The American Dissident: Literature, Democracy & Dissidence
Foetry
Foetry.com is now dead. Alan Cordle, academic librarian, ended up terminating his website, Foetry.com, because he was afraid his career-poet wife, Kathleen Halme, might be harmed by truth. How spineless! So many poets in America would rather anything, but truth.
The following is the transcript from Foetry.com of a forum held to discredit The American Dissident and its editor, initiated by David James Callan, Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, Maytag Fellow, two-time Academy of American Poets prize winner, two-time Bowdoin Poetry prize-winner, Forbes Rickart Jr. Poetry prize winner, Associate Member of the Academy of American Poets, and foet member of Foetry.com. As editor, I’d rejected Callan's submission because Callan had not taken the time to read the guidelines of The American Dissident, especially the part underscoring NOT to send the usual credentials normally forwarded to other poetry journals. Reading the transcript, you will discover that the foet cohort believes it succeeded in fully trashing The American Dissident and its editor. The cohort felt sad for Callan, concluding the editor had bullied the thin-skinned foet.
What marks this cohort of foets, more than anything else, is its adolescent tendency to shoot the messenger with idiots' epithets and entirely ignore the message. How to respond to an all-inclusive comment like "your writing sucks" or “he’s a prick”? Evidently, the only way is to shut the door, which is what the editor eventually did, though kept it ajar for foets interested in serious debate. To date, not one foet chose that road. Instead, cohort entries actually got worse and more puerile. By the way, the foets are not teenagers, they actually possess college degrees.
The only reason this page was set up on The American Dissident website is that Alan Cordle, librarian at one of the largest community colleges and founder of Foetry.com, got New York Times coverage and was actually able to anger a number of known literati by exposing corruption in the literary-prize game. The editor was impressed with what Cordle had done and had even established a link to Foetry.com. It was thus surprising to read Cordle’s comments in the forum because lacking in intellect.
As for Curran, he threatened lawsuit.. Oddly, Harvard poet Jorie Graham had threatened to sue Cordle. Is that what poets do today? Are they entirely ignorant of what defamation entails in the legal sense? Does Callan represent the type of poet the Iowa Writers' Workshop has been mass producing, or is he simply a sad exception? Is it not odd that someone fighting corruption in the realm of literary prizes would so readily flaunt literary-prize credentials? Callan shall be lampooned in the upcoming issue of The American Dissident as a Maytag fellow (yes, the washing-machine guy!). The editor challenges him to bring on the lawsuit.
One must wonder why adolescent-type personalities would choose to become poets in today’s America. In any case, the cartoon on this page was sketched a year ago when Cordle had chosen the coward's road of running Foetry.com as an anonymous entity. Since then, however, someone discovered who he was, forcing him to discard the cowardly cloak of anonymity. The cartoon is critical of Cordle, his poet wife, and the poets he'd criticized. I'd asked Cordle to put the cartoon in the forum, but he chose to ignore the request... for evident reasons. Interestingly, one of the foets, Matt, sensed something was wrong with the foets modus operandi, but ended up caving in and behaving like a foet is supposed to... idiot-like.
Foetry Forum V.2
Poetry Discussion
THE AMERICAN DISSIDENT
I read the entire passage about The American Dissident in Poet's Market. Here is the lovely letter I received from its editor today:
From : George Slone <todslone@yahoo.com>
Sent : Thursday, March 2, 2006 10:27 AM
To : davidjamescallan@hotmail.com
Subject : The American Dissident
To David James Callan,
Before I can consider your poems, you have to consider the guidelines for submissions to The American Dissident. It is evident that you did not even consult them. You may obtain them at www.theamericandissident.org. By the way, what precisely does being an Associate Member of the Academy of American Poets entail? How does one ascend to such a lofty poet position? Can you get the Academy to recognize that The American Dissident exists? Have you, as magna cum laude and Maytag Fellow (isn’t that the washing-machine guy?), ever thought about literary prizes, not just obtaining them, but what kind of intellectual corruption might be occurring behind the scenes? Have you ever thought about Emerson’s statement: “I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.”?
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Editor
David James Callan
I can be reached at:
16 Eldridge St. Apt. 14H
Manchester, CT 06040
(860) 647-6911
davidjamescallan@hotmail.com
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 2:25 pm Post subject: He's a jerk
Don't sweat it, David. He sounds like a pretentious little prick who knows less about poetry than you. I'm glad you posted his diatribe here. Now others can save the energy, time, and stamps.
It's interesting to me that he obviously didn't even google you. You ARE a dissident. You are naming names. You have a lot more to lose than he.
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 3:46 pm Post subject: re: MORE FUN WITH GEORGE
I emailed Mr. Slone, and said basically: "Sorry to misbehave. I have posted your letter on foetry.com. Please return my work since I sent the appropriate postage. I will let the folks at foetry.com know if you returned my stuff." A paraphrase, but that's all I said. He replied within an hour:
From : George Slone <todslone@yahoo.com>
Sent : Friday, March 3, 2006 9:57 AM
To : David James <davidjamescallan@hotmail.com>
Subject : re: SORRY TO MISBEHAVE, PLEASE RETURN MY WORK
Hi,
You really must have gotten angry or at least indignant with regards my having placed a few uncomfortable questions before your magna-cum-lauda mindset. Yes, those with academic/literary badges really do have a visceral dislike for anyone daring to challenge them. As far as your "misbehaving," I'm certain you do not do that when "higher-up" canon personages, organizations, and literary reviews are involved. Why do you with all your badges and recognition choose to ignore guidelines? Are you sending out so many innocuous submissions that you simply do not have the time to consult them? Why are you so desperate to become known, that is, published right and left? What is the point? Ah, so many questions could be posed... to the brick poesy-machine wall, n'est-ce pas? BTW, I was unaware Foesy was also involved in decrying literary journals. No doubt it too will become corrupted, if it already hasn't. Thirst for fame and recognition inevitably corrupts. Think about that, Maytag fellow, think about it... if you can still think independently, that is...
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone
Ummmm...why is this dude freaking out about my cover letter?
I've been on disability for six or seven years, he's presuming a lot from my letter
He obviously didn't or couldn't read my poems. I know one of the poems was about a lynching (a real lynching, not the Jorie Graham kind)--one thing my submission was not was innocuous.
If there are people out there writing poems, I wouldn't waste time with journals that want you to conform to their ideals and ideas too much...insisting you buy their zine, or check out their website. Journals should THANK YOU for submitting, even when rejecting you. Exquisite Corpse makes fun of some submissions, but in a good-natured way.
How can someone criticize someone for not being an independent thinker and at the same time insist that they conform as George does? He reminds me a bit of Jimmy B.: when a person is confrontational about things that seem baffling to the person confronted, not playing along is called CHOOSING ONES' BATTLES.
It often does not suggest that the confronter's ideas are amazing, original, shocking, or even coherent.
And George has no idea whether I am an independent thinker. He should read one of my poems sometimes. I save my energy for them.
I disagree with Monday Love: criticism is NOT the same as poetry. Look at all the criticism and all the shit poetry. There's something about poetry that eludes most of the people who think about it or affect a stance that they think about it. The world would be full of great poets if poetry were the same thing as criticism, and it's not.
And the world is not full of great critics, either.
Like Steve Martin said, and Laurie Anderson quoted: Talking about comedy is like dancing about architecture.
I write poems without consulting anybody, maybe that's why my cover letter is so short. I could yak about poetry for hours, but I'd rather write. Same thing at Iowa--a lot of yakking about poetry. Poetry.com is a lot like Iowa, ironically. Except some of it is hopefully changing things, which is nice.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
I can be reached at:
16 Eldridge St. Apt. 14H
Manchester, CT 06040
(860) 647-6911
davidjamescallan@hotmail.com
Last edited by David James Callan on Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:03 pm; edited 3 times in total
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 4:02 pm Post subject: RE: MY REPLY TO GEORGE
My reply to George:
http://foetry.com/newbb/viewtopic.php?p=6499#6499
I'll add to this as time goes on. Please return my stuff.
[Poets: Conserve energy.]
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
I can be reached at:
16 Eldridge St. Apt. 14H
Manchester, CT 06040
(860) 647-6911
davidjamescallan@hotmail.com
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 4:50 pm Post subject:
I checked out his website, David. He's a nut, and writes very bad prose.
Ed Dupree
_________________
"I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle."
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 4:53 pm Post subject:
Not to mention how poorly the website is designed . . . it's a cluttery piece of crap.
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:02 pm Post subject: re: MORE GENERAL THINGS I'VE LEARNED...
I'm between a rock and a hard-place. Either I'm too academic, not academic enough.
It's really nobody's business what you do, read, who you associate with, etc. IT REALLY SHOULD BE NOBODY'S BUSINESS WHERE YOU WORK.
Cover letters are a formality, but they certainly do not reveal the inner secrets of my mind--nor do little blurbs on websites like this. You'd have to read my four finished manuscripts to even get a hint at what I WANT my thoughts to be represented as. Which is why I am trying to publish them--but you have to print PARTS to lead up to printing THE WHOLE THINGS.
SO ANY EDITOR WHO COMPLAINS ABOUT YOU TRYING TO PUBLISH STUFF IS EITHER OFF HIS ROCKER OR STUPID AND SHOULDN'T BE RUNNING A MAGAZINE. IT'S LIKE A DENTIST YELLING AT YOU FOR COMING IN WITH A TOOTHACHE. SORT OF.
Then you have: irony, metaphor, symbolism, and all those nasty literary devices, which leave literal meaning and intended meaning at an impasse...
Come to think of it, I'll say this again: Poems and theory, criticism, etc. are NOT even the slightest bit alike. Only critics will tell you that, or people who write crap poetry that only exists by "backing it up" with a lot of HOT AIR.
Thanks, Ed. I DON'T have time to read every website out there, otherwise I wouldn't have time to write. And academic hack that I am, I haven't been near a school in eight years, can't afford a computer or the internet, and only through chance have I had access to these things in the past few months.
I wish I could print the poems I sent to this guy, but I'm afraid I could never publish them in a journal. Like it or not, publications do seem to matter to a lot of people, but damned if trying to get published the past eight years hasn't sucked me dry of energy, which I am now trying to find.
And it is nobody's business who else or what else you send to other journals as long as there is no conflict with the submission you sent, i.e.: multiple submissions.
Which brings us back to the beginning, and me not taking the easy route--not because it was easy but because it was FISHY. And The American Dissident and its editor seem pretty fishy to me.
And what do you wanna bet I never get my stuff back. If I was a real academic I probably wouldn't care, but my access to these computers is running out.
Still, crazy as it sounds, I think writers are more important than editors. Probably why I have such bad luck. My poems are alright.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
I can be reached at:
16 Eldridge St. Apt. 14H
Manchester, CT 06040
(860) 647-6911
davidjamescallan@hotmail.com
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 5:34 pm Post subject: AND ANOTHER THING...
And another thing.
It is NONSENSE when people claim to be poets who don't write poems because they at least have their INTEGRITY or whatever.
Poets (and other writers) can be deaf, dumb, and mute, never talk about poetry, never theorise, but they WRITE. And poets WRITE POEMS.
And if you don't write poems but claim to be some sort of tragic poet, and I won't analyze your reasons, you're not a poet or a writer. You're full of hooey. You're a hoo.
And I'm not gonna tell you who told me this, in not as many words, a long time ago. But it sure would be ironic.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
I can be reached at:
DJ Callan
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:02 pm Post subject: re: GEORGE SAID THIS BUT I DID NOT READ IT
From : George Slone <todslone@yahoo.com>
Sent : Friday, March 3, 2006 1:37 PM
To : David James <davidjamescallan@hotmail.com>
Subject : Names and badges, is that what poetry has become today?
DJ,
This is all quite interesting... certainly a lot more interesting than the poems and letter vaunting your badges and poesy credentials. What I found to be of particular interest is AC's jumping immediately on your wagon without even desiring to seek any evidence whatsoever. This of course diminishes his credibility. I can easily prove by simply sending your letter and underscoring the part in my guidelines clearly stipulating that poets not send badges and credentials. BUT I doubt AC or Foesy would be at all interested in that. If of course he requests that I send the evidence, I shall do so immediately. I shall have to remove the link to Foesy on my site. It sounded good, but how disappointing its editor. Lots of facile killing the messenger responses and sadly from poets with regards your entry. How to get those poets to understand that logic and evidence are so much more important in a democracy than simple name-calling. I shall carefully read their responses tonight and attempt to post a response... again. Unfortunately, it is a pain in the ass to register on Foesy. I've tried several times today and keeping getting rejected.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Editor
The American Dissident
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 7:11 pm Post subject: RE: EMAIL SENT TO GEORGE SLONE
Mr. Slone,
Please feel free to have anyone say as they please, but you do not have permission to print my poems in any way. I will be happy to email privately anyone concerned who is interested [in reading them].
I will certainly contact lawyers if you print my work on the Internet or elsewhere without my permission, since you chose to not accept the poem under the terms inherent in submitting it to your magazine.
Sincerely,
David James Callan
SO: If you want to read the poems he sent and make fun of them, I will send them to you personally on Monday: e-mail me at davidjamescallan@hotmail.com. However, please let me know if he publishes my poems here or elsewhere, because he DOES NOT have permission to print them in any form. He gave that up this morning.
I believe it is theft of intellectual property.
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 8:34 pm Post subject: Ignore him
He is trying to provoke a response, but he isn't worth talking to -- I'm sure he won't dare print your poems.
And only a dolt can't figure out how to register here.
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:10 pm Post subject:
David--
It's a little hard to tell what's going on here, but I take it that in your cover letter you mentioned too many of your credentials for Slone's taste. Hell, you may have mentioned too many for my taste, but it's obvious that the guy has some kind of mania about credentials--probably because he hasn't been able to get any, because his own "poems" are really really awful, like those of the "contibutors" to his mag (really just his blog; have a look and you'll see what I mean.) It's lucky for you he didn't take any of your poems. Please don't waste any thought on this crank.
Ed
_________________
"I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle."
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:38 pm Post subject: Wow!
I checked out the guy's website/blog/journal/whatever. Not since Dan Schneider have I seen such an amazing combination of arrogance and lack of talent. What a complete dipshit!
Poet K
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:38 pm Post subject:
Well, I've just read through the tedious comments. It appears there are only three Foet Clones commenting, so it's no big deal at all. In fact, your forum is boring. Alan Cordel needs a lesson in logical argumentation. Sure, my site looks cluttered and isn't pretty like his site. Sure, the quotes and essays by Solzhenitsyn, Emerson, Havel, Thoreau, Douglas, Orwell, etc. suck... You come off as a bunch of adolescents. AC's photo even looks puerile. How can anyone take your critique on Foet Prizes seriously if you behave thusly? I sure as hell wanted to take it seriously, but how can I?
Anyhow, all of this inanity is over one desperate for fame poetaster, David, who didn't take the time to read my guidelines, which expressly state SEND NO CREDENTIALS. But rather, tell me what turned you against the machine, etc. And what did I get from, David? WashingMaching Fellow, IowaWriterSchoolCloneProduct, FoetPrizeWinner. The American Dissident is devoted to hardcore critique of the literary machine and canon. Here's the letter sent to AC. Enjoy it. I shall not be hanging around this puerile forum any more. If you want to dialogue, send me an email: todslone@yahoo.com. When you dialogue, please use logical argumentation and present facts whenever possible. Thank you for your attention, Foets.
To Alan Cordel, Foetry
How disappointing your little entry RE "pretentious prick." Is that all you could come up with? Why not mention that David and you are cronies at Foesy? Why not seek the evidence instead of lowering yourself to shooting the messenger? I linked you to my site a while ago. Now I'll have to put a caveat next to the link. In fact, I tried to get in touch with you to congratulate you, but you never responded. In any case, I will present the evidence even though you are not interested in it. I shall copy D's letter and match it with the part in my guidelines that specifically states NO CREDENTIALS! I receive so many pompous letters just like D's listing senseless credentials that tell me nothing about the poet, just that the poet is a poet of the machine, nothing more nothing less. Well, I am not seeking to publish poets of the machine, but rather poets against it.
Hopefully you will not censor this letter or the next one with the evidence. Oh, we've come along way Foet, haven't we! You come off like one of the corrupt assholes you've been hammering on your site. I shall have to do a cartoon on you.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Ed.
www.theamericandissident.org
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:44 pm Post subject:
Ah, yet another brilliant poet in this Forum, Poet K, who doesn't even have the nerve to use her real name. The only intelligence this one can muster is base shooting the messenger. No logic, no reasonable argument that anything at all on my site is a lie. Just call it pretentious and dipshit. Look in the mirror baby if you want to see real dipshit. This Forum is zero in intellect.
Yes, let's make a donation to the Foets!
G. Tod Slone
David James Callahan--oh, you should consider yourself so fortunate to have escaped publication here. This is why one should always, always read the journals and publications to which one is considering submitting work.
Poet K.
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:38 pm Post subject:
This is kind of sad, because Professor Slone could have been our friend. I did go to his site and read the account of his protest of Franz Wright's reading at the Concord Poetry Center. It was quite amusing.
Professor Slone,
I appreciate what you are doing. But here's the problem as I see it.
Your net of protest is so wide that you catch up everyone but yourself--and Ralph Waldo Emerson. This is why you--the most truth-seeking individual in the universe--gives such offense. Your protest razes everything to the ground. No one is left standing except you--and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
A quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson on a placard is not a protest, but a puzzle, for there is no greater establishment figure in the world than Ralph Waldo Emerson. Taking a nap in one's home would be a greater protest against the Machine than standing next to a placard with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
OK, David didn't read your guidelines. If you don't care about his creds, don't read them. Why make a fuss about them? Read his poems! Why didn't you read his poems and thank him for sending you his poems? Why did you get all caught up in creds/not creds? Don't you see? You're becoming your own worst enemy.
I don't think Alan should have called you a "prick." But your response to a poet who sent you poems was prick-like.
Monday Love
_________________
Whisper and eye contact don't work here.
Posted: Fri Mar 03, 2006 11:00 pm Post subject: Edgy
Hello editor,
I see you have deciphered the registration process. I'm sorry it was so difficult for you.
In my hands I hold the 2006 Writer's Market with an entry for your periodical, The American Dissident. In a fairly substantial write-up, you neglect to mention that you do not like to read credentials -- in fact, credentials enmarge enrage you.
In addition to many details about what you think your magazine promotes, you say, "guidelines online" -- on a geocities site no less. I am a librarian at one of the largest community colleges in the country. One thing that I understand about my students is that not all of them have computers, nor easy access to a computer. You are creating a system of haves and have-nots, while decrying those who've "sold out to the machine." Dude, you have an aol address. If that's not selling out . . .
Perhaps if credentials trouble you so much, you should indicate that in the Writer's Market entry and take out a line or two about your fight against "celebrity, diversion, groupthink, herd mentality, and conformity." OK. We get it. You're edgy.
I welcome your cartoon, but I'm sure you realize that's already been done. You're an unoriginal tool and you don't even realize it.
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject: Hardcore evidence will always be ignored by the blind.
Here is the evidence: DJ’s letter and The AD guidelines. Why not think a second, o Foetasters, and ask yourselves why The AD does not want pompous credentials from contributing poets? The guidelines specify: “DO NOT SUBMIT CREDITS, but rather a short biography of personal dissident information. What enabled you to neutralize indoctrination? When did you stand apart from your friends or colleagues and "go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways" (Emerson)?” Here is DJ’s letter. Read it and ask yourself does this sound like an obedient poet of the machine? It sure as hell did to me. Does it sound like a poet who never challenged his professors, but rather kowtowed and bowed? It sure did to me. Has Foetry researched Bowdoin’s poetry prize judges and their relationships to prize recipients like DJ? Well, have you, AC?
After it are the entire guidelines. Thank you for your attention, chers amis.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Ed.
The American Dissident
January 28, 2004
The American Dissident
1837 Main St.
Concord, MA 01742
To the Editors:
Please consider the enclosed poems for publication in The American Dissident. My work has appeared recently in two issues of Cimarron Review, and has appeared in Tampa Review, Exquiste Corpse, The Birmingham Poetry Review, Frisk, Figdust Review, Delmar, The Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, So What, Three Speed, Quill and North. I am an Associate Member of the Academy of American Poets. I am a magna cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College, where I was awarded two Academy of Amercian Poets Prizes, two Bowdoin Poetry Prizes, and the Forbes Rickart Jr. Poetry Prizze. I graduated in 1998 from Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where I was a 1996-1997 Maytag Fellow.
Sincerely, David James Callan
Poems (one-page max) and essays (650-word max) written ON THE EDGE in English, Spanish, or French with a dash of personal RISK, and stemming from EXPERIENCE, CONFLICT WITH POWER, and/or INVOLVEMENT. (The risk factor is not obligatory for if it were, The American Dissident would publish only one or several contributors at best.) Do not be afraid to Name NAMES! Naming names is a definite form of quality control, truth telling, and free speech and expression. Villon, Neruda, and Solzhenitsyn were not afraid to name names. Bunnin and Beren (Writer’s Legal Companion) note that “A truth statement, no matter how damaging, can’t be libelous.” Highly critical cartoons are also needed. Include SASE. DO NOT SUBMIT CREDITS, but rather a short biography of personal dissident information. What enabled you to neutralize indoctrination? When did you stand apart from your friends or colleagues and "go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways" (Emerson)?
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2006 10:34 pm Post subject: Tod,
You should rename your "journal" "American Psycho." I know that name
is already taken, but you don't seem to mind being unoriginal.
Poet K
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 2:29 am Post subject:
Plus, you're not a true dissident until George Bush reads your e-mail...
_________________
Not...even...close, BUD!
Poetastin
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject:
Well, another couple of sad poetaster entries. I often wonder how people like them got to think as they do. Can our schoolteachers be that pitifully poor at teaching critical thinking? What crappy lawyers they'd make. In fact, perhaps the only thing they'd be good at is playing with poets and playing at being poets.
To Alan Cordel,
Why the need for childish crap as in “I see you have deciphered the registration process. I'm sorry it was so difficult for you.”? Yeah, I had a difficult time with it because I rarely if ever engage in such forums. If you’d mentioned on the registration that one has to wait until an email is sent, I would have had no problems at all. Why the need for Big Brother registration anyhow? In any case, in this entry, I address each and every point you made in yours. Will you do the same?
Actually, I do not “enrage” at credentials, as you state, though I have grown impatient with poets who shoot their shite all over the goddamn place without even taking the time to read guidelines or examine the nature of the journals to which they submit. American poets have become so desperate for fame, accolade, and approval, which is why I quoted Emerson.
The American Dissident is simply trying to do something different in the world of poesy. So many poets do nothing else but vaunt their credentials and try to get published. It gets tedious to read letters like Callan’s. Poets need to think about this whole credential thing, rather than slobber over it, as Callan does. I thought, why not ask poets not for their credentials but rather for what makes them dissident individuals, warriors against the machine, against the dictated canon? Evidently, you are part of and partial to that machine; otherwise, why would you denigrate my fight against "celebrity, diversion, groupthink, herd mentality, and conformity"? Yes, you state, “OK. We get it. You're edgy.” And what if I’d diminished myself by writing to you with equal adolescent flair: “Ok. We get it. You’re not edgy.”?
You note: “I welcome your cartoon, but I'm sure you realize that's already been done. You're an unoriginal tool and you don't even realize it.” Why the constant need to denigrate me? That seems all you’re capable of. Why not engage in the issues instead? The cartoon is included as an attachment. Will you publish it in this Forum? The cartoon criticizes your initial cowardice and anonymity, as well as your poet girlfriend’s. If it’s already been done, please give me an example, so I might consult it. BTW, my cartoon also criticizes those who you rightfully criticized. If I am such an “unoriginal tool,” please provide an example of somebody else who is doing precisely what The American Dissident is doing… just an example. Without providing examples, your discourse becomes vacuous wind. You sound so much like the “unoriginal” herd establishment poets and editors I come into contact with frequently (you’ll notice they’re comments on my website). I was really surprised by this because I thought your activity dissident in nature. BTW, I’ve been criticizing the literary prizes perhaps before you (and Sinclair Lewis way before both of us!), though I never did manage to get the pop publicity the NY Times accorded you. I wonder: who do you know who knows someone at the Times?
I am not stating that all poetry must be this or that. I am simply publishing a literary journal that seeks a certain type of poet and poetry. That’s all.
I don’t know where you live but as far as I’ve observed, students, poets, or whomever have relatively easy access to computers nowadays, especially in the nation’s public libraries. Your community college certainly must make computers available to students. But Callan isn’t even a student. So, why the digression? I have been all over and that includes in tiny towns like Eunice, Louisiana (the poorest state in the nation!), and have had no problem accessing computers… available to the public. Moreover, I teach online university courses and have taught them on the road throughout Maine, Quebec, Europe, and Iceland… without my laptop and had no problems whatsoever locating a computer. Yes, computers are damn easy to find nowadays. Your assertion is wholly unfounded. You need to open your eyes in order to open those of students. Tell them computers are available for free use in almost every public library in the nation today. Librarian? Hmm. I’ve certainly come into contact with a number of that all-to-willing ilk to dump the ALA Bill of Rights into the trash can.
Anyhow, I would have liked to have been a partner with you against the corruption so rampant RE the lit prizes. I too fight that corruption. BUT I take my battle further and also fight the boys like Callan who lick the lit-prize hand whenever it decides to feed them morsels. Unfortunately, it is more than evident that you are closed to serious dialogue.
Finally, your nonsense that I’ve sold out because I HAD a geocities site is puerile and another example of vacuous discourse. In fact, that’s an old address. Geocities threw me off its site on a whim because of one single complaint lodged by a poet like Callan. Yes, that’s all it took! So, perhaps, if anything, that adds to my status as non-sell out. The new site (and I’ve been on that site for over a year now) is www.theamericandissident.org. Poets Market did not make the change, for who knows what reason. Hopefully, it will be indicated in the new edition, though it was supposed to be indicated in the 2006 edition. There is not much I can do about it. Again, I am open to serious dialogue, but not at all to adolescent bullshit.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Ed.
The American Dissident
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject:
Dear Editor,
You're funny. You made my Sunday.
Yours,
Alan Cordle (please note the spelling -- thanks)
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:36 am Post subject: what's really missing here
As I distract myself from deadlines by reading the latest here, it comes to me that the unasked question is--
why credentials of any kind? The editor here is foaming at the mouth because of academic-sounding credentials included in Callahan's cover letter--but in fact seems to want credentials along the lines of "so, this is how I stuck it to the man, and I suffered for it".
Which might explain the quality of the poems printed in the American Dissident (or lack thereof).
Am I alone in wanting attention paid to the poems sent? The poems. Not credentials, and not, please god, relationships. Poems.
crankily, mirsk
(and I love librarians. the forefront of the struggle for free speech. Yay librarians.)
Mirsk
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:01 pm Post subject: re: MORE FROM GEORGE
From : George Slone <todslone@yahoo.com>
Sent : Friday, March 3, 2006 4:12 PM
To : David James <davidjamescallan@hotmail.com>
Subject : On lawsuits et al
| | | Inbox
DJ,
Why would I wish to print those poems? What I would like to do is throw them in the garbage. I'd hate to be responsible for recycling them. Yes, I'm certain you must have very expensive lawyers, considering your expensive credentials. So, I must make certain to be very fearful of you and your Foet Fellows of Foetry. I cannot make similar threats to you because I do not have a lawyer. In fact, I tend to despise lawyers as much as I do the general bulk poet and academic herd. How odd that today's poets think they need to have lawyers. How odd they think their work is of such grand importance, especially that of American poets. As mentioned, I shall examine the comments made in your Forum. It appears at first glance that you simply rounded up a bunch of your Foet cronies to call me names, rather than to prove me wrong with logic and evidence. But poets don't do that today, do they. Anyhow, thanks much for the advertising. I'm aware that Foetry was in the NY Times, so that's great for me. And again I stress how disappointed I am in AC's comments, which make him seem like such an adolescent in mindset. In fact, the whole lot of you come off that way: one Foetrythink and one Foetryspeak. Sort of reminds me of Academe, where I am currently employed as Visiting Professor. Yes, I do have a PhD from the Universite de Nantes (France). BUT, unlike you, normally I do not vaunt credentials. I do not have the NEED to vaunt credentials. Perhaps when and if you grow up, you too will not have the NEED to vaunt credentials, credits, et al.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Editor
www.theamericandissident.org
I'm not interested in what Mr. Slone says, but I made a mistake about the poems I sent him. I did not submit a poem about a lynching, although I had originally intended to do that. I submitted a poem about cruising adult bookstores and one about a schizophrenic who murdered his mother with a hammer. I will continue to post Mr. Slone's e-mails to me, even though they should have ended with: Please return my work in the enclosed SASE.
I have no interest in someone trying to browbeat me or reduce me to a cliche without knowing one little bit about me. Just for the record, if anyone has "stuck it to the man" it's me. I read my cover letter here, and damned if it is exactly what a cover letter should be.
MR. SLONE: STOP E-MAILING ME. I CANNOT AFFORD LAWYERS AND I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BLOCK E-MAILS ON THIS VERSION OF HOTMAIL. YOUR E-MAILS ARE UNWELCOME.
PLEASE RETURN MY POEMS IN THE ENCLOSED SASE.
YOUR OPINIONS OF ANYTHING DO NOT MATTER TO ME. YOU ARE STEALING MY PAPER, POSTAGE AND MY ENVELOPE. RETURN THEM TO ME.
I see references in your letters to you being a professor? So why should I care about some professor making five times what I ever have telling me I am not oppressed enough? I wish you well, but you mean less to me than the postage on my SASE.
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 3:55 pm Post subject: re: THE OPPRESSED COLLEGE PROFESSOR
A strange breed.
DJ Callan
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:21 pm Post subject: Re: what's really missing here
I agree it's a good question Mirsk, and one needn't be a nut like Slone ("The Earth is round, I tell you!") to ask it. Academic and publishing creds should just be ignored.
Ed
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:00 pm Post subject: re: Fine With Me
It would be fine with me if those things were ignored, but for the most part, I don't think that they are.
Actually, they haven't helped me that much, either. They're pretty much a formality. But a writer should not ever be ashamed of writing or publishing something, if it hasn't involved FRAUD, that is, which is the reason I got involved with this website in the first place.
I've posted the stuff on this particular "thread" because I felt--correctly, I think--that Mr. Slone was a bully. But I don't tolerate bullies, and the best way to deal with them is to expose their behaviour or let them expose themselves and their bullying to other people.
Oh, poor David has no thoughts of his own, and I am going to reduce him to a little pile of quivering frog droppings. Because no one will ever see this but him.
Sorry, Charlie.
I have a feeling that cover letters help sometimes to break through a voluminous box of submissions--remember, we're not talking about a fraudulent contest where people are wasting their money--but I think they also piss people off, especially grad-student readers and professors who don't WRITE POEMS, etc.
The few things I've published in the past eight years were all accepted by complete strangers, and I didn't have most of those publications on my cover letters when they
were accepted.
In my case, I went to Iowa, which pisses off everyone who didn't go to Iowa. Hell, at this point it's pissing ME off that I went to Iowa.
But cover letters don't say much about who I am or what I think. In the olden days, I would have been what was known as a "scholarship" student at college. I've never been on an airplane or driven a car, I'm pretty sure I am not "part of the machine" or "the herd." I certainly have picked up some stuff in schools, but most of what I've read or written has been outside of it. I've gone to school rather than have some of the luxuries most people have. But even when I have been working three jobs and going to school, I've written, what I want, how I want, and didn't spend much time at all complaining about other people.
Has anyone out there been so transformed by their school experiences that their brains are exactly alike every single person that went to the same school?
Of course not, and yet I hear that sort of thing about The Writers' Workshop all the time. And it is RIDICULOUS. Almost ridiculous, because there is a bit of cult mentality to programs like that, especially with some professors.
But any professor who would bully and browbeat someone--as Mr. Slone does--is a dangerous cat to play with. I won't call him any more names, but I wouldn't let a six-year old talk to me as Mr. Slone does.
BULLYING AND FLATTERY ARE THE TWO WAYS ABUSIVE PEOPLE TEND TO SNAG THEIR NEXT VICTIMS.
*****************
Funny thing is, Mr. Slone reminds me a lot of myself. When I was twenty and drinking a case of beer every day. Let's take it to the streets, George!
Aww, he's just a big old pussy-
cat.
Meow muh-meow-mmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooowwwwwwww.
I am not sure how that would translate into French.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
I can be reached at:
16 Eldridge St. Apt. 14H
Manchester, CT 06040
(860) 647-6911
davidjamescallan@hotmail.com
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 7:29 pm Post subject: Inside Outside
It's kind of a shame that this all started out as something of a flame war, because there are some worthwhile issues here.
Mirsk, I agree with you that credentials of any kind should be eliminated from poetry submissions. The idea of "dissident credentials" is sort of preposterous, in any case. It can be easy to forget that the poetry world today has a huge number of "outsiders" . . . who basically write the paychecks for the comparatively tiny body of "insiders".
The last thing a real dissident can do (and remain a valid dissident) is form a counter-elite, a special class of members. There's no difference between this and a cult. I imagine this is how the "post-avant"/LangPod community began: with an elitist ideology. But that group utilized their academic connections to transform a small cult into (as we have recently heard Poetry Snark call it) a “mafia” that controls the entire territory of "legitimate" experimental poetry.
As far as I'm concerned, there's a lesson to be learned here for anyone who considers or wants to consider herself/himself an "outsider poet". Elitism is a more dangerous opponent than "the machine". There is no "machine" that is "out there" only in some other. We all have the machine in us, the PoBiz is in our blood and bones . . . and the best battle we can fight is with that inner PoBiz (which is what we are each individually responsible for). How many of us, for instance, if "privileged" by fame and impressive-sounding publications would still fight against PoBiz, against elitism, or for dissent?
I’m not saying there is no “good fight” out there. I just think we need to keep looking toward the beams in our own eyes. The fight “out there” with “the machine” is an easy one to wage (if not so easy to win). But most of the time, the real reason we fight is buried inside our own personal conflicts (and has nothing to do with ethics). It’s easier to defeat an enemy (no matter how large) than it is to be unequivocally just.
It's easy to lose sight of this when we're on the outs, but I don't think ethics can be relative . . . and still be ethical. This is likely just the introvert in me talking (Ed, correct me if this is the case), but in many cases, I think a concerted devotion to justice is as great a dissent as we can muster. (I don’t mean to apply this line of thinking to situations where real, overt, physical/political oppression is operating. That’s a different matter entirely.)
I don't think anyone has babbled about poetic dissent here as much as I have, and so most of you know that I think the idea of dissident poetry (whatever that might be . . . that's another argument) is a good one. But maybe it's time to try to suss out what would constitute such dissent.
I'm not saying that some kind of agreement should be reached (I doubt that would be possible or helpful) . . . but just talking about it out in the open is a democratic step.
That said, George, I do think your approach to David was overly caustic . . . unnecessarily caustic. Even if he neglected to read your outlines. But I agree with your general principle that the removal of cover letter credentials from poetry submissions is long, long overdue (including any alternative, “dissident” crendtials). I don't submit to poetry journals anymore, but when I did, I never included a list of credentials. I found it morally objectionable to do this . . . but I don't deserve any ethics awards, because, to be fair, I had no impressive credentials to offer. Still, I think editors should be ashamed of themselves if they can’t evaluate a poem on its own merits (with the author’s name and credentials off the table). Any interest in cover letters for standard poetry journal submissions is crap from which no possible good can come.
I’d only like to point out one more thing. Although I sympathize with the desire shown here to stick up for David as “one of us” and agree that George’s approach warrants criticism, I also think we should be very careful about the “one of us” attitude. I don’t advocate the retaliatory ad hominem barbs directed at George. When we start doing this to those who are outsiders to our own group, we become just as ethically impaired as the people we criticize as “foets”. George has presented us with issues worthy of intelligent consideration and reply . . . even if his tone was hostile.
Just think back a little bit to our old comrade, Crimson. She was much more contrary, angry, and vicious to many on this forum than George has been . . . but she was “one of us”, so most of us granted her opinions some credibility, and we replied to her seriously.
We should be more conscious of the way we snap back at outsiders.
-Matt
_________________
"A pianist dreams that he’s hired by a wrecking company to ruin a piano with his fingers . . ."
-Russell Edson
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:09 pm Post subject: I AGREE WITH MATT ABOUT A FEW THINGS...
This whole thing started, at least for me, as a way of being less isolated against what I found to be a puzzling and unwarranted hostility from Mr. Slone.
It was my battle, though; I chose to make it public because I thought that there were issues involved that might help other people.
It was only three months ago when I was the outsider being attacked, and I hadn't written anything hostile.
I personally don't want to discuss anything with Mr. Slone, because he has been nothing but presumptious, wildly off base and hostile towards me. I certainly don'y need to listen to that from a stranger. However, I hope he finds an ear with the rest of you.
I do wonder, however, why people who don't send work to magazines feel such a need to dictate what people who DO submit work to journals should do.
If you have published work, why NOT mention it in cover letters?
That is what building up a reputation is, building.
I don't think less of HERZOG knowing what Bellow wrote before it, and I am still able to think whatever I think about that book without being that concerned with what came before. So, whatever writer you think is dissident, well, they all began somewhere, and Beckett, Joyce, Camus, Andrea Dworkin, whoever, well, what do you wanna bet that they all wrote cover letters? It ISN'T that interesting of a subject.
I find it puzzling that so many people who are not involved with trying to publish are so wrapped up in deciding how those who take the time, effort, and BALLS to write find an audience. Ethics is one thing; complete docility to a hostile "gang" is another.
So, don't waste your dough on those nasty contests.
Why anyone would freak out at me for publishing six or seven poems in eight years is really none of my concern. I've worked hard for everything I've got, and it ain't much.
I'm starting to feel like I should have kept my mouth shut, played dumb, and gone along with the "foets." At least they write poems. Bring on the machine, whatever it is, I'd love to eat out once in a while. There seems to be more and more hot air and childish hostility to be had here, and I dopn't want to fall prey to it more than I already have.
Take it easy.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
I can be reached at:
16 Eldridge St. Apt. 14H
Manchester, CT 06040
(860) 647-6911
davidjamescallan@hotmail.com
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:54 pm Post subject: My take on it all
I jumped to David's defense perhaps because I feel I "know" him, though we've never met in person. We have talked on the phone and email/pm often. I like him and his poetry very much.
The American Dissident editor should use Poet's Market and Writer's Market to make his repulsion to credentials known; it's unfair of him to get something like 200 words towards his submissions policy and to have two of them read, "guidelines online." Didn't he already say enough?
David had already read the guidelines and they did not mention "no credentials." That's why I chose to defend David.
Besides, when I looked at the AD website, and the entry in Writer's Market, I learned that the print circulation of AD is 200. I think David should be relieved by Tod's outburst; it saved David's work for a much better journal, where it belongs and where it will find readers.
I do apologize for the word "prick," but think pretentious is right-on. No wonder many French people dislike Americans.
All that said, I do think poems should be read without credentials, but I am not opposed to them either.
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:53 pm Post subject: alternative publication
David James Callan wrote:I do wonder, however, why people who don't send work to magazines feel such a need to dictate what people who DO submit work to journals should do.
If you have published work, why NOT mention it in cover letters?
That is what building up a reputation is, building.
Dave,
I don't fault you for feeling this way, but I have decided (for me personally) that I would like to avoid the current publication system. Of course, if you want to be a successful poet, there's probably no way around it. Still, I feel disinclined to seek that success these days.
I used to send my work to journals and play by the rules, but it always made me feel conflicted, and I eventually decided that I was quitting cold turkey. Currently, I believe it would be best for both many outsider poets and for capital P Poetry itself if poets (especially unaffiliated poets) would dedicatedly seek out alternative forms of publication. Even when that means self-publication.
I fought with this for a long time . . . and I believe my opinion on the matter is as valid as anyone's. From my perspective, the whole poetry publication system looks corrupt and ineffectual. After reading journals (mainstream and "anti-mainstream") for years (with intense disappointment . . . even outright shock at the crap often published), I've given up the hope that they are really serving Poetry as an art form.
The way I see it now, poets would do well to rebel and no longer play ball with the PoBiz. I don't respect the insiders enough to grant them the power and right to credential me. Their credentialing means nothing . . . is really more of a cattle brand than an acknowledgment of merit, as far as I’m concerned.
I've written on this extensively here in the forums . . . but probably before you joined. I think some of this soapboxing was done in a thread on self-publishing many moons ago.
I don't go as far as to say that poets who continue to seek mainstream publication, credentialing, and indoctrination are "bad". But I do feel that it is an unnecessary process of self-sacrifice and self-mutilation . . . and I even fear that too much commitment to it can prove corrupting (and damaging to the poetry produced). It's the poets that lose in this process (especially the outsider poets) . . . and thereby, the poetry itself suffers.
In my opinion, poetry would be healthier today if poets of talent bucked the system and stuck to the web or self-publication. I do think poets should be more barbarous and less willing to embrace indoctrination.
But, more importantly, I believe all voices should be heard on this matter. People who object to mainstream publication should not be excommunicated.
-Matt
PS: I don't see people who advocate dissent against the poetry publication system as cowardly at all. In my personal experience, I really had to buck up and accept the losses before I could truly embrace my decision to leave the PoBiz.
I think it's much harder to choose integrity over capitulation . . . and for me personally, the choice was a matter of integrity.
_________________
"A pianist dreams that he’s hired by a wrecking company to ruin a piano with his fingers . . ."
-Russell Edson
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:14 pm Post subject: Re: My take on it all
alan wrote: I jumped to David's defense perhaps because I feel I "know" him, though we've never met in person. We have talked on the phone and email/pm often. I like him and his poetry very much.
Alan, I don't mean to scold you or anyone else, and I apologize for my tone. I think everyone's reactions to George's hostility are completely understandable. I have always stuck up for fellow members when I felt they were being abused by elitist and haughty newcomers (especially when those newcomers did nothing but spew the PoBiz party dogma).
I don't know anything about the American Dissident guy . . . other than that his attack/response to David was mean-spirited and unnecessary. Maybe George personally doesn't deserve any respect after the way he lashed out. I don't mean to advocate for him personally. If he feels a need to justify himself, the ball is in his court.
My only concern is that I look at George as a potential type, a type who could have a useful voice in our forums. Maybe George himself has too many issues that would prevent this possibility, but the TYPE shouldn't be disdained.
So, his website doesn't look like a professional designer made it (neither does mine). So, his circulation is only 200. I worry that leaping at points like these as if they are somehow bad or contrary to the grassroots, underdog spirit of Foetry.com that I have come to respect and admire is ultimately wrongheaded.
We need dissident "little guys" to fight the good fight.
Now, what George did that was bad was stage a personal attack on David for reasons that (to my mind) seem to boil down to a selfish kind of elitism and blind, misguided righteousness. If these qualities derail his American Dissident project, I think that would be a shame. But that personality issue is separate from the political/artistic issues.
So, all I'm saying is, go ahead and criticize the personality, but let's not lose ourselves and start bashing a "little guy" for being little. We are all little guys/gals here. The last thing we want to do is to start “aping our betters”.
Yours,
Matt
"A pianist dreams that he’s hired by a wrecking company to ruin a piano with his fingers . . ."
-Russell Edson
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 2:18 am Post subject: credentials
(this is harking back to Callahan's query as to why he shouldn't list his credentials)
In asking why credentials at all (of any sort) I didn't mean to criticize your cover letter.
It's fine to be proud of where you've published, where you've studied, what prizes you may have won, and so on.
My point is that all that really shouldn't matter to (my personal) the ideal editor.
When I read a poem, I do not care if it is by someone with a list of previous publications, or who has just won the Nobel prize, or whatever.
I want to read the poem, and to react to the poem. I hope that is what I do, even when I happen to know that the poet is one I have previously admired, or who is the current wild fave of the masses.
This is why, in my more snappish moments (of which there are many) I tend to say "I like poems, not poets" (this is a lie--I do have favorite poets--but, ultimately, I do like the poems best, and I am glad to see poems by poets I didn't think I liked, and often encounter poems by poets I cherish that--alas--fall flat.)
I want it to be about the poetry. Not about the prizes, not about the schools, not about the previous publications. Certainly not about whom the poet has slept with, married, or hired as a babysitter.
Merely about the poems.
But then, I live far, far away from the teeming hordes & academic halls.
thank heavens. (and, as I told you in my PM in response to your poems, David, yes, your poems are far better than what's in AD, and should find a place somewhere).(even without a cover letter, dare I say)
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 4:25 am Post subject: credentials
A lot of these posts seem to take it for granted that poets include credentials in their cover letters because they're hoping to impress editors with the cover letter. I can tell you that I include a short biographical note, sometimes with publishing credentials, for another reason -- simply so that if the journal does publish some of my work, readers can be directed to more of my recent work. I think this is the way a lot of poets approach it. I've read tons of cover letters that read something like the following: "Bio. (if necessary) -- I currently live in ______ and teach at _______. Poems of mine are included in the latest issues of _______, _________, and ___________." If the journal publishes the poems, the bio. will direct interested readers to more work by the poet. As a reader of poetry journals, I have found these contributor notes helpful many times
As far as George at The American Psycho goes, it is incredibly unprofessional for him to broadcast David's cover letter and to reply to David's submission with a hostile email. It is also petty and juvenile for him to make all these broad, paranoid assumptions about David based on the cover letter. He comes off as wildly insecure. Only people without any accomplishments of their own are bothered by the legitimate accomplishments of others. I take David at his word that he's published poems in journals whose editors didn't know him, and I'm happy for him and impressed that he was able to get into and graduate from such an elite graduate school. Regardless of what we know about Jorie Graham's ethics as a judge, it's still an accomplishment to get admitted into Iowa's MFA program and graduate from it. It's a much bigger accomplishment than getting into George's screed-rag, that's for sure.
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject:
Dear George,
Or should I call you Professor Slone?
Why don't we start over?
Your mission to throw a monkey wrench into the "Machine" may be admirable, but I think we need to stop and analyze the whole notion of the "Machine."
Ralph Waldo Emerson married a woman who was dying so he could inherit her money.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was being wined and dined in London while his (second) sick wife was back home raising sick kids.
Ralph Waldo Emerson jumped on the abolitionist bandwagon only after he thought it would help his career.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's prose is often pre-Nietzschean, war-like and fascist.
Anyway, the point is, you cannot just take some quotes from Bartlett's and start a "revolution" and demand that others fight the "Machine."
Should we all live on Brook Farm? Is that how we should fight the "Machine?"
Or should the professor fight the dean, the dean fight the college president, the student fight the professor, the non-student fight the student, the non-student fight his mom? Where does it end? And how can the professor fight the dean if his students are fighting him? Or should students and professor join together and fight the dean? Or, should the dean and the professors and the students fight the college president? Or, should the students, professors, deans, and college presidents fight the mayor?
Here you are fighting Foetry.com, and why? Because a poet sent you his credentials?
Do you see the problem here?
When you described your "protest" at the Concord Poetry Center reading with Franz Wright, I noticed that the reaction to you by almost everyone was " chuckling."
Well, of course they were "chuckling." This is the proper reaction. You draw cartoons, like Jim Behrle.
I say, don't go for the chuckle. Go for the laugh.
Or, explain this "Machine" better.
Sincerely,
Monday
_________________
Whisper and eye contact don't work here.
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:59 pm Post subject: Re: credentials
Poet K wrote:A lot of these posts seem to take it for granted that poets include credentials in their cover letters because they're hoping to impress editors with the cover letter. I can tell you that I include a short biographical note, sometimes with publishing credentials, for another reason -- simply so that if the journal does publish some of my work, readers can be directed to more of my recent work. I think this is the way a lot of poets approach it. I've read tons of cover letters that read something like the following: "Bio. (if necessary) -- I currently live in ______ and teach at _______. Poems of mine are included in the latest issues of _______, _________, and ___________." If the journal publishes the poems, the bio. will direct interested readers to more work by the poet. As a reader of poetry journals, I have found these contributor notes helpful many times
K, my experience in this is pretty limited, but isn't it more conventional for a publisher to ask for a contributor note after the poem is accepted for publication?
Having such information up front in a cover letter along with the poem seems more like a nudgenudge-winkwink, "publish me because I can bring your journal name recognition" or "publish me because other credential givers have given me the nod". This seems to be entirely separate from the merits of the poem. I can't see any good reason for a cover letter ever swaying the decision of an editor.
It's nice to have credentials of note, but sticking them on top of the poems seems like a bribe to me. Why not slip the editor a twenty or something? I see no real difference.
I don’t mean to fault anyone who writes cover letters. It’s a common practice . . . many editors say they prefer to have them. Following the rules is the poet’s best bet at getting accepted. Still, I can’t see how such a practice could really be justified in a meritocratic process.
Of course, as we all know, the PoBiz is not a meritocracy.
-Matt
_________________
"A pianist dreams that he’s hired by a wrecking company to ruin a piano with his fingers . . ."
-Russell Edson
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:36 pm Post subject: Matt,
No, it's standard to include the bio. in the initial cover letter. Then the editor can use it if he/she includes any poems from the submission. Many editors say they don't read the cover letter until after they have made a decison on the poem. As an editor, I find that, if anything, a good list of pubs prejudices me against the poet. It's like when I read a book or go to a movie that has been hyped up by my friends; I'm usually disappointed because my expectations had been built so high. Also, if the poems are bad but the poet has published in reputable journals, I'm more likely to reject them and hope that the poet sends his/her 'A' material the next time.
Last edited by Poet K on Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:05 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:13 pm Post subject: Cover letter usage
Poet K wrote:No, it's standard to include the bio. in the initial cover letter. Then the editor can use it if he/she includes any poems from the submission. Many editors say they don't read the cover letter until after they have made a decison on the poem. As an editor, I find that, if anything, a good list of pubs prejudices me against the poet. It's like when I read a book or going to a movie that has been hyped up by my friends; I'm usually disappointed because my expectations had been built so high. Also, if the poems are bad but the poet has published in reputable journals, I'm more likely to reject them and hope that the poet sends his/her 'A' material the next time.
That's good to know. I guess I have a paranoid streak that makes me suspect that many editors ARE being prejudiced . . . in favor of poets with impressive creds. I remember talking with Ed Ochester (Pitt Press) about this in a class when I was an undergrad. He (and a few other po-profs I spoke with) seemed to think that publishers most definitely look at the prior publications before they make their choice whether or not to accept a submission. Ochester even said (quite specifically) that contest submissions claiming to be anonymous are not actually anonymous. He said it was no use submitting to manuscript contests until one has an impressive list of journal pubs . . . because no one without about a dozen or more journal publications would make it past the first round of screening.
Maybe he was bullshitting us youngins in order to dissuade us from trying to publish, but he seemed like he was giving his real opinion. On the other hand, he also said he felt cover letters were a bad idea.
So, I guess it depends largely on the editor.
I guess, in general, I would be disinclined to trust an editor who promises fair evaluation, but upholds policies that make it very easy for bias and “bribery” to affect acceptance decisions. I’m sure there are many honest and ethical editors out there, but the most decent thing to do (in my opinion) would be to have basic policies that prevent or deter (as much as possible) favoritism and cronyism, and strive for a purely meritocratic evaluation of the submitted work.
So, if I was an editor, I think I would just say “No cover letters” in my guidelines and ask for a contributor’s note from those poets whose work is accepted for publication. I agree that a contributor’s note can be helpful. Of course, doing away with cover letters would have no impact on name recognition . . . and in my experience, most people in the biz know a lot of other poet’s names and publication histories. But again, that would make cover letters redundant, although for other reasons.
-Matt
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:31 pm Post subject: cover letters
Most of the places to which I submit my work, and most of the places that have published my poetry, don't require (and often say they do not want) cover letters. My experience has been that info for a contributor's note is requested at the time of acceptance.
Of course, I'm odd. During the ancient times of my first publications I refused to give any info whatsoever, contending it didn't really matter much.
And there's a question that interests me (to which, sleep deprived as I am this morning I don't know the answer yet): what information would really be exciting and interesting to know in the contributor notes? For me it's not where the poet last published, or what the last prize was. That much I know.
What would interest me? Something untamed, maybe.
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:42 pm Post subject: The Untamed
Mirsk, I guess we are similarly odd, then, as I've had the same experience.
I don't know if there is an answer to this. I guess it could be said that the poem itself should tell something "untamed" about the poet. Certainly, good poetry does this splendidly (as long as we aren't confusing rabid, narcissistic confessionalism with the "untamed"). Maybe the unsatisfied desire for such a thing simply indicates that there aren't enough good poems being published.
Regrettably, more often than not, after reading a poem, the last thing I want to know is more about the poet. Rather, I would like a law to be passed that prevents them from ever moving into my neighborhood.
Also, there aren’t many “untamed” poets left these days. They’re definitely an endangered species. Not including, of course, the many god-awful poets who remain too “uncouth” for mainstream publication. But, in my experience of them, these amateurs tend to be even more beholden to dogmas than the indoctrinated poets . . . they just happen to hold to dogmas that are no longer in vogue. It’s too bad, because being one of the unwashed masses really opens up a great opportunity to be nonconformist (without being directly punished for heresy).
But the “outside” for poetry isn’t really modeled on the old west of frontier America (with its outlaws and eccentrics of lore). It’s much more like an ancient Greek land of the dead where shades crowd together desperately, entirely forlorn, but keen for the smell of blood. Sad that.
I’d much prefer a poetry frontier filled with poets too wild for the mainstream rather than too defeated.
-Matt
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:03 pm Post subject: Anon
Does everyone remember ANON, the Scottish poetry journal, mentioned in early Foetry days?
http://www.blanko.org.uk/anon/
From their description:
Anon is a print-based poetry magazine to which poems are submitted anonymously and assessed 'blind', using procedures similar to those used by poetry competitions.
Poems that are accepted for publication are published under the names of their authors – that is to say, the anonymous process only applies to the assessment procedures, not to publication. Poems that are rejected remain ‘anonymous’ – the editorial team does not discover the names of poets they reject.
Anon provides a level playing field. It has quickly established a presence in the poetry magazine scene. It is published on a relaxed timescale, aiming at every six months but often taking nine.
Alan Cordle
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject:
I've never sent a cover letter with my poems and I have a pretty good batting average.
The poets I loved growing up, like Keats and Shelley, did not have prizes and creds. They were just poets. In fact, I remember that Wordsworth was quite uncool compared to Keats and Shelley, because he was Poet Laureate.
The whole 'professionalization' of poetry where all of a sudden creds and prizes became everything, not to mention the flourishing of all these academic and ethnic nooks and cliques overwhelmed the 'Great Poetry' myth (let's call it a myth even though this myth still feels more real somehow) and it was apparent in poetry readings I attended in my college years, those flattering introductions, poets reading in that 'modern poet affect' voice, and increasingly poets got laughs, like it was stand-up comedy almost, this wasn't the poetry which I had fallen in love with as a boy.
Poetry became human all too human. Documents and charts became attached to it. Poetry became gentrified by a Modern Giant, and, instead of resisting the Giant, it sank into its arms. Look! the World is sucky and prosey! Therefore--my poetry is sucky and prosey! Makes sense? Right? Right? (nervous laughter)
Whisper and eye contact don't work here.
Monday Love
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:58 pm Post subject: re: Scylla and Carybdis
I tell ya, folks.
As Ricky Nelson once said: "You can't please everyone, so you haveta please yourself."
I don't think cover letters are a "bribe." To me, if I was running a zine, which I would if I could afford to, I'd want cover letters, because I find a little personal information about an author grounding. I like introductions, afterwords, the little list that says "By the Same Author" and liner notes on records and CDs.
From what I've seen of people who run zines, they'll talk up and down about revolution, but would print twenty pages of John Ashbery if he smeared parrot sputum onto wax paper and signed his name to it.
Everyone I have ever asked about cover letters says to send them. A lot of zines (I look up and read the whole thing about magazines in Poets' Market, write down the ones that appeal to me, and send from that list--I'm gonna try new zines next year, though) tell you to submit a list of publications, others don't mention it.
DJ Callan
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:16 pm Post subject:
Anyone ever notice that people with M.A.'s tend to be stronger more original writers than people with M.F.A.'s. Anne Carson, Ashbery... And real M.A.'s and PhD's, not ones in "creative writing" which is not a academic discipline at all in as much as Journalism is an academic discipline.
This strange notion that poets are a class that is different from novelists, and that poetry is a gentleman's art more than novelists. Really just an effect of poetry having to exist in Academia whereas Novelists can still live in the world through commercial means. Novelists if they succeed in the world can overthrow the "Literature" gate so heavily guarded by the Academics.
Poets have a much harder time, Bukowski did it, maybe not in America, but in Europe where they are not burdened with the M.F.A. system.
There are not enough Kaitlyns in M.F.A. programs.
Member of the ULA
Adam Hardin
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:48 pm Post subject: re: Scylla and Carybdis
Dave,
I don't mean to dispute it with you. Please don't think my diatribes are somehow passive-aggressive attacks aimed at you. If you had been on Foetry.com a few months earlier, you would know that I have been spewing these kinds of sentiments from the get go.
As a writer and as a member of this forum, my interest is in promoting "outsiderism", in trying to argue for it as an acceptable alternative. There are definitely better ways to "make it in the biz", and anyone who wants to pursue those ways (and accept the artificial obstacles the system throws in their paths) is not an object of my derision. I would see that as blaming the victim for the crime.
Unlike American Dissident Guy, I have no interest in trying to set up divisions and elite sects among the unwashed masses of struggling poets. My experience as what is probably best termed a "conscientious objector" to the PoBiz has been one of gradually discovering that my creative soul was not ultimately beholden to the mainstream publication system and the credentialing mechanism of the PoBiz. Realizing this was something of a revelation to me, the lifting of a great weight that I didn't need to bear.
If I can do anything with my prose, my message board or blog soap-boxing, I believe it's possible to demonstrate or argue that a battle against corruption in the PoBiz can be begun with conscientious objection and abstinence (from the demeaning pursuit PoBiz goodies and rewards). We live in an age in which the tools or rebellion and dissent are left unrestricted right in our front yards. We don't have to fight for freedom of speech, and we don't even have to have much (or possibly any) money in order to broadcast our voices.
I do own a computer, and I also work at a job in which I'm in front of a computer (with internet access) all day. But, as others have said, public libraries usually offer free access to online computers. My web space was free, and I don't even have to advertise on my blog. My only limitations are my own drive and talent.
Even print publications (via POD) can be created for only a few hundred dollars (less, if you have software to do book layout) . . . and ideally, some or all of that money could be recouped in sales. For those who have any inclination whatsoever to buck the system, to rebel, the only real obstacle is lack of will power and talent . . . and if we lack those things, we won't have much luck as professional writers anyway (unless we are supreme schmoozers, of course).
If you personally don't feel the stirring of insurgency inside you with these weapons so readily available, I don't fault you or think of you as my "enemy". My only desire is to contribute a little bit of hope and encouragement (or more likely, spark and zeal) to those who want to run with their insurgent feelings.
But, in this effort I am not usually successful. That's fine, and I have always accepted this. I have to admit that I am largely satisfied that I am able to spout my rebellious rhetoric without retaliation in a place like this message board. I am grateful to Alan and the other members for not (well, very rarely) trying to browbeat me with elitist pompousness or silence my contrariness. I have great respect for this forum, for the atmosphere here, because not only have I not been excommunicated, but occasionally some people even read my long-winded posts, think about what I wrote, and reply intelligently.
I spent plenty of years among academic poets, so I recognize what a rare and wonderful thing it is to not play pariah or Lucifer 24/7. When I was in the academic realm, my only option for existence was full-on combat, the acceptance of scapegoat status. Backed into corners, I had to become animalistic, to fight or be prey. I was widely hated for this stance. Here, I am at least tolerated on the whole . . . and many people have been very kind to me.
So, the one thing I refuse to do is intentionally make enemies of those people here who have sympathies with what I consider to be a just and honorable cause. I don’t want to judge or condemn the little people. I have occasionally lashed out at a couple members here, because I saw them (in my opinion) spouting the same elitist rhetoric of our foet-foes . . . and when I did this, I may have been out of line. But I don’t attack that underdog instinct in all of us that just wants to survive.
Even when I might actually feel that our own simple desires are what ultimately lead to our undoing and frustration, I don’t think we should be punished for them . . . and I certainly don’t think that I have any right to take on the role of punisher. If I bite anyone, it’s because they stepped on someone or something I feel is precious and in need of protection.
It’s only things, institutions, ideologies that I’ll fight against, not individual people in their humanness.
Yours,
Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:53 pm Post subject: re: Fiction vs. Poetry
You're right about fiction and poetry. Fiction writers can make a living writing and thus "rebel."
I have been involved with this site for three months now. I think its initial concept--to guard accept fraud in poetry competitions and keep an eye on impropriety in the PoBiz world--a good one. I felt this needed to be done in 1997, and was frustrated by the absence of any sort of forum to discuss this stuff.
Three months ago, I was sort of bullied into proving who I was, basically giving my credentials. Now I am under fire for giving my credentials.
I yam what I yam.
I tend to get tired of talking about poetry in the abstract, I always have. I can talk about music and musicians and singers forever, but probably because poetry was such a private thing for me, I get weary very quickly of theorizing and so on. I realize that people are trying--maybe even Mr. Slone--to engage me in a conversation about issues, but I get tired of conversing in the abstract very quickly.
I don't mean to insult those who are not, or never have, written, or have not had success, or whatever. I have a teeny tiny bit of success, but am horribly tired of trying to find it.
I used to write every day, and I would like to get back that personal enjoyment of writing, and let my attempts at publishing be a casual thing that does not occupy my thoughts, as it does now. I'm going to be applying to get my MA in English in the next year, because I loved teaching when I did it, and would like to get back to it. That seems to be the road I am going on.
I would hope that people reading this "thread" take heed of what has transpired between me and Mr. Slone and realize that not every, OR ANY, editor can tell you who you are, or give the final word on what you have written. I have a history of some success--I know that my work has merit--and yet it has taken me eight years to publish seven or eight poems. The ethical way is NOT EVER the easy way.
I hope there are dozens of great writers out there struggling to publish, but I also realize that maybe a dozen is all that there are. Even the lousiest writers in the world should write if they enjoy it. I wish that I could just publish my stuff on the internet or self-publish--I have often thought of it. I don't know if I will do that or not.
DJ Callan
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 5:28 pm Post subject: MFA: the poet killing plague
I haven't made a study of it or anything, but I have long feared this to be true. The MFA is a farce, in my opinion. It's destructive to the art.
I often think the worst thing a poet can do (in the attempt to become a better poet) is read contemporary poetry. It leads to self-consumption . . . and eventually, Mad Poet's Disease.
Novelists tend to be slightly healthier in their intellectual diets . . . reading more non-fiction, science, history, etc., and finding "material" in these sources. Even when poets incorporate similar things, it always seems to me that they are reacting to the “texts” of these things, seeing them through a removed, academic lens, and not as “real” events, discoveries, stories, or ideas. Poets tend to steal and usurp events, ideas, and personalities, enslaving them for the way they make a poem’s language spiffier, so they can make the poet look more poety.
A good novelist is an “honorable thief” who adopts the same things from the outside in order to celebrate them, lift them up into collective myths. The novelist always remains the servant of this material, but the poet (suffering under a damaging creative ideology) comes at the world like a conqueror for a bad god, wanting everything to reflect or bow to his/her innate narcissistic desires.
Strangely, it may be the openness of novelists to fiction, to fictional creative opportunities, that allow them to have a real relationship with the human or with the outside world. Poets are kind of boneheaded when it comes to understanding the worth of fiction, of story. They often disdain that foul beast, narrative, and tend to uphold a view of “truth” that is theory-heavy . . . in which theory (in the academic vein) is mistaken for fact and considered superior to and different from story. This leads them into a difficult position where they must be devoted to lying while they remain unaware that their expressions are fictional. As a result, they too often suffer from a kind of squirrelly, repressed piety that sees the poem and the poetic process as ponderously important and deeply revelatory . . . because, after all, it’s about the Me, and the Me is All! The Me is the holy temple from which all truth emanates! Into which no infidels may bring their unclean selves. The Me is Truth, and the Not-Me is falsity.
I remember reading an interview with Russell Edson once in which he baldly states that he doesn't read much poetry and feels reading poetry exclusively is a terrible mistake for a poet.
I know some people feel encouraged by the MFA support group atmosphere, and occasionally, some young poets find mentors . . . but the nature of the approach, the governing ideologies, and the notion of curriculum are all destructive to the kind of humanness in a writer that must prevail if she/he is to create anything of worth to others.
Maybe something is gained in the MFA process, but compared to what is either lost or forbidden, these gains seem seriously inconsequential.
Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 6:14 pm Post subject: Re: re: Scylla and Carybdis
I like the idea of a short cover letter as a sort of courtesy. "Hi, I'm me and I hope you'll consider these poems. Thanks very much." I wouldn't mention my schooling or awards, just because I always disliked school and think awards are pretty meaningless (though nice to get if some cash comes with them). I used to mention a couple of mags I'd been in, along with "and elsewhere". Then poems stopped coming to me, so I had no cover letters to write for some years. Now that I'm writing again, I write the same letter and mention my one published collection. That seems like plenty to me. I mean, I want to say as briefly as possible "Somebody took me seriously, please do likewise," without seeming to toot my little horn too much.
Years ago I worked briefly on the Carolina Quarterly, and was put off by the long bragging kudos lists & CVs. On the other hand, submissions with no letter at all seemed impolite somehow. --Just my take on it.
I read somewhere a psychiatrist's quip that everyone's most shameful confession, if one was ever to make it, would be just this: "I want to be admired."
Ed Dupree
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:22 pm Post subject: No trust or faith in the gatekeepers
Ed, I guess it could ultimately boil down to personality types. I'm very introverted, hermetic, and often extremely antisocial in large group settings. I rarely think about getting to know strangers. I am non-functional in crowds, at parties, or in institutions (like a church or a writing program). By the standards of an extravert, I would seem like a misanthrope.
When I used to submit to journals (a thing I only did very occasionally . . . three times in large waves to be precise), I think I felt combative toward the editors. All I knew about them was what they said in the guidelines, mission statements, and magazines (via the poetry they published). It's partly the nature of the beast, but I've always found submission guideline rhetoric offensive. I understand that they are more or less necessary, but many editors' guidelines are nitpicky, pissy, and elitist.
This sets the stage for a formal relationship between editor and submitting poet . . . not a friendly or informal one by any means (nor a “professional” one). If somebody were to say to my face that they didn't approve of me as an artist because I used the wrong kind of paper clip, I would have a hard time not punching them in the mouth. (You see, being a crotchety Yankee, I am not very familiar with southern hospitality and formal courtesies).
On top of that, I was always under the impression that the editor (to whom I would have been addressing my cover letter) was almost definitely NOT going to read either that letter or my poems. Rather, some shlub screener, probably a grad student would be my “judge”. I don't have enough respect for a grad student screener to act as a gatekeeper for my work . . . not when this person is an invisible and anonymous being who may or may not represent the tastes of the editor. I'd been in plenty of academic poetry workshops, and I knew more than enough students on literary journal editorial staffs. In general, they represented a type of personality that I found offensive . . . kind of like, uptight, narrow-minded, drudges of the status quo or even out-right toadies and sycophants who relished the tiny power of judging others and became intoxicated with it.
That kind of person doesn't like me, because my lack of respect for authority is palpable (even when I try to conceal it). It also baffles them that I "gamble with my future" by taking aesthetic and ethical stands that might prevent me from being knighted by those in power. Such people fear people like me, who are reckless and insubordinate and threaten the very nature of their chosen mode of existence.
Of course, I'm stereotyping radically. I know that. But, I only have my own personal experience to go on . . . and my experience has been pretty negative.
But, obviously, I have a very bad attitude . . . and I’ve been scolded mightily for it (don’t you worry).
Anyways, when I considered writing cover letters for editors/screeners (even those who specifically requested them), not only did my bad attitude dissuade me, but I felt it unethical to try to use a cover letter as a “palatable capsule of my personality”. I’m not very palatable a person, and I hate to pretend that I am. I thought it best not to include one.
It wasn’t meant as a discourtesy, though (although I understand your position on that). I just felt that the only things that mattered in the submission process were the poems I was sending . . . poems that I suspect were often not read at all or at least not read by anyone with real decision-making power. Frankly, I find the process demeaning . . . and editorial staffs feel they have the right to make it demeaning because they receive so many bad poems that it entitles them to behave like assholes. I have no sympathy for them.
The futures of struggling poets are in the invisible hands of people who are a part of an opaque and mysterious process . . . a process we very well know is often manipulated unjustly. I can suffer no love for these invisible, unaccountable gatekeepers.
When one submits an article for an academic journal (not in the poetry world), although the process can have its prejudices, it is generally not inherently demeaning. The work is taken serious, reviewed by professional peers, and commented on thoroughly by the reviewers. THAT is a courtesy I can respect.
But poetry submissions are so much more abundant, so dominated by dreck, that all the professional courtesy drains out of the process. I know there is no perfect solution, because of the abundance and mediocrity of the submissions . . . but, since that is the demeaning situation we are forced to deal with, I prefer to do away with unnecessary formalities. I’m not going to pretend like the editor is go to take my (no name recognition) poetry seriously or even read it at all, and I am somewhat offended that this disrespecting person feels he/she can demand formality and respect from me.
Of course, it’s grouchiness like this that pushes me further and further into my hermitude. But I’m not truly bitter about it. I belong in the wilderness and I’m not ashamed about that.
-Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:05 pm Post subject: POETS VERSUS OTHER WRITERS
The way I see it right this second is: all writers except poets have any number of people, including agents, tooting their horns.
Most poets don't have these things, so that they have to toot their own horns, as it were. There is no shame in this, whatsoever. When and if I publish my books, I will feel less inclined to send cover letters with old information on them.
Right now, this is all I have.
So, cover letters are fine. I probably should take off my college stuff, but whatever. It shouldn't get in the way of the poems themselves. I used to write fiction, too, but realized my true "calling" was poetry long ago.
I agree that it is impolite to NOT send them, though. It is a sign of respect for the people reading the work, indicating that the writer is serious and not just throwing stuff out there for kicks.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
DJ Callan
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:06 pm Post subject: Poetry vs. Talk about Poetry
Well, I can't blame you [Callan] for feeling this way. And I apologize for being much the opposite myself. I don't usually like to talk about actual poems, because I find the appreciation of poetry to be almost entirely subjective. Ideas/theories, at least, can be evaluated on the basis of how convincingly they argue a position. What some people think are great poems seem like crap to me and vice versa.
We had a thread a while back on the notion of "Honesty" in poetry . . . and it ended up being incredibly divisive and unhelpful, because everyone argued for the poems they thought were "honest" and everyone disagreed with everyone else's example poems/poets. Granted, the conversation was largely steered by three of our most outrageously pig-headed members, Monday Love, Crimson, and myself . . . but still, I just came away from the thread feeling redoubled in my belief that the whole "my poem/poet is better than your poem/poet" crap says nothing at all about poetry.
So, I much prefer to talk about capital P Poetry or the PoBiz, or attitudes and philosophies. As abstract as they are, they seem more tangible than poems themselves to me. I don't believe in a "right" aesthetic . . . and so I can ultimately only evaluate a poem on the choices the poet makes in it: were those choices wise, clever, meaningful, surprising, delightful, penetrating, etc.?
Monday, for instance, (by contrast) is much more of a "this is a right thing and this is a wrong thing to do in a poem" person than I am. To me, it's all a matter of effect. The means by which that effect is achieved are arbitrary . . . or at least secondary. Did the poet create the effect she/he intended and was that effect compelling to the reader? That's all that matters to me. I am willing to tolerate any maneuver, slight of hand, or stance as long as it all makes for a compelling and aesthetically convincing piece of literature.
I often faced fellow poets in school who could never get beyond the aesthetic choices of their peers to what it all (the whole poem as expression) added up to. Everyone wants to change a word here, a phrase there, a sound, a rhyme, a beat, a break. But this usually strikes me as nothing more than a matter of taste, and thus, useless as criticism. We can't condemn a poem because it is not our poem or does not act like we want it to act. That would be pure narcissism. The poet her/himself (as a byproduct of the act of creation) establishes the only criteria on which the poem can be judged. As critics, we can more or less logically evaluate whether the poet achieves the goals set out . . . and whether those goals themselves are admirable or frivolous or offensive, etc.
The typical stone thrown at self-publishing is its taint of un-professionalism. A seemingly valid criticism . . . but the way I've been seeing it is that there is no real money or prestige in poetry, especially not if you are hard to classify or exhibit any stylistic "outsiderness". I could devote myself to conventional publishing wholeheartedly, and maybe as the years went by I would get a publication here, another there. Maybe I would eventually get my book accepted and into print. But it's never going to make a significant difference in my standard of living. It won't let me leave my 9-to-5er or retire early or spend more time with my son or buy that new Hummer I so desperately desire. It won't even put a substantial notch in my debt (ah, sweet negative net worth!).
In addition, it won't bring me any real prestige or entitle me to ego-stroking guest speaking bits or honorary degrees or invitations to swanky cocktail parties among the intelligentsia (were I could have "poetic" flings with intoxicated poetry groupie coeds in need of validation; that is, a quick blowjob in the host's powder room). Poetry (the PoBiz) can give me nothing I need.
So really, there's just the stigma of self-publishing to contend with. I think that stigma is a straw man. It's just a matter of a few poets with some talent saying, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Outsider poets don't need to languish in oblivion. They just need to get their shit together somewhat and take a few chances, maybe organize a bit.
I encourage you and wish you luck if you ever chose to pursue that avenue.
-Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:11 pm Post subject: Apologies
My apologies to all for being so long-winded and tedious today.
It so happens that work has been uncommonly slow today (and this is a typically slow job!) . . . and regrettably, you all must suffer for it.
Don't worry. They will roast me for a few extra minutes in the fires of hell (stoked with the pages of all my rambling) when I go.
Yours,
Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:20 pm Post subject: ALSO...
Since I have a second, I do want to mention one thing that frustrates me about this site is the tendency for some "threads" to become reduced to incredibly repellent imagery and statements.
I recall reading one where someone was "banished" and told to eat goat excrement, or something like that.
Poets SHOULD be daring, but on the page.
If they are not performing on the page, then, to me, they are some yahoo telling someone to eat goat excrement, and sounding either unwell or incredibly childish.
Also, I recall my initial entry going off on a tangent about Maggie Gyllenhall.
I personally think her brother is WAY cuter.
Now, who can claim I am not a dissident?
DJ Callan
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject:
I can't imagine literature without history. Can anyone?
Yet the whole MFA emphasis is ahistorical.
I might call it The Conspiracy of the New.
It is exactly what the Father of the Workshop, John Crowe Ransom, had in mind when he wrote that professors of literary history were not equipped to judge "new" literature. History doesn't count. The "new" matters.
Matt: "Mad Poet's Disease." I like that.
Sure, some MFA professors know some literary history: Walt Whitman. Thoreau and Emerson, perhaps, like our friend Professor Slone.
It's a pity Professor Slone doesn't quote Pope: "To err is human, to forgive divine," instead of Emerson, who was basically a political hack.
If Professor Slone had forgiven David James Callan, if Professor Slone had just said to himself, "OK, he sent me his creds, I'll just ignore them," Professor Slone would have had good poems to publish (I've seen them) and increased the readership of his magazine a thousandfold by having a poet in his magazine known to Foetry.com readers.
Instead, Professor Slone, the "rebel," attacked a poet for not following guidelines which ultimately don't matter. Slone chose to walk "vertical" and "talk honestly" or whatever it was that Emerson demands that we do.
Monday Love
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:56 pm Post subject: Re: ALSO...
Maggie has nice eyes, but that family has no lips. Cute is a very broad category. Lots of people are cute. I don't happen to think the Gyllenhalls are particularly cute. Call me a dissident for saying this--but it's how I feel! Find me a ruler. Let's measure the faces! I'll show you I'm right!
Monday Love
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:13 pm Post subject: Re: Anon
Interesting. A good idea, I guess. And maybe this editor [Anon] is ethically sound. Regrettably, there are so many poetry contests that guarantee anonymity, but, as we know, are scam-a-ramas.
It's a nice gesture to promise anonymity, but what would be an even more convincing gesture (in my opinion), would be truly ballsy content. There should be a whole fleet of small-time poetry editors out there who feel like they're on a mission to flip off the PoBiz by publishing poets of little reputation but impressive talent. I'm sure many do actually aspire to this.
And yet, editors with this attitude produce products that rarely differentiate themselves from "mainstream" journals. I guess my stance is that I really don't care about an anonymous process so much as the quality of what is published. If the anonymous process allows for a higher quality product, great . . . but if the editor is genuinely good at editing, the safety net of anonymity is really not important.
Maybe one of the problems is that the people who are becoming editors lack genuineness and/or talent at recognizing quality. How many "legitimated" poetry rags actually smack of contrariness and true edginess? How many really strike well-placed blows at the PoBiz or at contest corruption or academic blurbism? Does anything make us want to rally around it?
Most of the folks blowing these kinds of trumpets are like us or Poetry Snark, or the American Dissident guy, or the ULA. Sometimes our hearts are in the right place, but our means of expression are far from perfect. It's easy for the privileged to not take us seriously.
We tend to be sloppy, lazy, vindictive, and wet behind the ears. We generally don’t ride on the black horses of effective organization or logical argument. We are usually just little firecrackers going off randomly, not well-placed demolition charges. If we’re lucky we’ll burn somebody’s heel or startle them into jumping . . . but we remain dependent on the “foets’” tendency toward over-reaction. When they ignore us, we can’t hurt them.
I would be excited to see people from "our world" go legit and make a wholehearted stab at a literary journal or e-zine . . . something in which the editors hold themselves to a strict ethical and antiestablishment position and simultaneously devote themselves to the quality of the poetry and prose published. It would have to have huge brass balls, but it couldn't be easily dismissible, adolescent, or "paranoid fringe". It would have to be professional above all.
I periodically see essays published in mainstream venues that are pretty critical of mainstream academe or of corruption or of prevailing PoBiz attitudes. I start to drool when I imagine a journal that ONLY published things of this caliber and content.
I would even be happy with a poetry journal that baldly states: "today's poetry sucks 99% of the time . . . and we will only publish poetry that's both high quality and distinctly different. If we don't get any submissions for such poetry by deadline, we won't publish any poetry in that issue . . . or we'll only publish the one or two poems that we felt needed to appear in print. If the only usable pieces we receive are reviews and essays, than that installment will be reviews and essays. Etc."
I spoke with another forum member some time ago about doing whatever I could to contribute to such a project . . . but I think my standards are ultimately too cranky and too severe, and I probably scared the other person off. Also, I can beat a drum and sing the song of the rebels, but I don't have the poetry creds to be an editor. I don't like to read the stuff much. I don't have a broad enough poetry background to make for a good reviewer.
I could contribute rants and maybe evaluate submissions, but really, I'm like the blunderbuss hanging on the gun collector's wall. It would probably be too dangerous to load me up and fire me.
-Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:31 pm Post subject: Re: Anon
Good idea Matt. I checked out the ANON website and found that their current issue is delayed because they're waiting for enough good poems to come in. "We'd rather be late than rubbish." Wow, good for them. Think I'll send something.
Ed Dupree
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:55 pm Post subject: re: FORGIVENESS?
Ah, if Professor Slone had only forgiven me...what?
Umm, Matt: you and Monday Love may be bewildering at times, but you are not hostile, so you seem to be worried a little too much about how you appear to others. Crimson, on the other hand, tends to go off the deep end.
Anyway, I prefer to think about and or discuss individual poems and poets, especially ones that DO work for me.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
DJ Callan
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:18 pm Post subject: SOFT, SELF-ESTEEM BLOATED POETS LIKE CALLAN NEED TO BUCK UP!
As a professor, I am often confronted with immaturity, poor logic, faulty reasoning, and inability to concentrate and stick to a given point, so have learned patience, though not capitulation like the bulk herd of my professor colleagues bent on SELF-ESTEEM BUILDING and, more or less, indifferent to EXPOSING TRUTHS… like the very replacement of EXPOSING TRUTHS by SELF-ESTEEM BUILDING.
As you know, being a tactician and ambassador is not my forte, nor would I ever want that to be. I am straightforward and not much at all concerned with hurting feelings, but rather with exposing truths.
Most of the comments appearing in this FORUM have been immature and puerile. In fact, the very title of this website, FOETRY, resounds immature and puerile. Anyhow, here are my thoughts on some of those comments. Matt appears to be the more intelligent foet amongst you, though he too seems desperate for approval from fellow foets and some of his assertions are equally asinine, including the one about my purported attempt to create an elite of poets. Because I chose to create in 1998 a poetry journal with a specific purpose and focus does not automatically mean I wanted to create an elite. I simply seek to publish poets who write within that focus. Why is that such a terrible thing and why can’t the average foet comprehend that concept? “We should be more conscious of the way we snap back at outsiders,” notes Matt. Good point. But Matt should really be more conscious about sticking to LOGIC and REASON and avoiding puerile NAME CALLING, which has essentially characterized the entire NON DIALOGUE on this forum. You, Matt, would make a much better CHIEF than Cordle, who has yet to make an intelligent statement.
Thanks, Matt, for making a good point RE sticking up for “one of us,” even when “one of us” might be an idiot. Yet this is what happens in real life, especially when individuals seem incapable of acting ALONE and without support group. This seems to be both DJ’s and AC’s problem. It is akin to trying to dialogue with diehard Democrats on the merits of Ralph Nader. Logic and reason become irrelevant in such dialogue. As an example, one fear-ridden anonymous entry stated “The idea of ‘dissident credentials’ is sort of preposterous, in any case.” The American Dissident (www.theamericandissident.org) seeks those with such credentials for evident reasons, though evidently not evident enough for fear-ridden anonymous foets, who might be high school writing teachers. Who knows? I am not seeking “outsider” poets, but poets who fight the machine, not part time like David James Callan or Alan Cordle, but full time.
Those who can see no wrong with the machine will never see any wrong with it UNLESS suddenly they find themselves alone and against it. This will be unlikely especially for herd member poets, those who cannot act and think alone. Matt or ET wrote “That said, George, I do think your approach to David was overly caustic . . . unnecessarily caustic. Even if he neglected to read your outlines.” But how does he know? Does he know the kind of irrelevant poetry I receive almost on a daily basis? The very title of the literary journal The American Dissident ought to discourage poets from sending poems about their girlfriends, BUT I get those all the time. So, was I too caustic? Probably not sufficiently so!
Matt, I certainly do not agree with your “WRONG TONE” non-argument. I’ve come across that non-argument so many times from lit elites. Normally, WRONG TONE is simply evoked to avoid logical argumentation and to label anything critical, any ideas not espoused by the OFFENDED. If what I said was correct and logical, who gives a shit if it sounded caustic, angry, pissed off, or WRONG TONE? Are you and poets so dainty nowadays that you shudder when someone has the WRONG TONE? Buck up, man! I suppose you side with the offended Islamists RE the critical cartoons. Well, I sure as hell do not!
What the whole lot of you need is an event or events to help pry your like-minded, desperate-to- conform-to-the-foet-herd eyes open. It usually takes a solid brush with corruption to do that. Read an “Enemy of the People” by Ibsen. It might take a short stint in a jail cell when you are entirely innocent… alone, not with protesting friends. Who knows? If you’re lucky, your eyes will open one day. Your writing will improve enormously. You will not be writing for the simple reason that you decided you’re a poet, but rather because you have something burning to say.
By the way, DJ, you’re a young guy, so why not learn French instead of playing the fool as in how do you say meow, meow. “This whole thing started, at least for me, as a way of being less isolated against what I found to be a puzzling and unwarranted hostility from Mr. Slone.” Do you now finally comprehend my hostility vis a vis someone who didn’t even read the guidelines? Sometimes, DJ, it is good to be isolated. Too much GROUPISME will kill the spirit of individuality. You exhibit too much GROUPISME. You need to get out of the GROUP and comfort zone of FRIENDS, FRIENDS, FRIENDS. A poet should be a loner, not a FOET HERD MEMBER! “It was my battle, though; I chose to make it public because I thought that there were issues involved that might help other people.” REVENGE was your clear motive. Why hide it? I fear that your schooling and educationist masters and mistresses have made you SOFT via excess SELF-ESTEEM BUILDING. Why do you cower like a school child from a little HOSTILITY and CAUSTICITY? Didn’t your educationist formateurs teach you “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never harm me”? Did your college professors only tell you how wonderful you are? SOFT citizens are being produced at an alarming rate, citizens like you DJ and other easily-offended foets, who cower whenever criticized, and seek refuge in bands of friends. Democracy suffers from educationist SELF-ESTEEM BUILDING. I have not cowered before your BAND of friends… and yet it is I alone who fight YOU and THEM. Buck up, as they say, DJ! Buck up!
Dialoguing with you, DJ, has been like speaking to a brick wall. You state: “I do wonder, however, why people who don't send work to magazines feel such a need to dictate what people who DO submit work to journals should do.” Well, I just sent an essay out this week. And I’ve been published all over the goddamn place. And, so what? I only send out rarely now. I send out when I want to get a highly critical piece, like that essay, into the visual space of lit-crony establishment types. Can you comprehend that? Doubtfully.
“If you have published work, why NOT mention it in cover letters?” writes DJ. I doubt you’ll ever be able to understand why not. Can you not comprehend that The American Dissident has a particular focus, not simply poesy for the sake of poesy? Publication credentials have become all too banal today. All they tell me, as an editor, is the degree in which the POET has sucked up to the lit machine and/or not questioned and challenged it. Yes, I too used to write poems a la Bukowski that did not really have a purpose, except that of promoting EGO and entertaining.
“That is what building up a reputation is, building,” writes DJ. Well, that’s a frightful statement indeed! A reputation for what? A reputation that you’ve received widespread approval from the very corrupt types Cordle sought or used to seek to highlight on this website? Can you not even see the utter contradiction? I don’t think you can. Buck up, man! Respond to these questions! Poets were never meant to be cowards, to be fearful of verbal hostility! Poets should be courageous! That’s the kind of reputation you should seek, not the other kind. Sadly, the large majority of POETS today are but sellouts to the machine, entertainers of the courtesan variety. POETRY has become like the MOVIES or SPORTS, mere DIVERSIONARY ENTERTAINMENT… to help keep the wealthy elites firmly entrenched in POWER. That’s what your purpose is, DJ. So, why should I have published YOU?
I’m not sure if you make any sense here, DJ: “I find it puzzling that so many people who are not involved with trying to publish are so wrapped up in deciding how those who take the time, effort, and BALLS to write find an audience.” So many people? Who and where are all these people? “Balls to write”? Why should it take “balls to write,” especially if you live in a protective cocoon of self-esteem building foet friends? It takes no balls at all to write what you write! It takes balls to write what I write! It takes balls to criticize my colleagues at the university employing me, for by doing so I clearly RISK losing my job and health insurance. I don’t have tenure… for evident reasons (my TONE is wrong!). That’s what I do. I openly criticize the faculty at a public university for permitting religious services during faculty meetings, for example. It is an all black southern university and I am white. Yes, that takes BALLS, balls that you do not have and most likely will never have, DJ!
“There seems to be more and more hot air and childish hostility to be had here, and I don't want to fall prey to it more than I already have,” writes DJ. But you, DJ, began the whole goddamn thing by setting up the FORUM! Don’t start wars if you don’t have the BALLS to fight them, for chrissakes! You do come off as a whimpering sort. God help poetry, if it keeps giving prizes and fellowships to those like you! Get rid of that lame Steve Martin quote! Find something with punch to it! Borrow one from my site, if you like. I’ve got scores of potent quotes on it by scores of dissidents, all daring to dare. Buck up, man! Buck the fuck up!
BTW, librarians tend to be followers. They tend to subscribe to name-brand journals and books. Rare are the librarians who will subscribe to journals that are not pushed by Barnes & Noble, Inc. How about you, AC? Do you belong to the BUNCH who would tear down my flyers on the public bulletin board in the library because they didn’t have librarian approval because the librarians refused to approve them… despite the ALA Bill of Rights? No doubt!
Talk about lame non-argument, AC. “it's unfair of him to get something like 200 words towards his submissions policy and to have two of them read, "guidelines online." Yeah, and it’s unfair that PM did not change my website address and it’s unfair that Yahoo threw me off their site without a hearing because of one whimpering poet’s complaint. Your arguments tend to be the most lame arguments in this forum. GUIDELINES ONLINE! I really had expected so much more from you as an intellect. Now, I suppose I’m going to have to heed some of those who have complained about you like Jory Graham et al.
“Besides, when I looked at the AD website, and the entry in Writer's Market, I learned that the print circulation of AD is 200. I think David should be relieved by Tod's outburst; it saved David's work for a much better journal, where it belongs and where it will find readers,” writes AC. Yes, very American, AC. Quantity over quality! Quantity poets over poets who dare! But circulation has nothing to do with quality! Is that what they brainwashed you with in librarian school? Popularity does not mean quality! If it did, then Harry Potter is the best work out there today. No, I won’t be surprised if you agree with that. But you will simply ignore my logical destruction of your feeble non-argument, won’t you? And that is why you shall remain but a mediocrity amongst so many other mediocrities.
Another lame argument from AC. “I do apologize for the word "prick," but think pretentious is right-on. No wonder many French people dislike Americans.” What the hell is the difference between prick and pretentious? It’s all the same crap: name calling as a facile escape from having to disprove with intelligent, logical argumentation.
If in fact French people dislike Americans as you state AC, it is because Americans like you don’t even take the time to learn their language. At least, I have learned their language and even possess a doctoral degree from the universite de Nantes in France. So, please, AC, don’t tell me why French people don’t like Americans. Generally, just the same, when a person, French or whomever, makes such a general statement, it is because they are ignorant.
Nothing like straddling the fence, librarian-like, eh, AC? “All that said, I do think poems should be read without credentials, but I am not opposed to them either.”
Matt, you need to rethink your whole line on WRONG TONE, LASHING OUT, etc. It is nothing short of bullshit. “My only concern is that I look at George as a potential type, a type who could have a useful voice in our forums. Maybe George himself has too many issues that would prevent this possibility, but the TYPE shouldn't be disdained.” I will not be a useful voice in your forums if people like Cordle and Callan refuse to argue points with logic as opposed to lazy, intellectually vacuous shooting the messenger rhetoric. Just the same, I praise you, Matt, for being at times clear-minded, as opposed to the OTHERS. I’m not sure why YOU, Matt, want to engage in Foet forums, especially since you are evidently capable of making intelligent statements, whereas Cordle and Callan are not: “So, his website doesn't look like a professional designer made it (neither does mine). So, his circulation is only 200. I worry that leaping at points like these as if they are somehow bad or contrary to the grassroots, underdog spirit of Foetry.com that I have come to respect and admire is ultimately wrongheaded.” Matt, your very statement ought to make you wonder why the hell you are involved with this GROUP.
Mirsk, are you capable of reason or just childish name calling? Do you even read my entries? Probably not. Just judge him guilty, right? Who needs to review the evidence, right? Christ, you’d make a great member of the KKK, Mirsk. Are you? “As far as George at The American Psycho goes, it is incredibly unprofessional for him to broadcast David's cover letter and to reply to David's submission with a hostile email.” I put DJ’s cover letter in the forum because DJ started forum with a blatant attack on The American Dissident. His cover letter was exposed as evidence. Can you comprehend that, Mirsk? Probably not. And that is what saddens me.
“Only people without any accomplishments of their own are bothered by the legitimate accomplishments of others.” Need I repeat my “accomplishments” again and again so that the blind Mirsks can dig their little teeth into them? Here goes for you, Mirsk: Doctorat de l’universite de Nantes (France), MA from Middlebury College (VT) in French literature, currently university professor, poems published in all sorts of little rags, Total Chaos, published 2001 by People’s Press, The Poet, a 743-page autobio novel currently under consideration by LeMeac (Montreal), etc., etc., etc. Would you like to consult my nine-page credentials sheet? If so, I will send it to you, but only if you prove you would be open-minded to such evidence. Why do I have a sheet? My employment demands such things. I certainly do not flaunt it. You will not find my credentials mentioned at all on The American Dissident website. Because I do not flaunt credentials does not mean I do not have credentials. You would make a terrible lawyer with your assumptions, Mirsk.
Clearly, Mirsk, you are indoctrinated and there is probably little hope for you. Why you are even participating in a site like Foetry is a mystery. “Regardless of what we know about Jorie Graham's ethics as a judge, it's still an accomplishment to get admitted into Iowa's MFA program and graduate from it. It's a much bigger accomplishment than getting into George's screed-rag, that's for sure.” To be admitted to Iowa’s MFA program, for example, one must possess letters of recommendation, especially from good kowtow lit cronies (why don’t you look into that too, AC?). What Iowa fails to do is to open its establishment doors to hardcore critique of its program, its professors, its products, etc. Jorie Graham is a great example of the sad Iowa product, one you exposed, yet one you now seem to espouse, though with slight reluctance.
Monday Love? Might you be a high school writing teacher? Mirsk, how about you? Odd you should mention Pope. I’ve just reread the Dunciad and came to realize that criticizing actual poets in poems was not taboo like it is today, like the Iowa program has helped render it. Yes, Pope, Swift, and Byron, for example, all wrote verse critical of specific poets of the machine. Foet herd members ought to read them. So, here’s two quotes pertinent to you and yours, Monday:
“So swells each wind-pipe; ass intones to ass,
Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass”
—Pope
“So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.”
—Pope “Sporus”
An asinine remark from Monday: “If Professor Slone had forgiven David James Callan, if Professor Slone had just said to himself, "OK, he sent me his creds, I'll just ignore them," Professor Slone would have had good poems to publish (I've seen them) and increased the readership of his magazine a thousandfold by having a poet in his magazine known to Foetry.com readers.”
Here’s a question for you, Monday: Why do poets and foets believe that quantity means quality?
Answer: Good indoctrination, that’s why.
Evidently, I admire a number of Emerson’s essays. How he treated his women is of little importance to me. Solzhenitsyn is also rumored to have been a bit rough with his women. Nevertheless, I admire his writing and courage. And what about Bukowski, someone who you all seem to admire?
You seem unable to follow evidence, Monday. “Here you are fighting Foetry.com, and why? Because a poet sent you his credentials?” No, because CJ decided to open a forum on Foetry and inform me he was doing so, that’s why. Capiche? No, I doubt you’d be able to comprehend. This is your PROBLEM, not mine. You have a severe FAULT in your system of LOGIC. Try reading Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” Perhaps then you might understand that the majority is not always right… as in President Bush.
“When you described your "protest" at the Concord Poetry Center reading with Franz Wright, I noticed that the reaction to you by almost everyone was " chuckling." Yes, the majority chuckled, laughed at me… and that much I expected from HERD POETS being criticized from a non-herd member. But theirs was a nervous laughter because they were not used to criticism and not quite sure how to react to it. God, you sicken me, you do… not just your cowardly self hiding behind cloak of anonymity, but your whole thinking process, a real establishment suckup. “I've never sent a cover letter with my poems and I have a pretty good batting average.” Then you must be writing suck-up verse, you must rarely if ever question and challenge and otherwise “stand upright and vital and speak the rude truth in all ways.”
Ah, good point, DJ: “From what I've seen of people who run zines, they'll talk up and down about revolution, but would print twenty pages of John Ashbery if he smeared parrot sputum onto wax paper and signed his name to it.” Personally, I’ve rejected poems by all well knowns including Lifshin and a few others.
Poet K., another anonymous foet coward, states: “No, it's standard to include the bio. in the initial cover letter.” Indeed, and that is why The American Dissident rejects it. Why must all poets follow establishment standards, Poet K? Or have your educationist mentors not taught and encouraged you to have such thoughts? I don’t quite understand how a site devoted to corruption in academe and literature, in particular the corrupt prizes, can include members like you and Monday. It makes no sense. It would be like having a George Bush participating on an antiwar site.
What you all seem to be incapable of comprehending is that The American Dissident has a particular FOCUS. You feel some aberrant need to compare it with all the other lit journals with no focus at all with the exception of limp poesy for the sake of limp poesy.
BTW, I write and post entries here, now and then, so that others who might chance upon this forum will be able to read them for the record. I do not expect foets Cordle or Callan to read them.
Thank you for your attention, foet herd members.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Editor
The American Dissident
A Literary Journal of Critical Thinking
www.theamericandissident.org
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:56 pm Post subject: BLIND REVIEWS ONLY GUARANTEE BLIND EXCITEMENT BY THE BLIND
PS: A “blind” judging process such as that proposed by Anon doesn’t guarantee much of anything, except your “blind” excitement. In other words, if the judges are all academics, they will probably favor academic-type poesy and disfavor critical poetry. Who cares which academic poet they choose as winner? This is common sense and LOGIC, yet you simply accept it as if it were the cure-all without questioning it as I’ve done. AS A POET, YOU NEED TO ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU READILY ACCEPT, readily swallow, AND RARELY QUESTION.
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject: ruggedness
Dr. Slone, why are you a college professor? Why did you get your PhD.? It's odd that so rugged an individualist would jump through so many institutional hoops, to get institutional credentials, and apparently prefer to earn his living as an academic rather than some other way. We could use your combativeness in the clerical workers' union to which I belong. A good-sized handful of our members are artists or intellectuals who have rejected academia. It can be done.
You favor quality over quantity, you say. But the literary quality of your poems and fiction, as they're presented on your website, is approximately zero. You have no discernible talent as a writer.
Yes, the world is pervasively, overwhelmingly fucked up and wrong, and the literary scene is part of it. But in your writings you seem always to have discovered this five minutes ago. You sound hysterical and crude, not "rude" in the positive sense Emerson had in mind..
Ed Dupree
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:16 pm Post subject: Foets or Adolescents?
Ed, your comment is like your photo, that of a child or at best adolescent: “You favor quality over quantity, you say. But the literary quality of your poems and fiction, as they're presented on your website, is approximately zero. You have no discernible talent as a writer.”
Evidently, you are entirely prejudiced against me from the very start of this forum, so how might your opinion be worth anything at all?
I waste my time responding to you.
Regarding my being a professor, all the information is on my website. My fight with academics, etc.
Why is my entry in tiny print? Why not just delete it?
G. Tod
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 8:54 pm Post subject: My take on it all
I jumped to David's defense perhaps because I feel I "know" him, though we've never met in person. We have talked on the phone and email/pm often. I like him and his poetry very much.
The American Dissident editor should use Poet's Market and Writer's Market to make his repulsion to credentials known; it's unfair of him to get something like 200 words towards his submissions policy and to have two of them read, "guidelines online." Didn't he already say enough?
David had already read the guidelines and they did not mention "no credentials." That's why I chose to defend David.
Besides, when I looked at the AD website, and the entry in Writer's Market, I learned that the print circulation of AD is 200. I think David should be relieved by Tod's outburst; it saved David's work for a much better journal, where it belongs and where it will find readers.
I do apologize for the word "prick," but think pretentious is right-on. No wonder many French people dislike Americans.
All that said, I do think poems should be read without credentials, but I am not opposed to them either.
Alan Cordle
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 9:53 pm Post subject: alternative publication
Dave,
I don't fault you for feeling this way, but I have decided (for me personally) that I would like to avoid the current publication system. Of course, if you want to be a successful poet, there's probably no way around it. Still, I feel disinclined to seek that success these days.
I used to send my work to journals and play by the rules, but it always made me feel conflicted, and I eventually decided that I was quitting cold turkey. Currently, I believe it would be best for both many outsider poets and for capital P Poetry itself if poets (especially unaffiliated poets) would dedicatedly seek out alternative forms of publication. Even when that means self-publication.
I fought with this for a long time . . . and I believe my opinion on the matter is as valid as anyone's. From my perspective, the whole poetry publication system looks corrupt and ineffectual. After reading journals (mainstream and "anti-mainstream") for years (with intense disappointment . . . even outright shock at the crap often published), I've given up the hope that they are really serving Poetry as an art form.
The way I see it now, poets would do well to rebel and no longer play ball with the PoBiz. I don't respect the insiders enough to grant them the power and right to credential me. Their credentialing means nothing . . . is really more of a cattle brand than an acknowledgment of merit, as far as I’m concerned.
I've written on this extensively here in the forums . . . but probably before you joined. I think some of this soapboxing was done in a thread on self-publishing many moons ago.
I don't go as far as to say that poets who continue to seek mainstream publication, credentialing, and indoctrination are "bad". But I do feel that it is an unnecessary process of self-sacrifice and self-mutilation . . . and I even fear that too much commitment to it can prove corrupting (and damaging to the poetry produced). It's the poets that lose in this process (especially the outsider poets) . . . and thereby, the poetry itself suffers.
In my opinion, poetry would be healthier today if poets of talent bucked the system and stuck to the web or self-publication. I do think poets should be more barbarous and less willing to embrace indoctrination.
But, more importantly, I believe all voices should be heard on this matter. People who object to mainstream publication should not be excommunicated.
-Matt
PS: I don't see people who advocate dissent against the poetry publication system as cowardly at all. In my personal experience, I really had to buck up and accept the losses before I could truly embrace my decision to leave the PoBiz.
I think it's much harder to choose integrity over capitulation . . . and for me personally, the choice was a matter of integrity.
Matt
Posted: Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:14 pm Post subject: Re: My take on it all
Alan, I don't mean to scold you or anyone else, and I apologize for my tone. I think everyone's reactions to George's hostility are completely understandable. I have always stuck up for fellow members when I felt they were being abused by elitist and haughty newcomers (especially when those newcomers did nothing but spew the PoBiz party dogma).
I don't know anything about the American Dissident guy . . . other than that his attack/response to David was mean-spirited and unnecessary. Maybe George personally doesn't deserve any respect after the way he lashed out. I don't mean to advocate for him personally. If he feels a need to justify himself, the ball is in his court.
My only concern is that I look at George as a potential type, a type who could have a useful voice in our forums. Maybe George himself has too many issues that would prevent this possibility, but the TYPE shouldn't be disdained.
So, his website doesn't look like a professional designer made it (neither does mine). So, his circulation is only 200. I worry that leaping at points like these as if they are somehow bad or contrary to the grassroots, underdog spirit of Foetry.com that I have come to respect and admire is ultimately wrongheaded.
We need dissident "little guys" to fight the good fight.
Now, what George did that was bad was stage a personal attack on David for reasons that (to my mind) seem to boil down to a selfish kind of elitism and blind, misguided righteousness. If these qualities derail his American Dissident project, I think that would be a shame. But that personality issue is separate from the political/artistic issues.
So, all I'm saying is, go ahead and criticize the personality, but let's not lose ourselves and start bashing a "little guy" for being little. We are all little guys/gals here. The last thing we want to do is to start “aping our betters”.
Yours,
Matt
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 2:18 am Post subject: credentials
(this is harking back to Callahan's query as to why he shouldn't list his credentials)
In asking why credentials at all (of any sort) I didn't mean to criticize your cover letter.
It's fine to be proud of where you've published, where you've studied, what prizes you may have won, and so on.
My point is that all that really shouldn't matter to (my personal) the ideal editor.
When I read a poem, I do not care if it is by someone with a list of previous publications, or who has just won the Nobel prize, or whatever.
I want to read the poem, and to react to the poem. I hope that is what I do, even when I happen to know that the poet is one I have previously admired, or who is the current wild fave of the masses.
This is why, in my more snappish moments (of which there are many) I tend to say "I like poems, not poets" (this is a lie--I do have favorite poets--but, ultimately, I do like the poems best, and I am glad to see poems by poets I didn't think I liked, and often encounter poems by poets I cherish that--alas--fall flat.)
I want it to be about the poetry. Not about the prizes, not about the schools, not about the previous publications. Certainly not about whom the poet has slept with, married, or hired as a babysitter.
Merely about the poems.
But then, I live far, far away from the teeming hordes & academic halls.
thank heavens. (and, as I told you in my PM in response to your poems, David, yes, your poems are far better than what's in AD, and should find a place somewhere).(even without a cover letter, dare I say)
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 4:25 am Post subject: credentials A lot of these posts seem to take it for granted that poets include credentials in their cover letters because they're hoping to impress editors with the cover letter. I can tell you that I include a short biographical note, sometimes with publishing credentials, for another reason -- simply so that if the journal does publish some of my work, readers can be directed to more of my recent work. I think this is the way a lot of poets approach it. I've read tons of cover letters that read something like the following: "Bio. (if necessary) -- I currently live in ______ and teach at _______. Poems of mine are included in the latest issues of _______, _________, and ___________." If the journal publishes the poems, the bio. will direct interested readers to more work by the poet. As a reader of poetry journals, I have found these contributor notes helpful many times
As far as George at The American Psycho goes, it is incredibly unprofessional for him to broadcast David's cover letter and to reply to David's submission with a hostile email. It is also petty and juvenile for him to make all these broad, paranoid assumptions about David based on the cover letter. He comes off as wildly insecure. Only people without any accomplishments of their own are bothered by the legitimate accomplishments of others. I take David at his word that he's published poems in journals whose editors didn't know him, and I'm happy for him and impressed that he was able to get into and graduate from such an elite graduate school. Regardless of what we know about Jorie Graham's ethics as a judge, it's still an accomplishment to get admitted into Iowa's MFA program and graduate from it. It's a much bigger accomplishment than getting into George's screed-rag, that's for sure.
Mirsk
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject:
Dear George,
Or should I call you Professor Slone?
Why don't we start over?
Your mission to throw a monkey wrench into the "Machine" may be admirable, but I think we need to stop and analyze the whole notion of the "Machine."
Ralph Waldo Emerson married a woman who was dying so he could inherit her money.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was being wined and dined in London while his (second) sick wife was back home raising sick kids.
Ralph Waldo Emerson jumped on the abolitionist bandwagon only after he thought it would help his career.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's prose is often pre-Nietzschean, war-like and fascist.
Anyway, the point is, you cannot just take some quotes from Bartlett's and start a "revolution" and demand that others fight the "Machine."
Should we all live on Brook Farm? Is that how we should fight the "Machine?"
Or should the professor fight the dean, the dean fight the college president, the student fight the professor, the non-student fight the student, the non-student fight his mom? Where does it end? And how can the professor fight the dean if his students are fighting him? Or should students and professor join together and fight the dean? Or, should the dean and the professors and the students fight the college president? Or, should the students, professors, deans, and college presidents fight the mayor?
Here you are fighting Foetry.com, and why? Because a poet sent you his credentials?
Do you see the problem here?
When you described your "protest" at the Concord Poetry Center reading with Franz Wright, I noticed that the reaction to you by almost everyone was " chuckling."
Well, of course they were "chuckling." This is the proper reaction. You draw cartoons, like Jim Behrle.
I say, don't go for the chuckle. Go for the laugh.
Or, explain this "Machine" better.
Sincerely,
Monday
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 5:59 pm Post subject: Re: credentials
K, my experience in this is pretty limited, but isn't it more conventional for a publisher to ask for a contributor note after the poem is accepted for publication?
Having such information up front in a cover letter along with the poem seems more like a nudgenudge-winkwink, "publish me because I can bring your journal name recognition" or "publish me because other credential givers have given me the nod". This seems to be entirely separate from the merits of the poem. I can't see any good reason for a cover letter ever swaying the decision of an editor.
It's nice to have credentials of note, but sticking them on top of the poems seems like a bribe to me. Why not slip the editor a twenty or something? I see no real difference.
I don’t mean to fault anyone who writes cover letters. It’s a common practice . . . many editors say they prefer to have them. Following the rules is the poet’s best bet at getting accepted. Still, I can’t see how such a practice could really be justified in a meritocratic process.
Of course, as we all know, the PoBiz is not a meritocracy.
-Matt
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 6:36 pm Post subject: Matt,
No, it's standard to include the bio. in the initial cover letter. Then the editor can use it if he/she includes any poems from the submission. Many editors say they don't read the cover letter until after they have made a decison on the poem. As an editor, I find that, if anything, a good list of pubs prejudices me against the poet. It's like when I read a book or go to a movie that has been hyped up by my friends; I'm usually disappointed because my expectations had been built so high. Also, if the poems are bad but the poet has published in reputable journals, I'm more likely to reject them and hope that the poet sends his/her 'A' material the next time.
Last edited by Poet K on Tue Mar 07, 2006 8:05 pm; edited 1 time in total
Poet K
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:13 pm Post subject: Cover letter usage
That's good to know. [RE Poet K] I guess I have a paranoid streak that makes me suspect that many editors ARE being prejudiced . . . in favor of poets with impressive creds. I remember talking with Ed Ochester (Pitt Press) about this in a class when I was an undergrad. He (and a few other po-profs I spoke with) seemed to think that publishers most definitely look at the prior publications before they make their choice whether or not to accept a submission. Ochester even said (quite specifically) that contest submissions claiming to be anonymous are not actually anonymous. He said it was no use submitting to manuscript contests until one has an impressive list of journal pubs . . . because no one without about a dozen or more journal publications would make it past the first round of screening.
Maybe he was bullshitting us youngins in order to dissuade us from trying to publish, but he seemed like he was giving his real opinion. On the other hand, he also said he felt cover letters were a bad idea.
So, I guess it depends largely on the editor.
I guess, in general, I would be disinclined to trust an editor who promises fair evaluation, but upholds policies that make it very easy for bias and “bribery” to affect acceptance decisions. I’m sure there are many honest and ethical editors out there, but the most decent thing to do (in my opinion) would be to have basic policies that prevent or deter (as much as possible) favoritism and cronyism, and strive for a purely meritocratic evaluation of the submitted work.
So, if I was an editor, I think I would just say “No cover letters” in my guidelines and ask for a contributor’s note from those poets whose work is accepted for publication. I agree that a contributor’s note can be helpful. Of course, doing away with cover letters would have no impact on name recognition . . . and in my experience, most people in the biz know a lot of other poet’s names and publication histories. But again, that would make cover letters redundant, although for other reasons.
-Matt
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:42 pm Post subject: The Untamed
Mirsk, I guess we are similarly odd, then, as I've had the same experience.
I don't know if there is an answer to this. I guess it could be said that the poem itself should tell something "untamed" about the poet. Certainly, good poetry does this splendidly (as long as we aren't confusing rabid, narcissistic confessionalism with the "untamed"). Maybe the unsatisfied desire for such a thing simply indicates that there aren't enough good poems being published.
Regrettably, more often than not, after reading a poem, the last thing I want to know is more about the poet. Rather, I would like a law to be passed that prevents them from ever moving into my neighborhood.
Also, there aren’t many “untamed” poets left these days. They’re definitely an endangered species. Not including, of course, the many god-awful poets who remain too “uncouth” for mainstream publication. But, in my experience of them, these amateurs tend to be even more beholden to dogmas than the indoctrinated poets . . . they just happen to hold to dogmas that are no longer in vogue. It’s too bad, because being one of the unwashed masses really opens up a great opportunity to be nonconformist (without being directly punished for heresy).
But the “outside” for poetry isn’t really modeled on the old west of frontier America (with its outlaws and eccentrics of lore). It’s much more like an ancient Greek land of the dead where shades crowd together desperately, entirely forlorn, but keen for the smell of blood. Sad that.
I’d much prefer a poetry frontier filled with poets too wild for the mainstream rather than too defeated.
-Matt
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 7:31 pm Post subject: cover letters
Most of the places to which I submit my work, and most of the places that have published my poetry, don't require (and often say they do not want) cover letters. My experience has been that info for a contributor's note is requested at the time of acceptance.
Of course, I'm odd. During the ancient times of my first publications I refused to give any info whatsoever, contending it didn't really matter much.
And there's a question that interests me (to which, sleep deprived as I am this morning I don't know the answer yet): what information would really be exciting and interesting to know in the contributor notes? For me it's not where the poet last published, or what the last prize was. That much I know.
What would interest me? Something untamed, maybe.
Mirsk
Posted: Tue Mar 07, 2006 10:03 pm Post subject: Anon Does everyone remember ANON, the Scottish poetry journal, mentioned in early Foetry days?
http://www.blanko.org.uk/anon/
Anon is a print-based poetry magazine to which poems are submitted anonymously and assessed 'blind', using procedures similar to those used by poetry competitions.
Poems that are accepted for publication are published under the names of their authors – that is to say, the anonymous process only applies to the assessment procedures, not to publication. Poems that are rejected remain ‘anonymous’ – the editorial team does not discover the names of poets they reject.
Anon provides a level playing field. It has quickly established a presence in the poetry magazine scene. It is published on a relaxed timescale, aiming at every six months but often taking nine.
Alan Cordle
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:47 pm Post subject:
I've never sent a cover letter with my poems and I have a pretty good batting average.
The poets I loved growing up, like Keats and Shelley, did not have prizes and creds. They were just poets. In fact, I remember that Wordsworth was quite uncool compared to Keats and Shelley, because he was Poet Laureate.
The whole 'professionalization' of poetry where all of a sudden creds and prizes became everything, not to mention the flourishing of all these academic and ethnic nooks and cliques overwhelmed the 'Great Poetry' myth (let's call it a myth even though this myth still feels more real somehow) and it was apparent in poetry readings I attended in my college years, those flattering introductions, poets reading in that 'modern poet affect' voice, and increasingly poets got laughs, like it was stand-up comedy almost, this wasn't the poetry which I had fallen in love with as a boy.
Poetry became human all too human. Documents and charts became attached to it. Poetry became gentrified by a Modern Giant, and, instead of resisting the Giant, it sank into its arms. Look! the World is sucky and prosey! Therefore--my poetry is sucky and prosey! Makes sense? Right? Right? (nervous laughter)
_________________
Whisper and eye contact don't work here.
Monday Love
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 3:58 pm Post subject: re: Scylla and Carybdis
I tell ya, folks.
As Ricky Nelson once said: "You can't please everyone, so you haveta please yourself."
I don't think cover letters are a "bribe." To me, if I was running a zine, which I would if I could afford to, I'd want cover letters, because I find a little personal information about an author grounding. I like introductions, afterwords, the little list that says "By the Same Author" and liner notes on records and CDs.
From what I've seen of people who run zines, they'll talk up and down about revolution, but would print twenty pages of John Ashbery if he smeared parrot sputum onto wax paper and signed his name to it.
Everyone I have ever asked about cover letters says to send them. A lot of zines (I look up and read the whole thing about magazines in Poets' Market, write down the ones that appeal to me, and send from that list--I'm gonna try new zines next year, though) tell you to submit a list of publications, others don't mention it.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
D J Callan
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:16 pm Post subject:
Anyone ever notice that people with M.A.'s tend to be stronger more original writers than people with M.F.A.'s. Anne Carson, Ashbery... And real M.A.'s and PhD's, not ones in "creative writing" which is not a academic discipline at all in as much as Journalism is an academic discipline.
This strange notion that poets are a class that is different from novelists, and that poetry is a gentleman's art more than novelists. Really just an effect of poetry having to exist in Academia whereas Novelists can still live in the world through commercial means. Novelists if they succeed in the world can overthrow the "Literature" gate so heavily guarded by the Academics.
Poets have a much harder time, Bukowski did it, maybe not in America, but in Europe where they are not burdened with the M.F.A. system.
_________________
There are not enough Kaitlyns in M.F.A. programs. God help us without the genius of the Kaitlyn.
Member of the ULA
Adam Hardin
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:48 pm Post subject: re: Scylla and Carybdis
Dave,
I don't mean to dispute it with you. Please don't think my diatribes are somehow passive-aggressive attacks aimed at you. If you had been on Foetry.com a few months earlier, you would know that I have been spewing these kinds of sentiments from the get go.
As a writer and as a member of this forum, my interest is in promoting "outsiderism", in trying to argue for it as an acceptable alternative. There are definitely better ways to "make it in the biz", and anyone who wants to pursue those ways (and accept the artificial obstacles the system throws in their paths) is not an object of my derision. I would see that as blaming the victim for the crime.
Unlike American Dissident Guy, I have no interest in trying to set up divisions and elite sects among the unwashed masses of struggling poets. My experience as what is probably best termed a "conscientious objector" to the PoBiz has been one of gradually discovering that my creative soul was not ultimately beholden to the mainstream publication system and the credentialing mechanism of the PoBiz. Realizing this was something of a revelation to me, the lifting of a great weight that I didn't need to bear.
If I can do anything with my prose, my message board or blog soap-boxing, I believe it's possible to demonstrate or argue that a battle against corruption in the PoBiz can be begun with conscientious objection and abstinence (from the demeaning pursuit PoBiz goodies and rewards). We live in an age in which the tools or rebellion and dissent are left unrestricted right in our front yards. We don't have to fight for freedom of speech, and we don't even have to have much (or possibly any) money in order to broadcast our voices.
I do own a computer, and I also work at a job in which I'm in front of a computer (with internet access) all day. But, as others have said, public libraries usually offer free access to online computers. My web space was free, and I don't even have to advertise on my blog. My only limitations are my own drive and talent.
Even print publications (via POD) can be created for only a few hundred dollars (less, if you have software to do book layout) . . . and ideally, some or all of that money could be recouped in sales. For those who have any inclination whatsoever to buck the system, to rebel, the only real obstacle is lack of will power and talent . . . and if we lack those things, we won't have much luck as professional writers anyway (unless we are supreme schmoozers, of course).
If you personally don't feel the stirring of insurgency inside you with these weapons so readily available, I don't fault you or think of you as my "enemy". My only desire is to contribute a little bit of hope and encouragement (or more likely, spark and zeal) to those who want to run with their insurgent feelings.
But, in this effort I am not usually successful. That's fine, and I have always accepted this. I have to admit that I am largely satisfied that I am able to spout my rebellious rhetoric without retaliation in a place like this message board. I am grateful to Alan and the other members for not (well, very rarely) trying to browbeat me with elitist pompousness or silence my contrariness. I have great respect for this forum, for the atmosphere here, because not only have I not been excommunicated, but occasionally some people even read my long-winded posts, think about what I wrote, and reply intelligently.
I spent plenty of years among academic poets, so I recognize what a rare and wonderful thing it is to not play pariah or Lucifer 24/7. When I was in the academic realm, my only option for existence was full-on combat, the acceptance of scapegoat status. Backed into corners, I had to become animalistic, to fight or be prey. I was widely hated for this stance. Here, I am at least tolerated on the whole . . . and many people have been very kind to me.
So, the one thing I refuse to do is intentionally make enemies of those people here who have sympathies with what I consider to be a just and honorable cause. I don’t want to judge or condemn the little people. I have occasionally lashed out at a couple members here, because I saw them (in my opinion) spouting the same elitist rhetoric of our foet-foes . . . and when I did this, I may have been out of line. But I don’t attack that underdog instinct in all of us that just wants to survive.
Even when I might actually feel that our own simple desires are what ultimately lead to our undoing and frustration, I don’t think we should be punished for them . . . and I certainly don’t think that I have any right to take on the role of punisher. If I bite anyone, it’s because they stepped on someone or something I feel is precious and in need of protection.
It’s only things, institutions, ideologies that I’ll fight against, not individual people in their humanness.
Yours,
Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:53 pm Post subject: re: Fiction vs. Poetry
You're right about fiction and poetry. Fiction writers can make a living writing and thus "rebel."
I have been involved with this site for three months now. I think its initial concept--to guard accept fraud in poetry competitions and keep an eye on impropriety in the PoBiz world--a good one. I felt this needed to be done in 1997, and was frustrated by the absence of any sort of forum to discuss this stuff.
Three months ago, I was sort of bullied into proving who I was, basically giving my credentials. Now I am under fire for giving my credentials.
I yam what I yam.
I tend to get tired of talking about poetry in the abstract, I always have. I can talk about music and musicians and singers forever, but probably because poetry was such a private thing for me, I get weary very quickly of theorizing and so on. I realize that people are trying--maybe even Mr. Slone--to engage me in a conversation about issues, but I get tired of conversing in the abstract very quickly.
I don't mean to insult those who are not, or never have, written, or have not had success, or whatever. I have a teeny tiny bit of success, but am horribly tired of trying to find it.
I used to write every day, and I would like to get back that personal enjoyment of writing, and let my attempts at publishing be a casual thing that does not occupy my thoughts, as it does now. I'm going to be applying to get my MA in English in the next year, because I loved teaching when I did it, and would like to get back to it. That seems to be the road I am going on.
I would hope that people reading this "thread" take heed of what has transpired between me and Mr. Slone and realize that not every, OR ANY, editor can tell you who you are, or give the final word on what you have written. I have a history of some success--I know that my work has merit--and yet it has taken me eight years to publish seven or eight poems. The ethical way is NOT EVER the easy way.
I hope there are dozens of great writers out there struggling to publish, but I also realize that maybe a dozen is all that there are. Even the lousiest writers in the world should write if they enjoy it. I wish that I could just publish my stuff on the internet or self-publish--I have often thought of it. I don't know if I will do that or not.
D J Callan
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:06 pm Post subject: Poetry vs. Talk about Poetry
David James Callan wrote: I tend to get tired of talking about poetry in the abstract, I always have. I can talk about music and musicians and singers forever, but probably because poetry was such a private thing for me, I get weary very quickly of theorizing and so on.
Well, I can't blame you for feeling this way. And I apologize for being much the opposite myself. I don't usually like to talk about actual poems, because I find the appreciation of poetry to be almost entirely subjective. Ideas/theories, at least, can be evaluated on the basis of how convincingly they argue a position. What some people think are great poems seem like crap to me and vice versa.
We had a thread a while back on the notion of "Honesty" in poetry . . . and it ended up being incredibly divisive and unhelpful, because everyone argued for the poems they thought were "honest" and everyone disagreed with everyone else's example poems/poets. Granted, the conversation was largely steered by three of our most outrageously pig-headed members, Monday Love, Crimson, and myself . . . but still, I just came away from the thread feeling redoubled in my belief that the whole "my poem/poet is better than your poem/poet" crap says nothing at all about poetry.
So, I much prefer to talk about capital P Poetry or the PoBiz, or attitudes and philosophies. As abstract as they are, they seem more tangible than poems themselves to me. I don't believe in a "right" aesthetic . . . and so I can ultimately only evaluate a poem on the choices the poet makes in it: were those choices wise, clever, meaningful, surprising, delightful, penetrating, etc.?
Monday, for instance, (by contrast) is much more of a "this is a right thing and this is a wrong thing to do in a poem" person than I am. To me, it's all a matter of effect. The means by which that effect is achieved are arbitrary . . . or at least secondary. Did the poet create the effect she/he intended and was that effect compelling to the reader? That's all that matters to me. I am willing to tolerate any maneuver, slight of hand, or stance as long as it all makes for a compelling and aesthetically convincing piece of literature.
I often faced fellow poets in school who could never get beyond the aesthetic choices of their peers to what it all (the whole poem as expression) added up to. Everyone wants to change a word here, a phrase there, a sound, a rhyme, a beat, a break. But this usually strikes me as nothing more than a matter of taste, and thus, useless as criticism. We can't condemn a poem because it is not our poem or does not act like we want it to act. That would be pure narcissism. The poet her/himself (as a byproduct of the act of creation) establishes the only criteria on which the poem can be judged. As critics, we can more or less logically evaluate whether the poet achieves the goals set out . . . and whether those goals themselves are admirable or frivolous or offensive, etc.
The typical stone thrown at self-publishing is its taint of un-professionalism. A seemingly valid criticism . . . but the way I've been seeing it is that there is no real money or prestige in poetry, especially not if you are hard to classify or exhibit any stylistic "outsiderness". I could devote myself to conventional publishing wholeheartedly, and maybe as the years went by I would get a publication here, another there. Maybe I would eventually get my book accepted and into print. But it's never going to make a significant difference in my standard of living. It won't let me leave my 9-to-5er or retire early or spend more time with my son or buy that new Hummer I so desperately desire. It won't even put a substantial notch in my debt (ah, sweet negative net worth!).
In addition, it won't bring me any real prestige or entitle me to ego-stroking guest speaking bits or honorary degrees or invitations to swanky cocktail parties among the intelligentsia (were I could have "poetic" flings with intoxicated poetry groupie coeds in need of validation; that is, a quick blowjob in the host's powder room). Poetry (the PoBiz) can give me nothing I need.
So really, there's just the stigma of self-publishing to contend with. I think that stigma is a straw man. It's just a matter of a few poets with some talent saying, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" Outsider poets don't need to languish in oblivion. They just need to get their shit together somewhat and take a few chances, maybe organize a bit.
I encourage you and wish you luck if you ever chose to pursue that avenue.
-Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:11 pm Post subject: Apologies
My apologies to all for being so long-winded and tedious today.
It so happens that work has been uncommonly slow today (and this is a typically slow job!) . . . and regrettably, you all must suffer for it.
Don't worry. They will roast me for a few extra minutes in the fires of hell (stoked with the pages of all my rambling) when I go.
Yours,
Matt
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:20 pm Post subject: ALSO...
Since I have a second, I do want to mention one thing that frustrates me about this site is the tendency for some "threads" to become reduced to incredibly repellent imagery and statements.
I recall reading one where someone was "banished" and told to eat goat excrement, or something like that.
Poets SHOULD be daring, but on the page.
If they are not performing on the page, then, to me, they are some yahoo telling someone to eat goat excrement, and sounding either unwell or incredibly childish.
Also, I recall my initial entry going off on a tangent about Maggie Gyllenhall.
I personally think her brother is WAY cuter.
Now, who can claim I am not a dissident?
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
CJ Callan
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject:
I can't imagine literature without history. Can anyone?
Yet the whole MFA emphasis is ahistorical.
I might call it The Conspiracy of the New.
It is exactly what the Father of the Workshop, John Crowe Ransom, had in mind when he wrote that professors of literary history were not equipped to judge "new" literature. History doesn't count. The "new" matters.
Matt: "Mad Poet's Disease." I like that.
Sure, some MFA professors know some literary history: Walt Whitman. Thoreau and Emerson, perhaps, like our friend Professor Slone.
It's a pity Professor Slone doesn't quote Pope: "To err is human, to forgive divine," instead of Emerson, who was basically a political hack.
If Professor Slone had forgiven David James Callan, if Professor Slone had just said to himself, "OK, he sent me his creds, I'll just ignore them," Professor Slone would have had good poems to publish (I've seen them) and increased the readership of his magazine a thousandfold by having a poet in his magazine known to Foetry.com readers.
Instead, Professor Slone, the "rebel," attacked a poet for not following guidelines which ultimately don't matter. Slone chose to walk "vertical" and "talk honestly" or whatever it was that Emerson demands that we do.
_________________
Whisper and eye contact don't work here.
Monday Love
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 8:56 pm Post subject: Re: ALSO...
Maggie has nice eyes, but that family has no lips. Cute is a very broad category. Lots of people are cute. I don't happen to think the Gyllenhalls are particularly cute. Call me a dissident for saying this--but it's how I feel! Find me a ruler. Let's measure the faces! I'll show you I'm right!
_________________
Whisper and eye contact don't work here.
Monday Love
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:13 pm Post subject: Re: Anon
Interesting. A good idea, I guess. And maybe this editor is ethically sound. Regrettably, there are so many poetry contests that guarantee anonymity, but, as we know, are scam-a-ramas.
It's a nice gesture to promise anonymity, but what would be an even more convincing gesture (in my opinion), would be truly ballsy content. There should be a whole fleet of small-time poetry editors out there who feel like they're on a mission to flip off the PoBiz by publishing poets of little reputation but impressive talent. I'm sure many do actually aspire to this.
And yet, editors with this attitude produce products that rarely differentiate themselves from "mainstream" journals. I guess my stance is that I really don't care about an anonymous process so much as the quality of what is published. If the anonymous process allows for a higher quality product, great . . . but if the editor is genuinely good at editing, the safety net of anonymity is really not important.
Maybe one of the problems is that the people who are becoming editors lack genuineness and/or talent at recognizing quality. How many "legitimated" poetry rags actually smack of contrariness and true edginess? How many really strike well-placed blows at the PoBiz or at contest corruption or academic blurbism? Does anything make us want to rally around it?
Most of the folks blowing these kinds of trumpets are like us or Poetry Snark, or the American Dissident guy, or the ULA. Sometimes our hearts are in the right place, but our means of expression are far from perfect. It's easy for the privileged to not take us seriously.
We tend to be sloppy, lazy, vindictive, and wet behind the ears. We generally don’t ride on the black horses of effective organization or logical argument. We are usually just little firecrackers going off randomly, not well-placed demolition charges. If we’re lucky we’ll burn somebody’s heel or startle them into jumping . . . but we remain dependent on the “foets’” tendency toward over-reaction. When they ignore us, we can’t hurt them.
I would be excited to see people from "our world" go legit and make a wholehearted stab at a literary journal or e-zine . . . something in which the editors hold themselves to a strict ethical and antiestablishment position and simultaneously devote themselves to the quality of the poetry and prose published. It would have to have huge brass balls, but it couldn't be easily dismissible, adolescent, or "paranoid fringe". It would have to be professional above all.
I periodically see essays published in mainstream venues that are pretty critical of mainstream academe or of corruption or of prevailing PoBiz attitudes. I start to drool when I imagine a journal that ONLY published things of this caliber and content.
I would even be happy with a poetry journal that baldly states: "today's poetry sucks 99% of the time . . . and we will only publish poetry that's both high quality and distinctly different. If we don't get any submissions for such poetry by deadline, we won't publish any poetry in that issue . . . or we'll only publish the one or two poems that we felt needed to appear in print. If the only usable pieces we receive are reviews and essays, than that installment will be reviews and essays. Etc."
I spoke with another forum member some time ago about doing whatever I could to contribute to such a project . . . but I think my standards are ultimately too cranky and too severe, and I probably scared the other person off. Also, I can beat a drum and sing the song of the rebels, but I don't have the poetry creds to be an editor. I don't like to read the stuff much. I don't have a broad enough poetry background to make for a good reviewer.
I could contribute rants and maybe evaluate submissions, but really, I'm like the blunderbuss hanging on the gun collector's wall. It would probably be too dangerous to load me up and fire me.
-Matt
______________
Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 9:31 pm Post subject: Re: Anon
Good idea Matt. I checked out the ANON website and found that their current issue is delayed because they're waiting for enough good poems to come in. "We'd rather be late than rubbish." Wow, good for them. Think I'll send something.
Ed
_________________
"I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle."
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 1:55 pm Post subject: re: FORGIVENESS?
Ah, if Professor Slone had only forgiven me...what?
Anyway, I prefer to think about and or discuss individual poems and poets, especially ones that DO work for me.
_________________
TALKING ABOUT COMEDY IS LIKE DANCING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE: STEVE MARTIN
CJ Callan
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 2:25 pm Post subject:
"Thank you for your attention, foet herd members."
You know, because name-calling is bad.
"puerile" word count = 23
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:39 pm Post subject: ruggedness
Dr. Slone, why are you a college professor? Why did you get your PhD.? It's odd that so rugged an individualist would jump through so many institutional hoops, to get institutional credentials, and apparently prefer to earn his living as an academic rather than some other way. We could use your combativeness in the clerical workers' union to which I belong. A good-sized handful of our members are artists or intellectuals who have rejected academia. It can be done.
You favor quality over quantity, you say. But the literary quality of your poems and fiction, as they're presented on your website, is approximately zero. You have no discernible talent as a writer.
Yes, the world is pervasively, overwhelmingly fucked up and wrong, and the literary scene is part of it. But in your writings you seem always to have discovered this five minutes ago. You sound hysterical and crude, not "rude" in the positive sense Emerson had in mind..
Ed Dupree
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 5:56 pm Post subject: BLIND REVIEWS ONLY GUARANTEE BLIND EXCITEMENT BY THE BLIND
PS: A “blind” judging process such as that proposed by Anon doesn’t guarantee much of anything, except your “blind” excitement. In other words, if the judges are all academics, they will probably favor academic-type poesy and disfavor critical poetry. Who cares which academic poet they choose as winner? This is common sense and LOGIC, yet you simply accept it as if it were the cure-all without questioning it as I’ve done. AS A POET, YOU NEED TO ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU READILY ACCEPT, readily swallow, AND RARELY QUESTION.
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:16 pm Post subject: Foets or Adolescents?
Ed, your comment is like your photo, that of a child or at best adolescent: “You favor quality over quantity, you say. But the literary quality of your poems and fiction, as they're presented on your website, is approximately zero. You have no discernible talent as a writer.”
Evidently, you are entirely prejudiced against me from the very start of this forum, so how might your opinion be worth anything at all?
I waste my time responding to you.
Regarding my being a professor, all the information is on my website. My fight with academics, etc.
Why is my entry in tiny print? Why not just delete it?
G. Tod
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:19 pm Post subject:
This is the same reply, which for some reason was printed in tiny print. Perhaps it was too long, so I shall break it in two. Perhaps you simply chose to make it unreadable. Unless you come up with better replies than the one furnished by Ed, I shall not be responding any more. I don't mind dealing with children, unless they're stupid and brainwashed.
As a professor, I am often confronted with immaturity, poor logic, faulty reasoning, and inability to concentrate and stick to a given point, so have learned patience, though not capitulation like the bulk herd of my professor colleagues bent on SELF-ESTEEM BUILDING and, more or less, indifferent to EXPOSING TRUTHS… like the very replacement of EXPOSING TRUTHS by SELF-ESTEEM BUILDING.
As you know, being a tactician and ambassador is not my forte, nor would I ever want that to be. I am straightforward and not much at all concerned with hurting feelings, but rather with exposing truths.
Most of the comments appearing in this FORUM have been immature and puerile. In fact, the very title of this website, FOETRY, resounds immature and puerile. Anyhow, here are my thoughts on some of those comments. Matt appears to be the more intelligent foet amongst you, though he too seems desperate for approval from fellow foets and some of his assertions are equally asinine, including the one about my purported attempt to create an elite of poets. Because I chose to create in 1998 a poetry journal with a specific purpose and focus does not automatically mean I wanted to create an elite. I simply seek to publish poets who write within that focus. Why is that such a terrible thing and why can’t the average foet comprehend that concept? “We should be more conscious of the way we snap back at outsiders,” notes Matt. Good point. But Matt should really be more conscious about sticking to LOGIC and REASON and avoiding puerile NAME CALLING, which has essentially characterized the entire NON DIALOGUE on this forum. You, Matt, would make a much better CHIEF than Cordle, who has yet to make an intelligent statement.
Thanks, Matt, for making a good point RE sticking up for “one of us,” even when “one of us” might be an idiot. Yet this is what happens in real life, especially when individuals seem incapable of acting ALONE and without support group. This seems to be both DJ’s and AC’s problem. It is akin to trying to dialogue with diehard Democrats on the merits of Ralph Nader. Logic and reason become irrelevant in such dialogue. As an example, one fear-ridden anonymous entry stated “The idea of ‘dissident credentials’ is sort of preposterous, in any case.” The American Dissident (www.theamericandissident.org) seeks those with such credentials for evident reasons, though evidently not evident enough for fear-ridden anonymous foets, who might be high school writing teachers. Who knows? I am not seeking “outsider” poets, but poets who fight the machine, not part time like David James Callan or Alan Cordle, but full time.
Those who can see no wrong with the machine will never see any wrong with it UNLESS suddenly they find themselves alone and against it. This will be unlikely especially for herd member poets, those who cannot act and think alone. Matt or ET wrote “That said, George, I do think your approach to David was overly caustic . . . unnecessarily caustic. Even if he neglected to read your outlines.” But how does he know? Does he know the kind of irrelevant poetry I receive almost on a daily basis? The very title of the literary journal The American Dissident ought to discourage poets from sending poems about their girlfriends, BUT I get those all the time. So, was I too caustic? Probably not sufficiently so!
Matt, I certainly do not agree with your “WRONG TONE” non-argument. I’ve come across that non-argument so many times from lit elites. Normally, WRONG TONE is simply evoked to avoid logical argumentation and to label anything critical, any ideas not espoused by the OFFENDED. If what I said was correct and logical, who gives a shit if it sounded caustic, angry, pissed off, or WRONG TONE? Are you and poets so dainty nowadays that you shudder when someone has the WRONG TONE? Buck up, man! I suppose you side with the offended Islamists RE the critical cartoons. Well, I sure as hell do not!
What the whole lot of you need is an event or events to help pry your like-minded, desperate-to- conform-to-the-foet-herd eyes open. It usually takes a solid brush with corruption to do that. Read an “Enemy of the People” by Ibsen. It might take a short stint in a jail cell when you are entirely innocent… alone, not with protesting friends. Who knows? If you’re lucky, your eyes will open one day. Your writing will improve enormously. You will not be writing for the simple reason that you decided you’re a poet, but rather because you have something burning to say.
By the way, DJ, you’re a young guy, so why not learn French instead of playing the fool as in how do you say meow, meow. “This whole thing started, at least for me, as a way of being less isolated against what I found to be a puzzling and unwarranted hostility from Mr. Slone.” Do you now finally comprehend my hostility vis a vis someone who didn’t even read the guidelines? Sometimes, DJ, it is good to be isolated. Too much GROUPISME will kill the spirit of individuality. You exhibit too much GROUPISME. You need to get out of the GROUP and comfort zone of FRIENDS, FRIENDS, FRIENDS. A poet should be a loner, not a FOET HERD MEMBER! “It was my battle, though; I chose to make it public because I thought that there were issues involved that might help other people.” REVENGE was your clear motive. Why hide it? I fear that your schooling and educationist masters and mistresses have made you SOFT via excess SELF-ESTEEM BUILDING. Why do you cower like a school child from a little HOSTILITY and CAUSTICITY? Didn’t your educationist formateurs teach you “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never harm me”? Did your college professors only tell you how wonderful you are? SOFT citizens are being produced at an alarming rate, citizens like you DJ and other easily-offended foets, who cower whenever criticized, and seek refuge in bands of friends. Democracy suffers from educationist SELF-ESTEEM BUILDING. I have not cowered before your BAND of friends… and yet it is I alone who fight YOU and THEM. Buck up, as they say, DJ! Buck up!
Dialoguing with you, DJ, has been like speaking to a brick wall. You state: “I do wonder, however, why people who don't send work to magazines feel such a need to dictate what people who DO submit work to journals should do.” Well, I just sent an essay out this week. And I’ve been published all over the goddamn place. And, so what? I only send out rarely now. I send out when I want to get a highly critical piece, like that essay, into the visual space of lit-crony establishment types. Can you comprehend that? Doubtfully.
“If you have published work, why NOT mention it in cover letters?” writes DJ. I doubt you’ll ever be able to understand why not. Can you not comprehend that The American Dissident has a particular focus, not simply poesy for the sake of poesy? Publication credentials have become all too banal today. All they tell me, as an editor, is the degree in which the POET has sucked up to the lit machine and/or not questioned and challenged it. Yes, I too used to write poems a la Bukowski that did not really have a purpose, except that of promoting EGO and entertaining.
“That is what building up a reputation is, building,” writes DJ. Well, that’s a frightful statement indeed! A reputation for what? A reputation that you’ve received widespread approval from the very corrupt types Cordle sought or used to seek to highlight on this website? Can you not even see the utter contradiction? I don’t think you can. Buck up, man! Respond to these questions! Poets were never meant to be cowards, to be fearful of verbal hostility! Poets should be courageous! That’s the kind of reputation you should seek, not the other kind. Sadly, the large majority of POETS today are but sellouts to the machine, entertainers of the courtesan variety. POETRY has become like the MOVIES or SPORTS, mere DIVERSIONARY ENTERTAINMENT… to help keep the wealthy elites firmly entrenched in POWER. That’s what your purpose is, DJ. So, why should I have published YOU?
I’m not sure if you make any sense here, DJ: “I find it puzzling that so many people who are not involved with trying to publish are so wrapped up in deciding how those who take the time, effort, and BALLS to write find an audience.” So many people? Who and where are all these people? “Balls to write”? Why should it take “balls to write,” especially if you live in a protective cocoon of self-esteem building foet friends? It takes no balls at all to write what you write! It takes balls to write what I write! It takes balls to criticize my colleagues at the university employing me, for by doing so I clearly RISK losing my job and health insurance. I don’t have tenure… for evident reasons (my TONE is wrong!). That’s what I do. I openly criticize the faculty at a public university for permitting religious services during faculty meetings, for example. It is an all black southern university and I am white. Yes, that takes BALLS, balls that you do not have and most likely will never have, DJ!
“There seems to be more and more hot air and childish hostility to be had here, and I don't want to fall prey to it more than I already have,” writes DJ. But you, DJ, began the whole goddamn thing by setting up the FORUM! Don’t start wars if you don’t have the BALLS to fight them, for chrissakes! You do come off as a whimpering sort. God help poetry, if it keeps giving prizes and fellowships to those like you! Get rid of that lame Steve Martin quote! Find something with punch to it! Borrow one from my site, if you like. I’ve got scores of potent quotes on it by scores of dissidents, all daring to dare. Buck up, man! Buck the fuck up!
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:20 pm Post subject:
BTW, librarians tend to be followers. They tend to subscribe to name-brand journals and books. Rare are the librarians who will subscribe to journals that are not pushed by Barnes & Noble, Inc. How about you, AC? Do you belong to the BUNCH who would tear down my flyers on the public bulletin board in the library because they didn’t have librarian approval because the librarians refused to approve them… despite the ALA Bill of Rights? No doubt!
Talk about lame non-argument, AC. “it's unfair of him to get something like 200 words towards his submissions policy and to have two of them read, "guidelines online." Yeah, and it’s unfair that PM did not change my website address and it’s unfair that Yahoo threw me off their site without a hearing because of one whimpering poet’s complaint. Your arguments tend to be the most lame arguments in this forum. GUIDELINES ONLINE! I really had expected so much more from you as an intellect. Now, I suppose I’m going to have to heed some of those who have complained about you like Jory Graham et al.
“Besides, when I looked at the AD website, and the entry in Writer's Market, I learned that the print circulation of AD is 200. I think David should be relieved by Tod's outburst; it saved David's work for a much better journal, where it belongs and where it will find readers,” writes AC. Yes, very American, AC. Quantity over quality! Quantity poets over poets who dare! But circulation has nothing to do with quality! Is that what they brainwashed you with in librarian school? Popularity does not mean quality! If it did, then Harry Potter is the best work out there today. No, I won’t be surprised if you agree with that. But you will simply ignore my logical destruction of your feeble non-argument, won’t you? And that is why you shall remain but a mediocrity amongst so many other mediocrities.
Another lame argument from AC. “I do apologize for the word "prick," but think pretentious is right-on. No wonder many French people dislike Americans.” What the hell is the difference between prick and pretentious? It’s all the same crap: name calling as a facile escape from having to disprove with intelligent, logical argumentation.
If in fact French people dislike Americans as you state AC, it is because Americans like you don’t even take the time to learn their language. At least, I have learned their language and even possess a doctoral degree from the universite de Nantes in France. So, please, AC, don’t tell me why French people don’t like Americans. Generally, just the same, when a person, French or whomever, makes such a general statement, it is because they are ignorant.
Nothing like straddling the fence, librarian-like, eh, AC? “All that said, I do think poems should be read without credentials, but I am not opposed to them either.”
Matt, you need to rethink your whole line on WRONG TONE, LASHING OUT, etc. It is nothing short of bullshit. “My only concern is that I look at George as a potential type, a type who could have a useful voice in our forums. Maybe George himself has too many issues that would prevent this possibility, but the TYPE shouldn't be disdained.” I will not be a useful voice in your forums if people like Cordle and Callan refuse to argue points with logic as opposed to lazy, intellectually vacuous shooting the messenger rhetoric. Just the same, I praise you, Matt, for being at times clear-minded, as opposed to the OTHERS. I’m not sure why YOU, Matt, want to engage in Foet forums, especially since you are evidently capable of making intelligent statements, whereas Cordle and Callan are not: “So, his website doesn't look like a professional designer made it (neither does mine). So, his circulation is only 200. I worry that leaping at points like these as if they are somehow bad or contrary to the grassroots, underdog spirit of Foetry.com that I have come to respect and admire is ultimately wrongheaded.” Matt, your very statement ought to make you wonder why the hell you are involved with this GROUP.
Mirsk, are you capable of reason or just childish name calling? Do you even read my entries? Probably not. Just judge him guilty, right? Who needs to review the evidence, right? Christ, you’d make a great member of the KKK, Mirsk. Are you? “As far as George at The American Psycho goes, it is incredibly unprofessional for him to broadcast David's cover letter and to reply to David's submission with a hostile email.” I put DJ’s cover letter in the forum because DJ started forum with a blatant attack on The American Dissident. His cover letter was exposed as evidence. Can you comprehend that, Mirsk? Probably not. And that is what saddens me.
“Only people without any accomplishments of their own are bothered by the legitimate accomplishments of others.” Need I repeat my “accomplishments” again and again so that the blind Mirsks can dig their little teeth into them? Here goes for you, Mirsk: Doctorat de l’universite de Nantes (France), MA from Middlebury College (VT) in French literature, currently university professor, poems published in all sorts of little rags, Total Chaos, published 2001 by People’s Press, The Poet, a 743-page autobio novel currently under consideration by LeMeac (Montreal), etc., etc., etc. Would you like to consult my nine-page credentials sheet? If so, I will send it to you, but only if you prove you would be open-minded to such evidence. Why do I have a sheet? My employment demands such things. I certainly do not flaunt it. You will not find my credentials mentioned at all on The American Dissident website. Because I do not flaunt credentials does not mean I do not have credentials. You would make a terrible lawyer with your assumptions, Mirsk.
Clearly, Mirsk, you are indoctrinated and there is probably little hope for you. Why you are even participating in a site like Foetry is a mystery. “Regardless of what we know about Jorie Graham's ethics as a judge, it's still an accomplishment to get admitted into Iowa's MFA program and graduate from it. It's a much bigger accomplishment than getting into George's screed-rag, that's for sure.” To be admitted to Iowa’s MFA program, for example, one must possess letters of recommendation, especially from good kowtow lit cronies (why don’t you look into that too, AC?). What Iowa fails to do is to open its establishment doors to hardcore critique of its program, its professors, its products, etc. Jorie Graham is a great example of the sad Iowa product, one you exposed, yet one you now seem to espouse, though with slight reluctance.
Monday Love? Might you be a high school writing teacher? Mirsk, how about you? Odd you should mention Pope. I’ve just reread the Dunciad and came to realize that criticizing actual poets in poems was not taboo like it is today, like the Iowa program has helped render it. Yes, Pope, Swift, and Byron, for example, all wrote verse critical of specific poets of the machine. Foet herd members ought to read them. So, here’s two quotes pertinent to you and yours, Monday:
“So swells each wind-pipe; ass intones to ass,
Harmonic twang! of leather, horn, and brass”
—Pope
“So well-bred spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the game they dare not bite.”
—Pope “Sporus”
An asinine remark from Monday: “If Professor Slone had forgiven David James Callan, if Professor Slone had just said to himself, "OK, he sent me his creds, I'll just ignore them," Professor Slone would have had good poems to publish (I've seen them) and increased the readership of his magazine a thousandfold by having a poet in his magazine known to Foetry.com readers.”
Here’s a question for you, Monday: Why do poets and foets believe that quantity means quality?
Answer: Good indoctrination, that’s why.
Evidently, I admire a number of Emerson’s essays. How he treated his women is of little importance to me. Solzhenitsyn is also rumored to have been a bit rough with his women. Nevertheless, I admire his writing and courage. And what about Bukowski, someone who you all seem to admire?
You seem unable to follow evidence, Monday. “Here you are fighting Foetry.com, and why? Because a poet sent you his credentials?” No, because CJ decided to open a forum on Foetry and inform me he was doing so, that’s why. Capiche? No, I doubt you’d be able to comprehend. This is your PROBLEM, not mine. You have a severe FAULT in your system of LOGIC. Try reading Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People.” Perhaps then you might understand that the majority is not always right… as in President Bush.
“When you described your "protest" at the Concord Poetry Center reading with Franz Wright, I noticed that the reaction to you by almost everyone was " chuckling." Yes, the majority chuckled, laughed at me… and that much I expected from HERD POETS being criticized from a non-herd member. But theirs was a nervous laughter because they were not used to criticism and not quite sure how to react to it. God, you sicken me, you do… not just your cowardly self hiding behind cloak of anonymity, but your whole thinking process, a real establishment suckup. “I've never sent a cover letter with my poems and I have a pretty good batting average.” Then you must be writing suck-up verse, you must rarely if ever question and challenge and otherwise “stand upright and vital and speak the rude truth in all ways.”
Ah, good point, DJ: “From what I've seen of people who run zines, they'll talk up and down about revolution, but would print twenty pages of John Ashbery if he smeared parrot sputum onto wax paper and signed his name to it.” Personally, I’ve rejected poems by all well knowns including Lifshin and a few others.
Poet K., another anonymous foet coward, states: “No, it's standard to include the bio. in the initial cover letter.” Indeed, and that is why The American Dissident rejects it. Why must all poets follow establishment standards, Poet K? Or have your educationist mentors not taught and encouraged you to have such thoughts? I don’t quite understand how a site devoted to corruption in academe and literature, in particular the corrupt prizes, can include members like you and Monday. It makes no sense. It would be like having a George Bush participating on an antiwar site.
What you all seem to be incapable of comprehending is that The American Dissident has a particular FOCUS. You feel some aberrant need to compare it with all the other lit journals with no focus at all with the exception of limp poesy for the sake of limp poesy.
BTW, I write and post entries here, now and then, so that others who might chance upon this forum will be able to read them for the record. I do not expect foets Cordle or Callan to read them.
Thank you for your attention, foet herd members.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Editor
The American Dissident
A Literary Journal of Critical Thinking
www.theamericandissident.org
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:23 pm Post subject: todslone@yahoo.com
If you would like to dialogue intelligently with me, please send me an email. I am done trying to dialogue with "your writing sucks" cretin mentalities like Ed's and the anonymous cowards. Unfortunately for Foetry, that kind of mentality is in the majority. Ciao. Si, anche io parlo italiano.
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 6:52 pm Post subject: I'm not censoring...
I'm not censoring you, Mr. Slone.
The first and last sentence of the letter you sent to me (although I have asked you to stop e-mailing me and I continue to ask this) was an exact copy of your own entry directly above it, and therefore redundant.
I also enjoy goofing with fonts.
Have a great weekend.
CJ Callan
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:32 pm Post subject:
Cross your fingers folks. Maybe he's really gone.
Ed Dupree
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:34 pm Post subject:
Enmarge,
That was the THIRD time your diatribe has appeared here. Believe me, reading it once was enough.
I am responsible for the photo of Ed; he graciously adopted it, but had nothing to do with it initially. It's quite puerile, non monsieur?
So, where are you a professor?
Al
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:56 pm Post subject: RE: So...
So.
Do you think I am gonna get my SASE back?
I think George has a crush on me, maybe?
Woof!!!!!!
Yummmy.
Maybe that tongue lashing was just a preview?
Just wondering,
Dave Callan
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:58 pm Post subject:
I think you should file a small claims court for the stamp/poems. That would be totally funny!
He loves you!!!!
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:01 pm Post subject: re: I feel...
George makes me feel...well...pretty.
I won't make it through the weekend.
Pretty, like a little flower.
My nipples burst right through my Iowa sweatshirt.
Pretty. Like a tiny angel on a sprinkly cupcake.
P.S. Is his real name Marge?
DJ Callan
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:05 pm Post subject: Re: re: I feel...
David James Callan wrote: My nipples burst right through my Iowa sweatshirt.
Just picturing you in that Iowa sweatshirt is causing ME to enmarge!
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:09 pm Post subject: re: Now...
Now, THAT's funny.
I have already begun embroidering doilies for Marge's and my commitment ceremony. Jorie and Pete will be there, and Jim and Rita, and we'll have Josh and Mark jump out of a big whole grain pita and...
Pretty. Like a butterfly on a window painted with Jack Frost's delicate feather brush.
Like the little piece of salt pork in baked beans.
Like a rainbow.
And every time I finish a letter to him, I have to...press...submit.
I'm all wet around the ankles.
DJ Callan
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:21 pm Post subject: Re: re: Now...
David James Callan wrote:
I have already begun embroidering doilies for Marge and my commitment ceremony. Jorie and Pete will be there, and Jim and Rita, and we'll have Josh and Mark jump out of a big whole grain pita and...
I heard Jim is now a splinter group Mormon and married to both Rita and Jorie.
After you listen to the latest podcast you might consider asking Jimmy to sing the High Mass.
Can I be a Doily-Bearer?
_________________
Alan Cordle
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 8:26 pm Post subject: re: Of course...
Oh, the spectacle of it all!
Olestra Pringles of every flavor!
John Ashbery riding on the back of an emu!
Little marzipan dolls in the shape of The High Moderns!
Sylvia Plath cookies fresh from the oven!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DJ Callan
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 9:53 pm Post subject:
Thank you, David, this has been oddly fun (and as it is snowing here at the edge of the forest--where usually it doesn't--I can use some fun).
Did anyone except self important me notice that as the AD guy chided me for my long term membership in the KKK and--name calling--and not reading his diatribes with care, he was quoting....not me?
I mean, sure, I'm glad to stand in front of a tender poet friend and take the slings and errors of outrageous misreading and so on...
but, really, I don't remember saying all that. (Do I have an evil twin??)
Now, Matt--Matt, I'd be worried. The guy likes you. Almost as much as he seems obsessed with David.
Mirsk
Posted: Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:09 pm Post subject: Ohkilly Dohkilly Dooooo!!!mirsk wrote: Now, Matt--Matt, I'd be worried. The guy likes you. Almost as much as he seems obsessed with David.
It must be my sweet, good natured demeanor. I'm everyone's pal.
Hens love roosters
Geese love ganders
Everyone else love Maaaaaaaatt Koeske!
Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 4:27 am Post subject: Re: THE AMERICAN PSYCHO NEEDS TO SHUT THE *UCK UP!
enmarge74 wrote:
Poet K., another anonymous foet coward, states: “No, it's standard to include the bio. in the initial cover letter.” Indeed, and that is why The American Dissident rejects it. Why must all poets follow establishment standards, Poet K? Or have your educationist mentors not taught and encouraged you to have such thoughts? I don’t quite understand how . . .
[series of yellow smiley faces showing their asses]
Posted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:23 pm Post subject: Is G. Tod Slone lying?
Where are you a professor G. Tod Slone? I don't think you really are one. Did you obtain a faux PhD in France too? Those foreign creds. are harder to check, oui ou non?
Faux faux faux-etry!
Alan Cordle
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:28 pm Post subject:
The cartoon critical of Cordle, Wife and Foetry is on The American Dissident website. www.theamericandissident.org. Simply go to the "Literary Corruption" page, then scroll down to the "Foetry" page. I have also included the transcript (not yet all of it) of this forum. So, why not be curious, poet foets, and check it out? Then you can call it STUPID, CLUTTERED, PRICK, or whatever you like.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Editor
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:51 pm Post subject: Where IS Slone a professor?
Alan,
Did you notice that he ignored your question? I wonder why that is.
Poet K
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:54 pm Post subject:
Answer my question or I'll delete links to your site, which you obviously desperately need. Where are you a professor? You have 'til 5 PST.
Alan Cordle
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:57 pm Post subject: Re: Where IS Slone a professor?
Poet K wrote: Alan, Did you notice that he ignored your question? I wonder why that is.
Yeah -- it's all very mysterious. Oh wait, maybe he teaches here.
Alan Cordle
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:27 pm Post subject:
I won't call it STUPID, CLUTTERED or PRICK. I'll call it dull. Dr. Slone seems to have inherited no gene for wit.
Ed Dupree
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:47 pm Post subject: Re: re: Is that really where he teaches?
David James Callan wrote:"There's no 'there' there..."
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:01 pm Post subject:
Cordle,
As mentioned, if you wish to dialogue with me as an individual, rather than as a fearful foet herd member, send an email to todslone@yahoo.com. What community college employs you? I’m surprised you haven’t already removed the links. Hell, you should also remove my latest entry noting the cartoon you refused to include in this forum is now posted on my website. Do you actually have an MA in Library Science? Wow.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone, Editor
www.theamericandissident.org
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 6:12 pm Post subject:
What's wrong with bringing facts to the forefront? You tell me where you teach first and then I'll tell you. Or are you admitting you are not a professor?
Busted 
Alan Cordle
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:18 pm Post subject:
I wish he'd stop using "dialogue" as a verb. It impacts me negatively.
What are they teaching in PhD school these days?
"Could it be, we are not free? It might be worth looking into."
--Samuel Beckett, Molloy
Ed Dupree
Posted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: What's gonna happen next?
Marge,
Are you a professor in a pretend school, or a name on a list someplace for a real, respectable diploma mill?
Your fans are waiting with bacon breath.
Y'know, I could have saved the money on those stamps and had a tenth of the tuition for your school, where you could have assassinated my character in FRONT of people instead of over the internet. You know, your school's faculty of several...
Your delicate gardenia,
Dave
P.S. I wrote a love poem for you...
MISTER MEOW
I am--a little--pussycat--
My name is Mr.--Meow.
One day I--dressed--up as a--cud--
and got--chewed--up--by a cow--
A stomach here--a stomach there--
Mr. Meow was--everywheres--
Sadly--cow--was near a sewer
when Mr. Meow pooped out manure--
Looking--for an elevator
Mr. Meow got bit by an albino--gator--
And now--there are two--Mr. Meows
The kitty eat up by a cow!
I am a--wee--small pussycat--
My name is Mr. Meow--
Dressed as a cud--
Don't smell so good--
Happy Birthday--Ishky Binkwell--
Oh. Mr. Meow--Oh Mr. Meow--
Meeeee-owwwww! myow! myow muh myow!!!
Can you--believe the beautiful jar--of treasures?
Wonderful Mr. Meow!
The End.
by David James Callan
Posted: Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:39 pm Post subject:
Gee, Tod,
Why are you unwilling to say where you are a professor?
http://www.boxfreeconcepts.com/magicmill/
Instead of removing your links to the American Dissident, I changed them all to help warn others about the trap you've fallen into.
Best wishes,
Al
Alan Cordle
Posted: Sat Mar 18, 2006 3:59 pm Post subject: The Foet Literary Cartoon...
Foets,
Be curious! Check out the cartoon on the revamped website of The American Dissident. I've made an attempt to unclutter it. You see, I am always open to critique and change. Evidently and sadly, foets are not. www.theamericandissident.org. Simply go to "Literary Corruption" page, then scroll down to "Foetry." You might like the cartoon.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone
Rather than whimpering ad infinitum about a few stamps, why not get a job, foet Callan?
http://foetry.com/newbb/viewtopic.php?t=425&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
-----------------------MORE TO COME??????????????????????
Well, yes, more to come...........................................
To: |
foetry@foetry.com |
Subject: |
Apoligies to All! (Un-banned are ye) |
From: |
foetry@foetry.com |
Date: |
Thu, 04 May 2006 08:24:14 -0500 |
Add to Address Book 
Add Mobile Alert The following is an email sent to you by an administrator of "Foetry
Forum V.2". If this message is spam, contains abusive or other comments
you find offensive please contact the webmaster of the board at the
following address:
Include this full email (particularly the headers).
Message sent to you follows:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Members,
It was just brought to my attention that many of you were accidentally
banned. YES, it was an accident!
It was totally my boneheadedness that caused this, and I am very sorry.
The explanation: I banned a string of IP address that were attached to
a spambot advertising online casinos. We'll, I guess what happened was
that this prohibited a few of the shared servers some of you use from
accessing Foetry's messageboard.
I had no idea this could happen. Yes, I am a complete idiot.
You are all un-banned.
Please try to access the messageboard again. If anyone who receives
this message still can't get in, just reply to this e-mail and tell me.
And, again . . . I'm REALLY sorry.
Yours,
Matt
Date: |
Thu, 4 May 2006 06:31:20 -0700 (PDT) |
From: |
"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> |
Subject: |
Re: Apoligies to All! (Un-banned are ye) |
To: |
foetry@foetry.com |
Matt,
Well, at least you got boneheadedness right!
Best always,
G. Tod
Date: |
Thu, 04 May 2006 06:35:34 -0700 |
From: |
"foetry" <foetry@foetry.com> |
To: |
"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> |
Subject: |
Re: Apoligies to All! (Un-banned are ye) |
Hey G. Tod,
When are you gonna tell us where you're a professor? <snicker>
<bullshit> <cough>
Al
Date: |
Thu, 4 May 2006 06:49:25 -0700 (PDT) |
From: |
"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> |
Subject: |
Re: Apoligies to All! (Un-banned are ye) |
To: |
"foetry" <foetry@foetry.com> |
Al,
You do crack me up, as they say. What are you Matt's protector, his big brother? Can't any of you stand up alone without having friends come to the rescue? Where are you a librarian? Ah, here we go again... nowhere.
G. Tod
Date: |
Thu, 4 May 2006 08:04:30 -0700 (PDT) |
From: |
"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> |
Subject: |
Re: Apoligies to All! (Un-banned are ye) |
To: |
"foetry" <foetry@foetry.com> |
Al,
Well, you did choose not to mock my name. Good for you. And now you are actually writing me emails. Bravo. We're making progress. BTW, ULA mentioned you had whined to them about me. King wrote to mention he knew I was bona fide. The only reason I hesitate to give you the name of the university currently employing me is that I am never safe and sound in the Academy. If you doubt my credentials, why not visit the AD website (which I did revamp entirely in part thanks to your critique) and read about my free speech fights with the colleges that had employed me. I speak out publicly and risk my job whenever I have a job. That's my duty as a citizen in this democracy. So, currently, I don't know if I'll be here next year. I dared write several op-eds in the student newspaper. A flurry of imbecilic emails from you and your foet cronies wouldn't help my chances of being rehired. But I'll let you know in a month... if I am not rehired. Hmm. Can you understand any of this? As opposed to me, I suppose you are quite safe and sound in your librarian position.
G. Tod
Date: |
Thu, 04 May 2006 10:37:34 -0500 |
From: |
foetry@foetry.com |
To: |
"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> |
Subject: |
Re: Apoligies to All! (Un-banned are ye) |
Hey G. Tod,
I've never corresponded with K. Wenclas that I can recall.
Best wishes to you,
Al
Date: |
Thu, 4 May 2006 08:46:57 -0700 (PDT) |
From: |
"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> |
Subject: |
Re: Apoligies to All! (Un-banned are ye) |
To: |
foetry@foetry.com |
Al,
One of your fellows did! What about the other points made in my courriel? T.
Date: |
Thu, 04 May 2006 10:59:12 -0500 |
From: |
foetry@foetry.com |
To: |
"George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> |
Subject: |
Re: Apoligies to All! (Un-banned are ye) |
I'll be glad to respond when I'm not at work.
Later!
Al
[Al never did respond.]