The American Dissident: Literature, Democracy & Dissidence
SPEECH CRIME PUNISHED IN BARNSTABLE, MASSACHUSETTS
Director Lucy Loomis of Sturgis Library permanently banned the editor without warning or due process on June 19, 2012 for written criticism of her hypocritical policy that "libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view.” The banning clearly proves the point! The ACLUM, PEN New England, Office of Intellectual Freedom (American Library Association), Barnstable Human Rights Commission, and other freedom groups contacted refuse to help the editor obtain justice. The local political hacks, poets, artists, and other librarians don't give a damn. The Barnstable Patriot and Cape Cod Times refuse to even cover the story. Russell Streur, however, pursued the matter (see Camel Saloon) and obtained a minor success for democracy. According to the documents obtained, Loomis' rationale was that I was a danger to "staff and public." Yet I never make threats and have no criminal record.
Check out The American Dissident blog for recent affronts to the estab-lished order (i.e., numerous P. Maudit socio-political cartoons et al).
The American Dissident, a biannual 501 c3 nonprofit publication founded in 1998, seeks risky, "rude truth" submissions, preferably stemming from the questioning and challenging of power, preferably local.
Updated 11/19/14. Writing and art wanted for Issue #29.
New Chapbooks by the Editor (2014)
Leaves of Democracy/Poems of Heresy was just published by the editor (68 pp, jam-packed) and includes poems, dictums, and an essay challenging Whitman's 1855 "Preface." Send $9. For a sample, LDPH.

Triumvirate of the Monkeys includes more critical poems and dictums by the editor and is 72 pp long... jam-packed. Send $9 for a copy.

Transcendental Trinkets
is a compilation of essays, poems, broadsides, cartoons, and journal notes all pertinent to Thoreau, Walden Pond, and Concord, where I lived for over a decade and where I was incarcerated for a day. 89 jam-packed pages. Send $9 for a copy.
Recent AD Blog Posts
Check out the blogs on Anita Walker (MCC), Gibor Basri (UCal), John Sexton (NYU), Keli Goff, Joan Houlihan (Concord Poetry Center), Hanna Pylvanien, Mark Gonzales, Becky Tuch, Lucy Loomis, Jon E. Travis, Mary Jo Bang, Betsy Newell, Stephen Burt, etc.
Read about these characters here...
Unusually Critical Essays
The essays in this section help illustrate the raison d'être of
The American Dissident. Each was written by a known author (Orwell, Emerson, Camus, Goytisolo, etc.). The editor culled them from extensive readings over the decades. Such essays are rare.
Read more...
Unusually Critical Poems
The poems in this section help illustrate like the essays above the raison d'être of
The American Dissident. Each was written by a known author (Villon, Byron, Jeffers, Saro-Wiwa, Bukowski, Mandelstam, etc.). The editor culled them from extensive readings over the decades. Poems of a critical nature are very rare. The idea of a critical poem almost seems taboo.
Read more...
Sixties Sellouts
During the Sixties, we'd call those who subverted their principles for money and power SELLOUTS. Unfortunately, the term became conveniently outmoded as the sellout phenomenon generalized over the years. Read more...
YouTube Synopsis of The AD by the Editor
See Focus below.
Focus
The American Dissident seeks to publish truth—left or right—and especially opposes political correctness and its facile knee-jerk dismissal of any valid criticism as racist, islamophobic, sexist, homophobic, right-wing extremist, conspiracy theory, etc. Read more...
Notes on Risk and Rude Truth
Few poets and writers dare risk anything at all—not career, not publication or invitation opportunities, and not collegial connections. Few dare speak the rude truth because most are driven by hopes of "success," fame, and writer's immortality. Read more...
Testing the Waters of Democracy
Censorship and general disdain for vigorous debate seem to be increasing deplorably in America today. Dismissing criticism and critics with denigrating epithet has become common practice. Rare is the person who will examine the facts and logic presented. Read more...
The following organizations, alas, only represent a sample, as personally tested by the editor. Each proved either indifferent or outright hostile towards the editor's exercise of Freedom of Expression. Because of that exercise, the editor was permanently banned from Sturgis Library, spent a day in a Concord Jail cell, was trespassed for six months by Watertown Free Public Library, and lost jobs and job possibilities.
American Library Association
Academy of American Poets
ACLU Massachusetts
Adjunct Advocate
Alehouse Press
Alternate Press Review
American Association of University Professors
Barnstable Town Council
Bennett College
Boston Poetry Union
Briar Cliff Review
Chronicle of Higher Education
City Lights Book Store
Clams Library System of Cape Cod
Concord Cultural Council
Concord Festival of Authors
Concord Poetry Center
Concord Journal
Contemporary Poetry Review
Davenport University
Divide
Elmira College
Festival International de la Poésie de Trois-Rivières
Fitchburg State University
Foetry
Georgia Review
Grambling State University
Inside Higher Ed
Mashpee Public Library
Massachusetts Cultural Council
Massachusetts Poetry Festival
Mid-Cape Cultural Council
National Endowment for the Arts
New England First Amendment Center
New Pages
New York Quarterly
Pen New England
Poetry Foundation
Poets House
Poetry Society of America
Poets & Writers
Pulitzer Prize
Pushcart Prize
Robert Creeley Award
Stone Soup Poets
Sturgis Library
Suffolk University Poetry Center
Tufts University Experimental College
University of Massachusetts
Walden Pond State Reservation
Watertown Free Public Library
Writers-at-Large
Democracy in Peril—PC Ideology
Unsurprisingly, The American Dissident has been dismissed as sexist and racist by PC ideologues. Read more...
Democracy in Peril—Islamization
In the New York Times, Washington Post, Time magazine, and other PC publications, the increasing foothold of Islam (Sharia law) in Europe, Canada, and even America is rarely if ever reported. Read more...

Démocratie en péril... au Québec
Cette partie du site contient, entre autres, les notes critiques du rédac'chef sur le Festival International de la Poésie de Trois-Rivières. Lire encore...
Student Comments
One of the most positive things regarding The American Dissident has been Professor Dan Sklar's invitations over the past six years. Sklar is a rare bird in the academic nest. Read more...
Contributors to The AD
Without the generous support of contributors, The American Dissident would not be alive and kicking today. Examine some of the essays, poems, and reviews published in The American Dissident. Read more...
Issue #26 Banned
Now, what in the last issue of The American Dissident would have made library director Kathleen Mahoney wish the issue to be censored and banned from the library system? Mahoney had agreed to subscribe, had me fill out a tax form, and send her a copy of the journal. Read more...

Caustic Cartoons by P. Maudit
P. Maudit cartoons are featured on The American Dissident blog and elsewhere on this website. Read more...
Reviews of The American Dissident
The editor has had to pound on doors to get The American Dissident reviewed. Library Journal and American Libraries Magazine (American Library Association) both, for example, simply refuse to review it. Read more...
The Editor Interviewed
The editor has had to pound on doors to get interviewed. Read more...
The Editor Criticized
Established-order proponents and apparatchiks, as well as most others, when criticized by the editor have dismissed The American Dissident almost always with ad hominem. Read more...
Literary Letters from Issue #23
Each issue of The American Dissident contains an ample selection of letters questioning and challenging free-speech scorning academics, literati, editors, cultural council apparatchiks, librarians, etc. Read more...
Parrhesiastic Writing
"The Cold Passion for Truth Hunts in No Pack" is a lengthy essay written by the editor on democracy and literature and the case for parrhesiastic poetry, writing, and art. Read more...
Caustically Critical Reviews
The editor is not an aficionado of backslapping and self-congratulating, pervasive, to say the least, in the literary milieu, both high and low brow. Only a fool, "brilliant" or whatever, would run out to buy a book or literary journal because someone "brilliant" or whatever endorsed it with the usual suspect vocabulary "brilliant," "cutting edge," "great," "original" "one of the world's most significant," "one of the best," "stunningly beautiful," "innovative," etc., etc. Read more...
Links
Examine links to sites purportedly devoted to literature, democracy, and/or dissidence here.
Check 'em out...