell's essays. Oh, if you could only comprehend? Why can't you? The more you generalize about me, the less you'll know. I find that true about most people. If you were writing about African-Americans or Native Americans or _______ with such broad generalizations, no one would touch your writing for its bigotry. Why should publishers have that different a response when you so categorize all academics? You're no doubt intelligent. What prevents you from comprehending? Perhaps Albert Camus had the answer: « J'ai toujours pense qu'il y avait deux sortes d'intelligence, l'intelligence intelligente et l'intelligence bete. » I know Camus, but what comes to mind for me here is the old Zen aphorism: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I can't help thinking that you're not ready for me to be seen as a teacher.
Subj: Re: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/12/2004 9:47:23 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Enmarge
To: hey@briarcliff.edu Cc: Enmarge
Dear Professor Hey,
Bravo to you for sending a poem. In that sense, you risk something by sending it to someone like me. That too puts you above and beyond the average academic. I have no problem at all with your statement: “But the MFA program gave me a fine understanding of tools, which is something I wish all aspirants had.” However, I do have a problem with MFA programs censoring and otherwise refusing any criticism (e.g., my essay and any other criticism I've lodged) stemming from outside the ivory tower—clearly a great paralyzing inferiority complex grips at the throats of MFA professors in general. By far, this is the biggest problem confronting the MFA programs. Sadly and aberrantly, MFA professors don't even seem to be aware of it. Instead, they tend no doubt to eschew such criticism by demanding happy-face positivism.
If you want to have a better understanding of what on the edge means, read that essay. On the edge can be many things. Essentially it means stepping (or getting kicked) out of the comfortable chair and position. Anything can knock you out of that chair… but it must truly and sincerely knock you out of it. You can purposefully knock yourself out of it, but you must be really knocked out of it. Sudden unemployment, visceral combat with colleagues, cancer, constant rejection, jail, you name it. I have stood on that edge periodically. My creativity stems from it. Granted you probably consider my creative output as insignificant whining. Evidently, I cannot do anything to change your vision in that sense. On the edge is standing alone against the herd. I've done that a number of times as professor and poet. Rarely was I ever comfortable in my professor's chair.
In any case, your poem was not at all on the edge. I cannot comprehend why you would have even thought it was… unless you were being childishly sarcastic. Perhaps Billy Collins wrote it? Whatever. It is representative of poetry today. I could not feel anything visceral in it whatsoever. I would have rejected it outright for The American Dissident, the journal I edit and created. The poem does not shake up anything. It is a nice story, but that's what it is. It is the kind of poem that has proliferated all over America. It is the kind of poem that I seek to counterbalance with alternative verse. BUT it is the kind of poem that has created an impervious wall against any other kinds of poems. It is the kind of poem to which the cultural councils and NEH et al will accord grants… because it is the kind of poem that does not upset the status quo. And that is why poetry has reached the point of not mattering any more and why poetry is not a force in America, whereas it has been a force in other countries, including Spain, the former USSR, Chile, Argentina, etc. Unfortunately, in America today, we need FORCE to bring back the democracy. Why not be different than all the other academic lit journals and open up Briar Cliff by including correspondence like ours, debate with regards poetry, the harshest criticism lodged against Briar Cliff and encouraging the questioning and challenging of all things, In each issue of The American Dissident, I make it a point to include the harshest criticism lodged against the editor and/or the journal. What is there to fear?
For a few of my poems, you might try my site at www.geocities.com/enmarge (left column: Sample)
Thanks for writing.
Best,
G. Tod
Subj: Re: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/13/2004 9:50:49 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Enmarge
To: hey@briarcliff.edu
Dear Professor Hey,
I haven't read your most recent comments yet. I'll get to them tonight. Reading your responses forces me to conclude that my essay must really indeed rile the academic soul… to such a degree that it upsets the academic mind to the point where logic is replaced by non-arguments and denigrating epithets. I'll respond to your comments.
My experience with many academics has revealed that when criticized they will often ignore the criticism and simply label the critic whiner, bitter and/or full of personal animus. “Well, "fruit of a poison tree" is a basic argument in both rhetoric and law, and though never foolproof, it does cause a hearer to question the statement.”
It might be a basic argument in rhetoric and law, but it is a poor one, essentially a non-argument. Your point here is poorly made, if at all.
Clearly, any art or writing that criticizes or lampoons academics to the core is automatically deemed not good. “I beg to differ. Straight Man is very well received among my colleagues, as is Yeats's "The Scholars."”
I will have to take a look at both of those items, though I believe I've read “The Scholars,” but can't recall a damn thing about it. However, the problem with accepted pieces like those you mention is that they are not sufficiently potent to really upset the academics. They might be “well written,” but that's all they are. Those pieces are no doubt either too general or too impotent. Otherwise, they would not be accepted and certainly not taught.
Designating a poem as great or lousy, for example, is purely subjective… though again academics have conditioned us to believe what is great is what they say is great. “Received opinion may be wrong, has been and will be again, but it is still an essential leverage against illiteracy.”
I suppose we might think of Castro's indoctrinated literate children here. But your response sadly skirts the issue like nearly all of your responses. Why? That is a question that you must ask yourself. Why are you afraid to think and respond intelligibly?
“Oh, stop lumping us all together. I wouldn't have made that decision, nor would any of my colleagues in this department, nor would any of my colleague friends at other institutions.”
There are indubitably generalizations that can be made RE the tenured academic. Sure, that are probably a few exceptions. Have you read any of the critical literature on the beast academic? Ah, you don't have the time. I forgot. Well, here's list of items, I've read, that ought to make your nostrils flair. “Tenure corrupts, enervates, and dulls higher education. It is, moreover, the academic culture's ultimate control mechanism to weed out the idiosyncratic, the creative, the nonconformist.” That's from Profscam. You see my friend, I'm not alone.
—How Teachers Colleges Have Destroyed Education in America: Education's Smoking Gun, Reginald Damerell
—Acceptance speech (New York City Teacher of the Year Award), 1/31/90, John Taylor Gatto
—“Teaching Self-Censorship at Columbia,” Nat Hentoff, Village Voice 2/21/01 —The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses, Kors and Silvergate
—“Tenured Weasels: Getting a Degree—But Not an Education—at Public Universities,” Patrick Moore (www.bus.lsu.edu/accounting/faculty/ lcrumbley/sfrtas.html)
—The Goose-Step: Study of American Education, Upton Sinclair
—The Graves of Academe, Richard Mitchell
—How Teachers Colleges Have Destroyed Education in America: Education's Smoking Gun, Reginald Damerell
—Yale University's Woodward Report
—Free Speech for Me, But Not for Thee, Nat Hentoff
—Imposters in the Temple, Martin Anderson
—Poisoning the Ivy, Michael Lewis
—The Fall of the Ivory Tower, George Roche
—Inside American Education, Thomas Sowell
—Scaling the Ivory Tower, Lionel Lewis
—Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education, Charles J. Sykes
—The Hollow Men: Politics and Corruption in Higher Education, Charles J. Sykes
—Killing the Spirit: Higher Education in America, Page Smith
—Vamps and Tramps by Camille Paglia (especially “The Nursery School Campus: The Corrupting of the Humanities in the U.S”)
—Saints and Scamps: Ethics In Academia, S.M. Cahn.
—Academic Integrity and Student Development, W.L. Kibler et.al,
—“Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Student Evaluation of Faculty: Galloping Polls In The 21st Century,” Robert E. Haskell (200-page essay also on the Return to Academic Standards web site)
—The Conspiracy of Ignorance: the Failure of American Public Schools, Martin L. Gross
—Lies My Teacher Told Me, James W. Loewen
—Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good about Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add, Charles J. Sykes
—American Education and Corporations: The Free Market Goes to School, Deron Boyles
—A Second Mencken Chrestomathy (e.g., “The Public-School,” “The War upon Intelligence,” and “The Golden Age of Pedagogy”), H. L. Mencken
You might also come to understand why poetry today does not matter and largely because of the overwhelming influence of the Complex, which has co-opted writers like you. “Not me, baby, not me. You can ask anyone who knows me, including lotsa non-academics.”
Your response is classic denial. Oh, I'm different from the herd. If so, why are you in the herd? You need to recognize your taboo areas in the academy. They affect your writing and thinking. What or who would you dare not criticize openly? Lots of non-academics have been brainwashed by the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex. So that's a non-argument.
I do not respect academe's (and your) refusal to publish my essay and or comment on it… and by comment I do not mean lazy shooting of the messenger as you and others in academe tend to do. “My God, nothing like all-or-nothing categories, is there?” By comment, tell me precisely where the essay is wrong. “Point 1: you demand that everyone be "on the edge," when in fact very few people of any occupation are on the edge. Point 2: you by reflex devalue anything that doesn't fit your formula for what poetry ought to be. Point 3: you slander good people who -- believe it or not -- are actually working to make the world a better place. Point 4: you seem unable to make your argument calmly. As I believe Samuel Johnson put it, "you do not reinforce your argument by raising your voice."”
Well, good. You've read it. Again, you are somewhat different as a herd member. BUT your answers seem as if issued by herd decree. Let's look at them. My essay does not state all poets should be on the edge. WRONG! READ CAREFULLY! Why the herd makes that point is curious, to say the least. I believe it comes from something deep within in you that might be saying, hey, that guy's right and I don't and can't admit it. My essay urges poets (not all poets) to step on the edge periodically. That's quite different from what you state. The essay offers an alternative amongst other alternatives. YET academe does not want to examine or hear that alternative. It prefers to ignore it and render it a non-alternative. Academe should be open to the debate of all ideas within its arena. Instead, it reacts as you react. The essay does not demand that all poets write highly negative, critical verse either. Some of my own poetry paints nature and the cosmos. You must learn to read carefully and not jump to wild conclusions. Isn't that what you teach your students… who of course love you? The jumping is obviously indicative of something deep within you… something you are probably repressing, something shared by homo academicus in general.
Your three points are terrible. I'm surprised that someone with your intellect could actually state them after having read the piece.
“Point 2: you by reflex devalue anything that doesn't fit your formula for what poetry ought to be.”
In a sense, I suppose you're right. I have come to believe that poetry that does not risk or is not written on the edge does tend to be lesser in value, intellectually and on behalf of society. Diversionary poetry has become the poetry of the Academy. And in that sense I could certainly write: “you and the Academy by reflex devalue anything that doesn't fit your formula for what poetry ought to be.” Now, it you can comprehend that, then we're making progress. In other words, the Academy pushes diversionary poetry, while suppressing engaged poetry.
“Point 3: you slander good people who -- believe it or not -- are actually working to make the world a better place.”
How aberrant of you… but how delicious too… because it fits the pattern. When you make such a statement you need to back it up with concrete examples. I know you don't have the time. Well, let's at least make the students do that, right? You need to look up the word slander, at least the legal sense of the term. Slander is purposeful prevarication. I have not lied with regards anyone mentioned in that essay. So, either you prove I lied or you're simply making a jackass fluff statement as a non-argument. Hopefully, you'll address this point, but I doubt you will.
“Point 4: you seem unable to make your argument calmly. As I believe Samuel Johnson put it, "you do not reinforce your argument by raising your voice."”
This too constitutes yet another non-argument, another example of quick draw and poor aim at shooting the messenger. You fail to back your statement with a concrete example or two. You need to take a closer look at this disturbing habit of yours. What does it matter if my argument is not made calmly? The key is that it is made. Now, deal with the argument instead of avoiding it with denigrating epithet. How can you be teaching students with an avoid-the-argument, shoot-the-messenger modus operandi? Logic and clarity is what you ought to be teaching. Just the same, you'd think I were standing in front of you and hollering at the top of my lungs. Just the same, how to make prose come to life! Fill it with raw emotion, anger, loudness, etc. Well, I'd rather read something like that than a feel-good, backslapping jargon-infested scholarly paper on Rhetoric and Professional Writing.
You refer to “animus.” Well, that's an example of shooting the messenger. “I can't resist: DON'T PAINT SUCH A BIG, BRIGHT TARGET ON YOURSELF.”
Well, this is one of your typical childish non-responses. Perhaps you need to resist when the urge overtakes you. It is comprehensible why you and the herd academic might be jealous of a thinker like me. It makes sense. No, not jealous of my unemployed, unhealthinsured, unpensioned, untenured situation. No, clearly not that. But jealous of my being able to think for myself, of my having successfully resisted academic groupthink (Read Bernard Goldberg's Bias… everything in it extrapolates perfectly to academe), my daring to speak truth aloud, and my daring to go against the grain. It is understandable that you and your colleagues would detest someone like me in your midst. It makes sense. There is really no mystery there at all. I do like to further my insights into homo academicus. These exchanges help me in that sense.
Why is the message in my essay so reprehensible? It urges poets to stand up and be courageous. “And by implication, damns all the poets you don't know who are standing up and being courageous IN THEIR OWN WAY.”
You're pushing the ole poet myth here, which has strayed so far from reality.
But apparently that thought constitutes the wrong tone. Why are you and your colleagues so fearful of strong emotion and personal involvement in the writing? “Another blanket generalization, and wrong again.”
Another non-response, another example of avoidance and denial. You criticize me for writing with emotion, then for asking you why you are afraid of (or adverse to) strong emotion in the writing.
“For students -- because they can learn more reading other things.”
The poetry anthologies and poetry that tends to be taught and read in colleges tends to bore students to death. It is unchallenging and facile pompous work for the most part that tends to be taught. A friend of mine who teaches creative writing concurs with that observation. Valentine-card poets like Maya Angelou push students to drop out of creative writing courses. That's why my essay would be different.
“Why should we feel obliged to publish any particular opinion?”
For your students! Certainly not for fellow academics and administrators. Also, academe should be open to publishing alternative opinions. I know it isn't, but it should be. Aberrantly, the children of the 60s helped close the door. Academe, as I see it, should be an agora for the exchange and debate of ideas, all ideas, emotional or non-emotional. As the growing literature indicates, Academe has grown sickly because it has become closed to such things. And you and your colleagues are largely responsible for the current status quo. You have sold out for pension, perks, salary, and life-time job security. Those things have also kept you and your colleagues off the edge of powerful and pertinent writing. That has been your Faustian deal: money and comfort in exchange for sharp-edged critical dangerous writing apt to rock the academic boat. It is a tempting deal, of course. At one time in my career, I might have shook hands with that devil… might have.
“Unless you stop thinking of us as clones, you'll never really get to know us.”
The problem is that I do know you… and you do share many common traits: lack of courage, groupthink herd behavior, lack of logical argumentation, implicit taboos, refusal of any pertinent criticism especially when it points directly at you, etc.
I spent 10 years as a full time professor at three American colleges. I've also corresponded with numerous academic editors and poets. I've seen the beast up close, I've heard the beast at meetings and assessment workshops over and over and over. I've rubbed elbows with the beast. Get it?
“But the Briar Cliff Review never rejected your submission.”
Yes it did! Through you. Can you honestly say that one of your colleagues on the editorial board would think any differently than you regarding it?
“I can achieve disinterest. Look up the word.”
Well, I suppose I erred. Hey, it doesn't hurt to say I made a mistake. Allow me to replace the word with lack of interest. Now, maybe you can admit to a mistake or two.
“I did read it. But sometimes I have students who think that just because I have read their arguments, I must therefore be automatically convinced and align myself with their position. I'm happy to plead disinterest.”
First, I am hardly one of your students. I pity your students… and I pity them even more if they've been giving you roaring evaluations. Logic and reason should be a force apt to convince anyone to align with a position.
“If they want it, they can find it. What you may not understand is that, for example, TSEliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is shockingly alternative for some of them. Let alone Randall Jarrell's essays.”
The key is they DON'T WANT IT. WHY? And it has nothing whatsoever to do with TS Eliot's dreadfully boring essay. Jarrell too gets tedious. They wear the chains of Academe. I would have mentioned far superior essays by Orwell (“Prevention of Writing”), Emerson (“Self-Reliance”), Camus, Ferre, and Thoreau.
“The more you generalize about me, the less you'll know. I find that true about most people. If you were writing about African-Americans or Native Americans or _______ with such broad generalizations”
We're not talking about race here. We're talking about a breed of indoctrinated intellects. It has always surprised me that high IQ does not necessarily make for a good shield against indoctrination. Well, that brings us back to Camus' argument of two kinds of intelligence: stupid intelligence and intelligent intelligence.
Finally, I admit it. I find you frustrating. I find homo academicus frustrating. Why? It is the lack of logical argumentation in your [and their] discourse. That's what I find the most frustrating. If you had only written one sentence of logical argumentation, perhaps I might have learned something. I like learning from people. Don't you?
Well, at least you've got a sense of humor: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I can't help thinking that you're not ready for me to be seen as a teacher.” What is sad is that I do see you in a permanent paid position as a teacher. I can only pity the students. You appear to be done learning… and that is sad. Let's look at that quote and alter it: “When the teacher is ready, he'll refrain from shooting the messenger and actually examine the message.”
Best,
G. Tod
Subj: RE: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/12/2004 12:35:03 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: "Hey, Phil"
To:
Again I'll insert comments.
Phil Hey
From: Enmarge@aol.com [mailto:Enmarge@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 8:47 AM
To: Hey, Phil
Cc: Enmarge@aol.com
Subject: Re: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Dear Professor Hey,
Bravo to you for sending a poem. In that sense, you risk something by sending it to someone like me. That too puts you above and beyond the average academic. I have no problem at all with your statement: “But the MFA program gave me a fine understanding of tools, which is something I wish all aspirants had.” However, I do have a problem with MFA programs censoring and otherwise refusing any criticism (e.g., my essay and any other criticism I've lodged) stemming from outside the ivory tower—clearly a great paralyzing inferiority complex grips at the throats of MFA professors in general. By far, this is the biggest problem confronting the MFA programs. Sadly and aberrantly, MFA professors don't even seem to be aware of it. Instead, they tend no doubt to eschew such criticism by demanding happy-face positivism. Absolutely untrue of all the MFA professors I know. I will concede (no doubt to your delight) from my exp. as fiction editor of the BCReview that some fiction writers seem too used to a pre-paid audience, i.e., someone who will read and respond to writing that later I found too slow or simply uninteresting. But then not only MFA students write such stories.
If you want to have a better understanding of what on the edge means, read that essay. On the edge can be many things. Essentially it means stepping (or getting kicked) out of the comfortable chair and position. Anything can knock you out of that chair… but it must truly and sincerely knock you out of it. You can purposefully knock yourself out of it, but you must be really knocked out of it. Sudden unemployment, visceral combat with colleagues, cancer, constant rejection, jail, you name it. I have stood on that edge periodically. My creativity stems from it. Granted you probably consider my creative output as insignificant whining. Evidently, I cannot do anything to change your vision in that sense. On the edge is standing alone against the herd. I've done that a number of times as professor and poet. Rarely was I ever comfortable in my professor's chair. Nor I.
In any case, your poem was not at all on the edge. I cannot comprehend why you would have even thought it was… unless you were being childishly sarcastic. Perhaps Billy Collins wrote it? Shame on you. Whatever. It is representative of poetry today. I could not feel anything visceral in it whatsoever. I would have rejected it outright for The American Dissident, the journal I edit and created. The poem does not shake up anything. It is a nice story, but that's what it is. It is the kind of poem that has proliferated all over America. It is the kind of poem that I seek to counterbalance with alternative verse. BUT it is the kind of poem that has created an impervious wall against any other kinds of poems. Not at all. You must be a conspiracy theorist. It stands all by itself as witness to things that have happened in my life. No more, no less. It is the kind of poem to which the cultural councils and NEH et al will accord grants… Gee, never got one. because it is the kind of poem that does not upset the status quo. And that is why poetry has reached the point of not mattering any more and why poetry is not a force in America, whereas it has been a force in other countries, including Spain, the former USSR, Chile, Argentina, etc. As my wife says, consider TV, movies, etc etc. We have a populace absolutely overwhelmed with "important" messages in all media, and -- be honest -- a culture which has never had a history of poetry as essentials of its culture. Unfortunately, in America today, we need FORCE to bring back the democracy. Why not be different than all the other academic lit journals and open up Briar Cliff by including correspondence like ours, debate with regards poetry, the harshest criticism lodged against Briar Cliff and encouraging the questioning and challenging of all things, Quite simply because that's not what we are. Your mag can be what you want it to be, and I would ask in return your extending the same rights to us. In each issue of The American Dissident, I make it a point to include the harshest criticism lodged against the editor and/or the journal. What is there to fear? Did you ever consider that that may be a kind of navel-gazing???? We print neither praise nor blame regarding our magazine. We are trying to represent and give back to a community and an area with the best work we can find. If you disagree, then disagree. Some very good writers and publishers (many of them non-academic) seem to like what we do... but we don't brag. What we do is go back to reading more submissions and thinking very hard about what we want to put out. And ain't none of us paid, not by the university, not by grants, not by corporate sponsors. Briar Cliff is a Franciscan place, and we think that doing something for love is being on the edge.
For a few of my poems, you might try my site at www.geocities.com/enmarge (left column: Sample)
Thanks for writing.
Best,
G. Tod
Subj: Re: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/15/2004 9:52:29 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Enmarge
To: hey@briarcliff.edu
Dear Professor Hey:
Thanks for informing me that BCU is a religious institution. I'm familiar with such institutions, having taught two years at a Methodist black women's college.
Since I doubt you've looked it up. Try this for a quote: “A truth statement, no matter how damaging, can't be libelous” (B. Bunnin & P. Beren Writer's Legal Companion). It thus becomes your burden to prove any statements in my essay untruthful with regards any names I mentioned. Of course, you won't do this. And we both know why.
BTW, epithets do not further or bolster an argument. They just fill it with hot air or replace it entirely to form a non-argument. In your last email, you hurled yet another one: “a kind of navel-gazing.”
While in the tub reading an old copy of the Atlantic Monthly (grabbed from the free box at the library—I'd never buy such a rag), I thought about your poem and realized it typical of the kind of verse published in that magazine and The New Yorker, and also of the kind of poetry published by university presses and journals. That kind of poetry is what publishers probably refer to (dans les coulisses) as filler items. It seemed representative of the kind of poetry produced by academic poets—in other words, poetry not written on the edge, not critical of anything, society-friendly, and otherwise not apt to make any kind of rivulets whatsoever. The problem for American literature is that similar poetry (written by black, white, Asian, Hispanic, male, gay, or female) has proliferated in academe to the point where that lack of real diversity (not just skin-deep) has become a wall, similar to that, I suppose, to when academe was filled with white men only. The problem is that similar poetry tends to like similar poetry and tends to publish and promote similar poetry. I'm not saying your poem was bad poetry or good poetry or that it shouldn't be published or written. I'm saying that the academic mindset seems to have frozen around such poetry. Poetry that challenges the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex is being excluded. Sure, I can publish it myself, but it will disappear in the long run… because it will not have the high circulation of academic journals pumped up with federal dollars.
Your argument that you (Briar Cliff Review) should be able to publish whatever you feel like publishing is escapist. Every academic in the country can put forth the same argument. Every academic in the country can thereby via rationalization avoid anything that might make waves. That is the crux of the problem confronting the nation's institutions of higher education. That is why you and the bulk of academics bare some responsibility for the current demise of the American democracy. And of course why should you VISCERALLY care that 40 million of your citizens who have no health insurance? Why should you VISCERALLY care that so many jobs are being outsourced? Why should you VISCERALLY care that wealthy people are ruling this nation when YOU have your little secure fiefdom? On the edge, means no secure fiefdom. It also means being able to VISCERALLY feel.
Best,
G. Tod
Subj: RE: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/13/2004 11:20:45 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: "Hey, Phil"
To: I wrote you before that I don't have the time or energy, and it remains true. Whether you believe me or not. You must have been hurt very badly by your academic experiences to spend so much time trying to tear down academe. If you think that all these other schools are doing it wrong, then start your own. If you think that all these other poets are doing it wrong, write your own. If you think that whatever establishment you're opposed to needs criticism, then write AND PUBLISH it yourself.
I can hardly believe that a person of good will -- presuming that you are one -- would have anything positive to say about slander (or by implication consider using it).
As for your being hurt, perhaps what you need is not debate but therapy; it might surprise you what you could learn about yourself, talking with someone who has no vested interest in any position regarding academe or poetry.
This will be my last message for a while, perhaps forever. It might not have occurred to you that antagonizing and deprecating your audience is not a very effective way to win them over. If that is the case, reconsider your rhetorical strategy, not your position on issues. At the moment I feel I gave you much more time than you earned.
And a final comment occurs to me, from TSEliot, likely someone you consider the arch-high-priest of academic taste, but to me a person who makes sense now and then: "A bird does not sing because he has an answer, but because he has a song." If songs don't matter to you, that doesn't mean they don't matter to some of the rest of us.
Professor Hey,
“You must have been hurt very badly by your academic experiences to spend so much time trying to tear down academe.” You diminish valid critique with a dysphemism, rather than with an intelligent argument! And that is indicative of a very lazy intellect! If only I could make you realize that your attitude is a facile America [Academe] Love It or Leave It one! That attitude is widespread in academe. I don't share it at all. I believe in America [Academe] Discover Its Faults and Attempt to Eliminate Them via Logical Critique! Of course, I'm all too aware that to make an academic see the light is next to impossible. Thus, I must try to make others see the light and hopefully provoke them into hammering away at the Ivory Tower like once they'd done in Berlin.
“I can hardly believe that a person of good will -- presuming that you are one -- would have anything positive to say about slander (or by implication consider using it).” This sentence makes no sense whatsoever in the context of my having named a few people in my essay.
“As for your being hurt, perhaps what you need is not debate but therapy.” This sentence constitutes yet another puerile epithet in semi-disguise. With so many like you in academe and education in general, the nation deserves to fall into an Orwellian period. Criticism is the core requisite of any healthy democracy. You and so many others like you with your happy-face joie de vivre fail to realize that.
“It might not have occurred to you that antagonizing and deprecating your audience is not a very effective way to win them over.” Winning you over was never my goal. I'm all too aware that would have been next to impossible. My goal was eliciting idiotic statements from a tenured English professor like the ones you've made so that I might highlight them in my writing and critique in an effort to show others just how bad things have gotten in higher education. That was my goal. You've provided more grist than I'd hoped for. You are now part of my essay “Cold Passion.” And it WILL be published someday! I use you because I sincerely believe after my 15 years of full-time teaching in Academe that you are not the exception, but rather the sad, sad rule. I leave “winning over” people like you to the politicians and university presidents and deans. That's their forte, not mine.
“At the moment I feel I gave you much more time than you earned.” But in reality, I did manage to earn it!
Open your rigid paradigm! "A bird does not sing because he has an answer, but because he has a song." Well, my song is questioning and challenging your song!
Best,
G. Tod
PS: I forgot to ask. Would you please recommend to your university library that it consider subscribing to The American Dissident?
Subj: Re: Why Poetry Doesn't Matter...
Date: 3/16/2004 9:55:48 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: Enmarge
To: hey@briarcliff.edu
Professor Hey,
With regards your latest comments…
“You must have been hurt very badly by your academic experiences to spend so much time trying to tear down academe.”
You diminish valid critique with a dysphemism(“trying to tear down academe”), rather than with an intelligent argument… and that is indicative of a lazy intellect. If only you could realize your attitude is a facile America [Academe] Love It or Leave It one! That attitude is widespread in academe. Evidently, I don't share it. Evidently, academe likes sameness in its ranks. I believe in America [Academe] Discover Its Concealed Faults and Expose Them via Logical Critique! Of course, I'm all too aware that to make an academic see the light is next to impossible. Thus, I must try to make others see the light and hopefully provoke them into hammering away at the Ivory Tower like once they'd done in Berlin. Others ARE working at this. I am not the only one. Check out, for example, www.wecareforcumberland.com. Cumberland College is a religious affiliated institution like yours. One of my essays was just posted on that site Monday. I sent you a list of books and articles, yet you choose to remain ignorant. Why? You pride yourself as being different from the average black-robe herd member, yet you don't seem to be different.
“I can hardly believe that a person of good will -- presuming that you are one -- would have anything positive to say about slander (or by implication consider using it).” This sentence makes no sense whatsoever in the context of my having named a few people in my essay. I sent you a definition. Examine it and learn from it. Bring your new knowledge to your students.
“As for your being hurt, perhaps what you need is not debate but therapy.” This sentence constitutes yet another puerile epithet in semi-disguise. With so many like you in academe and education in general, the nation will fall into an Orwellian period. Criticism is the core requisite of any healthy democracy. You and so many others like you with your happy-face joie de vivre fail to realize that. You are holding the shovels, piling the dirt on top of the failing democracy.
“It might not have occurred to you that antagonizing and deprecating your audience is not a very effective way to win them over.” Winning over you and other herd academics was never my goal. I'm all too aware that would have been next to impossible. My goal was and is eliciting inane statements from a tenured English professor, like the ones you've made, so I might highlight them in my writing and critique in an effort to show others just how bad things have gotten in higher education. You've provided more grist than I'd hoped for. You are now part of my essay “Cold Passion,” which WILL be published someday, though evidently not by an academic journal! I cite you because I sincerely believe after my 15 years of full-time teaching in Academe that you are not the exception, but rather the sad rule. I leave “winning over” people like you to the politicians and university presidents and deans. That's their forte, not mine—never has been.
“At the moment I feel I gave you much more time than you earned.” But in reality, I did manage to earn it with clear argumentation that evidently sent your mind reeling!
"A bird does not sing because he has an answer, but because he has a song." There are many birds. You are perhaps a chickadee or sparrow, whereas I am an albatross… whose song is questioning and challenging your song!
Best,
G. Tod
PS: I forgot to ask. Would you please recommend to your university library that it consider subscribing to The American Dissident?