Literary Clusterfucks 2013

bourgeois careerist twaddle for the New Yorker crowd

Accurate.

Abolish all MFA programs imo (not really, but you know).

Keyes, this is true. Along with the very amazing artists and writers I experienced in my MFA program were a number of men who were not just mediocre artists and writers, but also clearly exploiting their positions of power to get into bed with students...

But generally speaking, I had a very good experience, but I also was involved in the literary community, so knew how many of the people who were instructors acted in the social sphere...

I'm also a little uncaffeinated, pardon weird grammar lol.

I'll also mention, though, that a female prof (whom I never had as an instructor) slapped me on the ass and said I looked like Mick Jagger at a huge drinking party at the campus bar once. I was also intoxicated, but to say that it made me feel uncomfortable is an understatement.

All MFA programs should be required to hire one Brad Thor/Tom Clancy-type writer of airport thrillers, and make that class mandatory.

We were due to publish Dean Young's new book in 2021. We have informed him that we are withdrawing our intent to publish.

In response, we'd like to offer his publication slot to an underrepresented writer, to offer a space he occupied to somebody who hasn't had the access he has https://t.co/xZVdTXy2yn

— Broken Sleep Books (@brokensleep) August 7, 2020

Wow.

They published Prynne! It's like different fecking worlds. I wish more of the people in the US who read Young would also read Prynne— their poetry would be a hell of a lot better.

does the Small Press Distribution thing belong here?

TELL US MORE

like does he have a car

sounds like it should do.

Can we not, sarahell.

We can

https://wearespd.medium.com/statement-from-spd-staff-21ce94bf25e0

xp - I was mostly asking if table wanted to discuss it here tbh

It's way too messy and personal, in a lot of ways.

I support the workers of SPD, and believe that the ED needs to go. I also think that the board needs to be shaken up to more accurately reflect the diversity and leanings of SPD's constituent audience— institutions and stores and individuals who support smaller, independent publishers.

Until those things happen, I don't give a fuck what happens to SPD as an organization— from harboring a Proud Boy fascist motherfucker as a worker for years to this current situation, there's just been too much bullshit to really sweep under the rug.

All that said, the current acts of the original complainant— smearing the board member who wrote the letter from the board as somehow being personally responsible for thousands of people losing their jobs— is a little much.

Poetry Magazine has published a convicted pedophile and former college English prof as part of their prison justice issue.

He had something like half a million images of child porn on various computers and hard drives.

In any case, the internet is fucking exploding over it.

https://twitter.com/search?q=kirk%20nesset&src=typed_query

wtf

I'm 95% for separating the art from the artist (not that I want to rehash this convo here) but ffs that doesn't mean this piece of human filth deserves a countersigned platform. Poetry Magazine, no less!

If Poetry magazine is not platforming poems that endorse, excuse or exonerate this prof's crimes, and they fully disclose his identity and reason for being imprisoned, then they have done as much as is necessary and responsible, imo.

Or, they could just not fucking publish him. FFS.

People choose the strangest hills to die on. Are you going to tell me there was nobody better than the guy with the hard drive full of CSA material?

If it’s really all about the poetry, then publishing this for guy is an instant distraction from all the non-paedos they published in the same issue. Imagine getting the best poem of your life published and nobody notices because it was the same issue Poetry Magazine decided they had to platform Noncey Nesset?

i think they were trying to make a point -- affirming the humanity of even the most despicable kind of person. this isn't a regular issue but a prison justice issue, and a lot of people in prison, especially those who are in there for the long haul, are there for heinous crimes.

what if the poems had been published anonymously? would that have been satisfactory?

We can all read the post m8

not saying this is a good point by the way, just that it is a point. in fact, for the cause of prison reform, highlighting more sympathetic prisoners would probably be wiser.

tapping the sign till my fingers bleed

Is this the hill you want to die on? Does anyone still care about the rest of the poets in the issue they published the paedophile?

Fwiw I think he should be allowed to self-publish. But fuck giving him access to a preeminent venue.

As a bunch of people on twitter pointed out, there are plenty of marginalised voices in the prison population who could use that space. This is basically maintaining establishment structures while pretending to be socially conscious. Fuck this.

The editorial principle for this issue was to widen access to publication for writers inside prison & to expand access to poetry, bearing in mind biases against & barriers for incarcerated people. As such, the guest editors didn't have knowledge of contributors' backgrounds. 3/4

— POETRY magazine (@poetrymagazine) February 2, 2021

not saying this is a good point by the way, just that it is a point. in fact, for the cause of prison reform, highlighting more sympathetic prisoners would probably be wiser.

― treeship., Tuesday, February 2, 2021 11:38 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the aporia in prison abolition discourse and is that lots of the men in prison are the type of violent men that virtually everyone is happy sticking in a cell and never hearing from again.

i mean, yeah

If Poetry magazine is not platforming poems that endorse, excuse or exonerate this prof's crimes, and they fully disclose his identity and reason for being imprisoned, then they have done as much as is necessary and responsible, imo.

― Compromise isn't a principle, it's a method (Aimless), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 1:20 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

goddamn man this is a fucked up post

The question here isn't about prison reform or abolition, it's about giving an abusive sexual predator and paedophile space in your poetry magazine. How about don't do that?

xps to Eazy all that is negated by the tweet immediately before it

People in prison have been sentenced & are serving/have served those sentences; it is not our role to further judge or punish them as a result of their criminal convictions. As editors, our role is to read poems & facilitate conversations around contemporary poetry. 2/4

— POETRY magazine (@poetrymagazine) February 2, 2021

The question here isn't about prison reform or abolition, it's about giving an abusive sexual predator and paedophile space in your poetry magazine. How about don't do that?

― emil.y, Tuesday, February 2, 2021 1:49 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

at least one thing i saw was that he also USED poetry as a way to lure people, esp his position, so even his poetry can't be viewed as "neutral" imo

Fwiw, the editors did not have access to the rap sheets of the people published in the issue, though I'm not sure about what transpired between the point when poems were chosen and the point when it was decided to publish.

Poet (and full disclosure, press-mate) Diana Hamilton has an interesting thread here where the guy's ties to university, his heinous actions, and his poetry come together.

"Why is it unsurprising that a magazine, judging the work of formerly incarcerated writers purely on 'aesthetic grounds', winds up choosing a formerly tenured white academic?" is to me a better question for poets than "why didn't the guest editors google rap sheets?"

— diana / (@dhami) February 2, 2021

goddamn man this is a fucked up post

I can see that my perspective on this has zero chance of being accepted by those who vehemently reject it out of hand. As such it would be pointless for me to continue, since the possibility of persuasion is out of the running.

SERIOUSLY?

Sure, because why stick around when you can't convince someone else, instead of, oh I don't know, try to be emphatic and understand why everyone's up in arms about your "perspective"?

xp

I'm also on team prison abolition, but think that the piece shouldn't have been published.

One thing that's important to at least note is that there are *many* writers and poets who have been widely published and anthologized who continue to be taught and given accolades...who also have legit claims of harm against them. Many are dead. That doesn't make it a good thing, obviously, but Cavafy, Ginsberg, Hakim Bey, Whitman, Anne Sexton...

whitman??

The best way to publish these blind-selected poems might be anonymously -- if they want the poems to transcend the crimes of the prisoners.

because why stick around when you can't convince someone else

who said I wouldn't stick around? I'm here. I'll read. I just won't try to convince anyone to my current viewpoint. If I see good reasons presented why I'm wrong, I'll be persuaded. People are very reactive itt rn and I'm going to step aside from inviting that on my head.

so, i'm seeing on wikipedia that some of whitman's male lovers were younger than i remember. at that time, many straight authors had teenage brides, including poe--i wouldn't want to hold whitman to a harsher standard than that. and he is sort of essential to understanding the course of american poetry...

thanks so much aimless for your endless wisdom and patience

^ I'm having a hard time deciding how to fit that into context.

"Why is it unsurprising that a magazine, judging the work of formerly incarcerated writers purely on 'aesthetic grounds', winds up choosing a formerly tenured white academic?" is to me a better question for poets than "why didn't the guest editors google rap sheets?"

*sigh* ... I mean, it definitely speaks to ... a lot of things, actually ... there's the obvious "whose aesthetics?" issue, and then there's the inequity of the carceral state. Like the bar for educated white men to be imprisoned is much higher than for black men, especially those from low income families.

I think it gets at the fact that *this guy is not a marginalized voice*. He never has been, and never will be.

While I reject jim in vancouver's idea that many of the men in prison are the sorts we'd like to see locked up forever, I also think that the power dynamics of Nesset's original crime continue to come into play— he has power and privilege over others, and continues to use it to his advantage. It's sick, fucked-up shit.