The American Dissident: Literature, Democracy & Dissidence


Reviews of Two of James Scully's Books

Donatello’s Version

By James Scully. Curbstone Press.2006. Unoriginally, the superlative blurbs padding this book of poetry abound:  “fiercely demystifying intelligence,” “brave, bold talent,” “courageous and undaunted,” “work of exceptional power,” “a rising dragon,” etc. One must, of course, ask why Scully should be considered courageous at all.  What precisely did he, as a retired lifer university professor, risk in writing the poems in this collection, a number of which deal with Iraq?  Did he risk his life as a reporter or soldier or poet or even professor while in Iraq?  Is it courageous and original to be critical of the war in Iraq? 

 

Poets need to be held accountable for the showers of congratulatory hyperbole they choose to bathe in.  After all, they can say no, but instead seem to prefer to glow and bask in praise.

 

Scully is billed as a kind of dissident, “one of the most important figures in poetry that engages the reader in social and political issues,” whose poetry is grounded in “dissident engagement” and, according to friend Richard Wilbur, “arises not from opinionation and facile protest.”  Yet, if Scully the poet is sitting comfortably writing, rather than actively contesting and fighting, isn’t his precisely what Wilbur declares it is not?  

 

In “Arc,” Scully asks what we can do, if anything, “to bend/ the arc of justice/ back down to earth?”  He notes that it “won’t be with speeches,” but fails to note that neither will it be with poems like the ones he writes—poems that fail to risk anything on the part of the poet, poems that were not written from purposeful conflict with power, poems that were not brandished in the face of power to embarrass power.  Scully’s critique of the Republican regime is facile and hackneyed, to say the least.  What Scully needs to do is ask himself precisely what he knows should not be openly criticized (e.g., his blurbing friends and literary corruption, in general, arm of the political corruption he rightfully condemns) and write about it.  He needs to listen to his superego, when it tells him not to, and disobey it from time to time. 

 

“You reach for poetry, but it comes out verse—/ you’re a versifier caught in a roadblock,” he notes in “Snowblind.”  And indeed is that not precisely what and who he’s become?  Yet he could be something else with a little courageous, “rising dragon” effort, if he dared heed the career-threatening advice of Nobel Prize Wole Soyinka: “Criticism, like charity, starts at home” (not in DC, not in Iraq, but at the University of Connecticut, for example).

 

Unfortunately, when reading these poems one does not sense a poet of courage standing behind them at all, but rather a poet safely opining from an armchair watching CNN on the tube.  “The situation so far/ is not nearly gruesome enough”, writes Scully in “Neo Manifesto,” as in neo-con, the cheap epithet used by liberals to label anybody daring to criticize liberals, including liberals.  But if Scully could contemplate open-mindedly, he’d realize how easily his manifesto could be applied not simply to the Bush regime, but to his own regime, the Academy.

 

Finally, reading these poems, it is not possible to perceive Scully as anything but a poet commenting from the outside looking in, a poet of politically-correct leftist orthodoxy, who can easily denounce the treatment of Al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo (e.g., “Codex Gitmo”), while turning a blind eye, for example, at the censorship of an American poet critical of the Academy.  The nation and democracy need poets living and acting on the inside, commenting on the inside.  It is far more interesting and enlightening to read about the experiences of such poets, than the second-hand perceptions of poets like Scully.  I’d much rather read a poem about cab driving written by a cab driver, than a poem by a university poet written about Guantanamo, wouldn’t you?  This book is not recommended.

                                                                                                                                                                                        —The Editor

Line Break: Poetry as Social Practice

By James Scully.  Forward by Adrienne Rich.    Curbstone Press.
 
N.B.:  This book review provoked a rather heated exchange with tenured high-school teacher/poet Jon Andersen, friend of Scully.  Examine the exchange, which proceeds after the review, which was published in Counterpoise.

Line Break is an interesting (perhaps because rare) collection of essays on dissidence and poetry, though, perhaps more often than not, the writing tends to be tedious and otherwise “academic.”  Moreover, the fundamental premise of the work is somewhat absurd, that is, that the line break, or enjambement, can serve as a “keen weapon for unearthing and jacklighting buried truths, buried lies, buried bodies” and is the author’s “weapon of choice for radical literary insurgents committed to shaking things up” (Robert Bagg, blurber).  In fact, reading the flyer accompanying this book put doubt in my mind immediately—the contradictions are evident.  The work itself is a negation of Thoreau’s evidently radical dictum:  “simplify, simplify.”  Oddly, the very publication of this book and paper or papers delivered at academic conferences contradict the Scully’s assertion that dissidence is essentially unacceptable in establishment poetry and poetics, unless in fact what he writes is not really that dissident.  The “system” does, of course, have a remarkable ability to co-opt dissidence, though usually the particular dissidence co-opted is not really that threatening (dissident) at all (e.g., Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Bukowski, and M&M). 

After reading the blurbs on the back of this book and accompanying flyer, why, I wondered, do the alternative presses mimic mainstream presses with regards that hackneyed marketing ploy?  In essence, the blurb is egregious backslapping. If penned by the author (and why not?), it would constitute a banal statement of self-congratulations. Sadly, American society today is rampant with both ubiquitous backslapping and statements of self-congratulations.  Perhaps alternative presses would do well to eliminate this mind-numbing practice.  If in fact this marketing tactic works—and one must assume it does—, it reflects the paltry state of American education. 

Are blurbers paid?  Are they friends of the authors, thus wholly un-objective?  If a book is good, why the need for blurbs?  Well, blurbers are indeed paid… in terms of publicity acquired (i.e., getting ones name out there in today’s America tends to be more important than getting ones ideas out there).  Thus, when Adrienne Rich blurbs a book, she is really blurbing (congratulating) herself.  An educated reader ought to resent when a blurber (publisher) tells him or her that the writer is a genius or whatever else in an effort to persuade (as in not-so-hidden persuaders).  Let the reader make that determination.  Let the book persuade, not the blurber.  Part of the undermining of democracy is caused by the overwhelming pressure for citizens to fit in and think like everyone else.  When a blurber tells the reader the author is a genius, the poorly educated, naïve reader will tend to agree… automatically. 

The backslapping, hyperbolic blurbs accompanying Line Break include Linda McCarriston’s “Scully’s brilliance is mesmerizing, radicalizing, a power plant producing synapses in the ‘mind politic’ that may well allow Americans, finally, to write and discourse with our kind around the globe.”  Wow.  Now, what does all that mean?  And what constitutes “our kind”?  Am I, the reviewer, part of “our kind”?  Are academic poets in comfy tenured chairs “our kind”? 

Adrienne Rich writes, “For many years, James Scully, along with others, quietly radicalized American poetry—in theory and in practice, in how it is lived as well as in how it is written.”  Well, it must have been an awful quiet “radicalization” indeed.  And what precisely is that “radicalization”?  Reading Line Break, one never really quite finds out… unless of course it is the line break. 

“If American poets have a role to play in preserving free speech in the twenty-first century, this book belongs in our every backpack,” blurbs Linda McCarriston. Yet this book does not really serve to promote free speech at all.  Poets have not at all been in the forefront of efforts to promote free speech.  Why should they suddenly be thus in the current century?  Try criticizing poets, poet organizers, poetry journals, and/or poet readings.  I have… many times (see www.theamericandissident.org) and am no longer at all surprised by the resultant poet hatred and ostracism. 

Far more interesting than the tedious, intellectual exercise title essay are a few of the other essays, including “Remarks on Political Poetry” and “Scratching Surfaces.”  In those essays, the author does make some good points, including “Assertions that poetry and politics don’t mix are not disinterested statements but political interventions in their own right. […] In fact the attempt to dismiss, denigrate or suppress poetry that deals openly with political matters, or that has discomforting political implications, is just another version of the ongoing campaign—essentially a sociopolitical one—to determine what is or is not permissible in poetry.”  The author’s creative differentiation between dissident and protest poetry is pertinent, as are his differentiation between “preaching” and “saying” in poetry, discussion on tendency poetry, and that on “social silence.”  “This silence signifies accommodation, not resistance.  Silence is job, career, acceptance.  [How not to think of the author’s own ‘job, career, acceptance’!]  Silence, this silence, is golden.  Consumption occurs through our eating our own thoughtful words:  self-censorship.” 

Despite all, this book should be recommended because, well, it did make me think, question and challenge… more than most books.  It does serve as an excellent illustration of “dissidence” as contemplated by a tenured academic.  But one must wonder just how dissident Scully has personally been vis-à-vis the Academic/Literary Industrial Complex that rewards and otherwise pays him.  For dissidence to be truly effective, the dissident must especially muster the courage to critique the very institutions that reward and/or employ him or her.  The dissident must especially speak and write when and where the risk may in fact be a personal one. 

Can it really be possible not to “sell out” and be awarded “numerous honors,” including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and being invited to speak before the Poetry Society of America, as in Scully’s case?  Adrienne Rich notes in her blurb that the author “actively opposes structures of power.”  But do not the “numerous honors” he’s won constitute “structures of power”?  Scully writes, “The intention was not to write a polemic but to question aesthetic truisms: the fetishes we find ourselves wearing like ankle bracelets, alarms that enable cultural overseers [e.g., the Guggenheim!] to shut us up in a kind of house arrest.  To live with that is no way to live, nor to write.  There’s no future in it.”  The house arrest is, however, more often than not voluntary… because there is a future in it, one of “numerous awards.” 

                                                                                                                                                                                         —The Editor
.......................................................................................................................................................................
Email Exchange Between Jonathan Andersen and the Editor

Subject: james scully line break
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 13:23:00 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org
To: todslone@yahoo.com
Mr. Slone:
I regulary check into the  American Dissident and have great admiration for the fire-in-the-gut and railing against the literary machine.  I do, however, want to register a note of dissent on your review of James Scully's Line Break.  I'm a former student of Scully's way back when at UConn.  I was a working class kid trying to make some sense of things and his radical approach changed my life.
The reviewer takes him to task for being a radical professor who's won awards.  If you read Line Break closely, he has nothing but disdain and extremely sharp and thorough critiques of folks like Jameson and other so-called Marxist academics who divorce practice and theory, who don't DO anthing.  Scully's awards came at an early stage in his career -- he won the Lamont in the early 60s and the Gugggenheim sent him to Chile just in time for the CIA orchestrated coup down there.  He put his ass on the line taking part in the resistance movement and came back with a book of poems that no one in the US would touch, so Curbstone Press was started.  He turned his back on the Poetry Pantheon and continued to push radical culture, joining a Marxist Leninist party, getting thrown in jail for standing up against the Klan militantly.  They made life hard for him when he was at UConn -- despite years of service and major output, he never moved beyond associate professor.
Line Break is difficult reading, but it sure as hell isn't tedious.  It seems the reviewer spent more time reading the blurbs than dealing with the ideas in the book.  Ambitious thinking, ambitious writing, isn't always easy to penetrate.  It's not a breeze and shouldn't be. (eg Capital, Walden, etc.)
Poetry gladhanding is something to be railed against, but so is lazy, slip-shod reviewing.  Sorry to be harsh, but this review just stands out as a stinker compared to the rest of American Dissident.  Yes, Scully's an old teacher.  Yes, I now count him as a friend, and we share a publisher.  But I'm honest about that, and more importantly, we share a vision and he has stood out as an examplar of a principled radical, rather than an opportunist.  I do have critiques of his work, and I've published those, but I thought about them.  They're critiques, not facile pot-shots.
In solidarity
Jon Andersen

Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 06:49:25 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> 
Subject: Re: james scully line break
To: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
Jon,
Thanks much for your email.  I’m always pleased that somebody out there might be examining the website, agreeing or not.  I don’t like the words “railing against” because they are derogatory and often used to deflect critique and avoid cogent counter argumentation… used by academics!  (BTW, I am a professor, though entirely untenured because I always DARE CRITICIZE (“rail against”) the corrupt universities employing me.  Actually, I’m surprised I’m “working” right now.  Thanks to the ineptitude of academic administrators of third-tier institutions, I manage (though I’m more or less certain this will be the last time) to find a new “job.”  Some fail to check my three references, one or two who might be dead now.  Ha! 
Anyhow, I just reread the review quickly.  Yes, I did spend a bit too much time perhaps on the blurbs.  However, I stand by my other statements, especially the ones underscoring egregious contradictions.  All the reviews on that page are mine. 
If you would like, and in all fairness, I’d be happy to post your email directly under that particular review.  Just let me know. 
Keep in mind that “tedious” is subjective.  Thus whether or not you found the book thusly is immaterial, for I the reviewer did.  And how not to underscore your assertion?  “Yes, Scully's an old teacher.  Yes, I now count him as a friend, and we share a publisher.”  Just the same, I respect your honesty with that regard.  Were the other reviewers of that book friends?  If so, at least I balance things out a bit. 
You call my review a “pot-shot,” yet I had nev er heard of Scully before, so certainly had no gripe whatsoever against him.  If I were swayed, it was probably by the name-brand celeb poet Rich blurbing him.  Now, you and I can certainly agree to disagree on what is of interest and what is not.  I respect your opinion.  What we must both constantly struggle to do is push the doors of the agora of ideas and opinions open… for the academics and other canon mandarins are constantly keeping them shut.  Shame on them!  I’d written a 20-page essay on why poetry doesn’t matter, sent it to 50 academic lit journals—not one of them would publish it.  Recently, a non academic journal published it and paid me $150 for it. 
Best,
G. Tod

Subject: RE: james scully line break
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 20:32:37 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>  
To: "George Slone " <todslone@yahoo.com>
Mr. Slone:
Thanks for your return thoughts.  But the "egregious contradictions" you stand by aren't even contradictions, nevermind "egregious." The bulk of Scully's academic kudos came before his turn to active radical politics.  He could have continued to tow the line and cut out a much more comfortable place for himself in academia, but didn't.  He risked a lot to bring back Santiago poems, to bring revolutionary poets in translation to the attention of a North American audience.  Listen, I admire your project in attacking the monolith of the academic establishment, but in your zeal, I'm afraid you've skipped some of your homeowork, attacking work without really dealing with the ideas in any substantial way, and reflexively skewering folks who are anti-fascist, anti-corporate elite.  Your "critique" of Scully as a radical University professor was personal and uninformed -- it had nothing to do with the ideas in the book.  There are criticisms to be made of Line Break, for sure, but implying hypocricy on Scully's part isn't one of them.  I'm not even against ad hominem attacks per se -- some people deserve them too richly -- but it seems you were dashing this piece off, just working from partial information from the book jacket or wherever.  Besides, we do live in the real world, and booksellers will put blurbs on them -- the bigger names the better.  In this case, the blurbers were genuine enthusiasts of Scully's project -- people who pushed for Curbstone to re-release the book.
There are plenty of professors, like yourself I take it, who are trying to reach a lot of young people in formative periods of their lives and pry open minds locked by a system that's tried to make turn those young people into perfect consumers, unquestioning workers.  "Academic" shouldn't have to be a dirty word. 
And as far as contradictions go, I'm glad we have one person in the Pantheon who questions the pantheon -- Adrienne Rich.  When she turns down an award from Bill Clinton and says exactly why, leveling a withering attack against his cynical policies, and her attack makes the news, that's a good thing.  When she searches out poets that the Poetry Gods try to not only ignore, but suppress (e.g. Scully, Luis Rodriguez, others) it's a good thing. I love the fact that she drives blowhards like Harold Bloom crazy -- he just doesn't know what to do with her. Every now and then we get a principled contrarian like Rich who's "Big" and is allowed to live in the fissures of the Establishment.  Is it a contradiction that she's a "superstar" of the poetry world, but also a severe critic of that world? Maybe, but it's not a contradiction of hypocricy -- rather one of dialectics.  None of us are pure in this system -- not you, not me.
Furthermore, Rich was never a friend of Scully's.  She came across his work and admired it.  She found Line Break while looking for his poems.  Ditto for McCarriston.  And, yes, I'm a friend and comrade of Scully's, now a fellow "Curbstonista," but I'm a high school teacher; I'm not about to be in a position to offer him million dollar grant.  There's nothing here but people with collective radical visions working together here.
Finally, I'm sorry to hear you had such a hard time getting your essay published, but I'm more sorry to hear that you think poetry doesn't matter. I think folks like Dana Gioia with a lot more than 150 bucks backing him do a good enough job on their own of pushing Auden's "poetry makes nothing happen."  They don't need our help.  Still, I'll make sure to read it, at some point.  The real work, I think, or one of the myriad aspects of the real work, is making poetry, and making it matter.
Respectfully,
Jon Andersen
PS feel free to post my comments

Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 06:54:41 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> 
Subject:  RE: james scully line break
To: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
Jon,
All I did was review that book.  I did not review anything else RE Scully.  Never heard of the guy, as mentioned.  That book was more than enough.  It was tedious and a let down.  I was really hoping for something tough and hardcore critical.  I am always on the look out for a tough poem by someone who dares RISK.  How rare they are! 
Instead, I found an academic exercise.  My review was of that book AND constituted MY PERSONAL HUMBLE OPINION and nothing else.  You are a Scully friend, yet you can’t even see why your opinion would be more tainted than mine.  Why can’t you see that?   
The line break as a revolutionary act is preposterous.  It is only revolutionary if we consider the “blowhard” Bloom’s criteria for great poems.  The very idea will soon be dead if it is not already dead or a still birth.  I make it a point to critique leftists because I am a leftist.  Doesn’t that make sense?  In other words, if we do not critique leftists how the hell are they going to improve?  Besides, that is a hell of a lot more RISKY than criticizing George Bush. 
Sorry, but this is becoming an oxymoron:  “a radical University professor.” 
And this is a nonsensical statement:  “Besides, we do live in the real world, and booksellers will put blurbs on them -- the bigger names the better.”   With that logic, since the corporations rule, we should simply accept it.  It is time we stopped the blurb assholery.  Tell Curbstone to KILL IT!  They’d be unique and, for once, ORIGINAL!  Blurbs become part of the book, like it or not!  I specifically told the publisher of my new book:  no blurbs. 
You mention:  “In this case, the blurbers were genuine enthusiasts of Scully's project -- people who pushed for Curbstone to re-release the book.”  Yes, and it is this kind of clubiness I continue to fight against.  It is what I found revolting with the Beatniks.  Absolute REVOLTING! 
You mention:  "Academic" shouldn't have to be a dirty word.”  Well, it is!  Do you fight the inherent LEFTIST inanity at the high school where you teach?  Or do you just keep your nose in your restricted field of study?  If you are tenured, no need to respond—I already know the answer. 
 You state:  “And as far as contradictions go, I'm glad we have one person in the Pantheon who questions the pantheon -- Adrienne Rich.”  I have my doubts.  She too is probably writing letters of recommendation, rather than fighting against that institution.  She too is probably serving on tenure committees to make certain only those who share her ideas (and never criticize her) are given tenure.  Etc., etc.  Brother, I know how it works!  You don’t get tenure unless you keep your mouth shut regarding certain critical things.  No doubt, she kept hers shut regarding leftist corruption in her department.
You mention:  “When she turns down an award from Bill Clinton…”  Of course, the question I would raise here is the one somehow you’ve been implicitly taught not to even think of.  If she were so dangerous to the status quo, why the hell was she recommended for the award in the first place?  And I say that about those flaccid poets who were invited to read at Bush’s thing, then refused… and got plenty of self-promotional publicity for it.   
You mention:  “Is it a contradiction that she's a "superstar" of the poetry world, but also a severe critic of that world?”  Probably, but please introduce me to an essay by her with this regard… her best so that I might at least be able to read through it w/o falling into a deep academic slumber.  Seriously.  I’m always open. 
You mention:  “None of us are pure in this system -- not you, not me.”  No, but at least I strive, fight and RISK in that direction.  Do you?  Perhaps so.  I don’t know.  
You mention RE Curbstone:  “There's nothing here but people with collective radical visions working together here.”  It’s all relative.  What is radical to you might be academic to me.  And what is radical to me might simply be self-serving and egotistical (and all the other names I’ve been called by so-called leftists).  Who knows?  There is nothing worse than a blind radical.  Let’s keep that in mind. 
RE my essay, I am attaching it.  You will notice that it is a UNIQUE (at least today) and RISKY idea for MAKING POETRY MATTER.  Perhaps that is why the academics rejected it outright.  In fact, it constitutes the very core focus of The American Dissident.  It will soon be going up on my website.  Would Curbstone be interested?  Doubtfully, because it seems to have become a sort of club… and I am not a member.  Besides, I dared criticize one of Curbstone’s books… and we all know that’s a no-no. 
Anyhow, I am always happy to debate and discuss.  So, thank you for this little discussion.  Do you WANT ME to post your comments?  Please answer that w/o skirting the WANT part. 
Sincerely,
G. Tod 

Subject: Scully and Line Break
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2007 15:53:36 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org> 
To: todslone@yahoo.com
Mr. Slone:
You can't not hear of someone twice.  In a sharp exchange with the editors of Fight Those Bastards -- an exchange posted on your own website in January 2006, you declare you'd never heard of Scully, and in the next breath refer to him as a "name brand poet." (Hello?) So which is it?  Now you assure me you had never heard of Scully before in an exchange not more than a year later.  Did you seek out Line Break to review after your slugfest with Fight Those Bastards when you chastised them for publishing Lin Lyfshin (again -- just BECAUSE she was Lyn Lifshin -- damning proof in your mind that the editors were simply careerists) or did you just strangely and totally forget this exchange, and, just through miraculaous happenstance, come across Line Break to review shortly after (by what -- a few months)?  Sounds fishy.  This is, to use one of your favorite phrases, an "egregious contradiciton."
Also, you did not "just review the book (Line Break)". In fact, you hardly address the ideas in Line Break at all, except with superficial invective mixed with some vague faint praise that anyone could have written by just skimming around a couple of the titles and first paragraphs. You wrote that Scully's recieving awards and attending academic conferences as a radical undermines his radical credentials.  Why is speaking at a conference a contradiction for a radical?  Why can't a radical speak at a conference and urge people to think about how we have arrived at a historical moment where there is even a question about whether great poetry can be political? Why don't you deal with the ideas in the book?  Another egregious contradiction from you who insists on people dealing with ideas after zinging them.
I have to say, the more I click around your site, the less I like it.
Another one of your egregious contradictions seems to be to go on the attack, attacking people, not ideas or poems or anything substantial, and then, with no trace of irony, defend your attacks by saying "I didn't attack _______.  I never even heard of him" and "See? You can't handle critique?"
As regards my flippant comment about blurbs: yes, cerainly we'd be better off without them. I think I'll puke if I read another blurb that calls a book "transcendent." They're a marketing ploy.  I do not, however, accept your extreme thinking that by accepting these as regrettable part of the current publishing scene means the next logical step is to submit utterly to corporate dictatorship. This is just more sloppy hyperbole on your part.  My point is that, unfortunately, to even get the words out, small presses trying to survive have to bend in some regards to the real economic situation on the ground.  Blurbs are hardly something to get apoplectic about.  Can you understand that?
And no, finding poetry you think is important and putting it in other people's hands, or finding kindred spirits and working together is not necessarily "clubiness."  THAT is a preposterous statement.  Is your promotion of Tim Hall and Struggle or Luis Berriozabal clubiness?  Is the guy who finally printed your article about poetry somehow an underhanded act of clubiness?  Have you carved out a nice little niche for yourself as a crank, deciding who gets to be in your club of American Dissidents and who doesn't?  I don't believe so.  While you may be wrong a lot of the time, you certainly seem sincere. But, I can only go by what I read.  So how can you be so sure of the insincerity of others (e.g. Don Winter, Adrienne Rich)?
And OF COURSE it's important to critique leftists! Why are you putting words in my mouth?  Line Break iself critiques so-called leftists.  Far from being an "academic exercise," it's the only set of essays I've come across that so thoroughly offers a defense of open-eyed ideology: the difficult necessity of carving out a position without becoming blind to the dangers of party-line.  It's the only set of poetic essays that so clearly questions the biases of the literary establishment, that dares to urge we need a revolution to fully realize our cultural potential and that this revolution cannot just be "a metaphorical one."  It's the only book of essays that demonstrates the possibilities of engaging in poetry, and specifically using Line Breaks, as a social practice.  You declare this idea to be absurd, but, again, you don't demonstrate any evidence whatsoever that you read the actual argument behind the assertion. Or that you understood the argument.
I wrote, and I'll write it again because you must have missed it accidentally (as you accidentally forgot that you had indeed heard of Scully via Don Winter) that the critique has to be substantial.  It has to be based on something other than your single sophomoric idea that every academic intellectual who has ever won an award or spoken at a conference is a charlatan.  You don't know anything about Adrienne Rich and what she's doing -- you say here she's "probably" doing this and probably doing that.  This is the kind of intellectual laziness that you've got to change, sir.  
Finally, one last time on my friendship and association with Scully :  Our association and friendship came out of a kinship in worldview and vision, not the other way around. My specific objections to your critiques, however, could be made by anyone with any sense of logic and knowledge of the facts -- why can't you see that? Do you imagine a future where comrades don't stick up for each other?  Why can't Adrienne Rich be excited about a book of radical essays -- an antidote to all the self-help poetry therapy crap that lines the shelves?  Why can't she use her power to spread the word about it without being accused by you of being a faux-radical member of the literary industrial complex?
Anway, I'm begining to see why so many of your other correspondents have given up or have finally snapped and laid into you with a series of expletives.  So before I sign off, let me sum up my critique of your work:
1) You've got to display more actual thinking if you want your critiques taken seriously by any dissidents -- nevermind the establishment who won't/can't hear anything anyway.  2) Difficult prose can be a wall of meaninglessness OR it could be the sign of an excellent, learned thinker tackling difficult, complex issues.  Try to make that distinction, if you can.  3) Check your own honesty before you derisively hold others to impossible standards; I'm willing to believe you just had a lapse here, but it still seems awfully funny that you could claim to not have heard of Jim Scully two times in a row on your website in exchanges that can't be much more than a year apart 3)Speaking at academic conferences is not necessarily another act of perfidy by an establishment good ol boy 4) Do your research before you question someone's radical intentions or actions.
Good luck to you.  I hope you can someday enjoy the safety of tenure without having to compromise your beliefs.  It's getting harder for that to happen these days, but every now and then a good guy slips in.
Sincerely
Jon Andersen
PS Again: I menat what I said when I told you to feel free to post my comments.  I didn't realize you needed me to WANT my comments posted.  Here: please post my comments, if want the critique appearing on your website.
Date:  Sat, 27 Jan 2007 09:03:45 -0800 (PST)
From:  "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com>
Subj:  RE: Line break -- with a few typos corrected please post
To:  "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
Dear Jon,
AH, now I see where you’re coming from! A buddy of ole Don Winter, the self-proclaimed starving poet of past million-dollar Real Estate deals! It all makes sense now. Winter, who has a problem with LOGICAL argumentation send one of his Bastard club members to fight for him. Unfortunately, you too seem to have a problem with LOGICAL argumentation and quickly revert to name calling. If you think I can remember every detail of every exchange I have, then you must certainly think more highly of me than your emails would indicate. What I had stated is that prior to writing that book review, I had never heard of your good friend Scully. Period. You are making a mountain out of a shit pile. If in fact I stated your friend to be a “name brand poet,” then I made an error. Unlike with Lifshin, I have never seen his name in print with the exception of that book and your emails (and I suppose, though I’ve forgotten, in one of Winter’s emails—to be human is to forget things now and then, no?). So, I am certain the review was written prior to that Bastard exchange. In fact, this whole Scully discourse we are having is not only tedious but essentially irrelevant. Are you trying to push the fellow into poetling stardom? Are you a member of the lame Bastard boys club by chance?
You ignore the points I made in our exchange; for example, the evident fact, that tedious is a personal opinion.
“You wrote that Scully's recieving awards and attending academic conferences as a radical undermines his radical credentials.” And if you can’t even understand that, I’m not going to waste my time explaining it.
“I have to say, the more I click around your site, the less I like it.” Good. I was afraid I might be doing something wrong attracting someone like you.
“They're a marketing ploy. I do not, however, accept your extreme thinking that by accepting these as regrettable part of the current publishing scene means the next logical step is to submit utterly to corporate dictatorship.” That is your logic pushed one step further, not mine. And again if you can’t see that, then what more can one do?
Whining about the desperate “survival” efforts of small press publishers is also tedious. It does not take much money at all to run a press. It does, however, take plenty of money if one wants to become a mainstream press and publish glossy books like, I suspect, Curbstone. Ideology is ideology, leftist or right wing. It is the same thing with horseshit. Falardeau rightfully stated that shit from the right or shit from the left is still SHIT.
“Is your promotion of Tim Hall and Struggle or Luis Berriozabal clubiness?” In a certain sense, yes, it is. BUT I do not shut people out who can present cogent counter argumentation to what they and I might offer. I publish the best (and worst) of such counter argumentation in the letters section of each and every issue of The American Dissident. Some of yours will appear in next issue, for example.
“Is the guy who finally printed your article about poetry somehow an underhanded act of clubiness?” No, she did not know me, had never corresponded with me, though like you she had seen my website.
Your denigrating epithets (for wont of argumentation) are getting tedious. To call a critic a “crank” simply reflects back on you as someone who got upset by the critique.
“While you may be wrong a lot of the time, you certainly seem sincere.” Well, so far you’ve underscored ONE instance of my being wrong. How did we go from ONE to A LOT OF THE TIME? As you can see, you seem to have a problem with LOGIC and REALITY. Many poets and profs and HS teachers with tenure do… that has been my experience with them. The problem they have is they have learned to suppress certain truths and rationalize that the suppression of those truths is not significant. What truths (or lies), for example, did you suppress to become successful at your high school? Ah, but you won’t answer this question… or will you?
My opinion, and it is simply my opinion, is that fame (especially those with academic positions and academic invitations) and dissidence often are contradictory, ineluctably so.
I have no desire to further discuss that book. It is a tedious work, an academic exercise, and nothing else but.
“It's the only set of essays I've come across that so thoroughly offers a defense of open-eyed ideology…” How utterly absurd. Is it perhaps the only collection of such essays you’ve ever read?
“As you accidentally forgot that you had indeed heard of Scully via Don Winter…” Of course I’ve forgotten, but hardly by accident! Can you really think that what Winter has to say is so impressive that ordinary men like myself cannot not forget it? If so, then you have a severe problem estimating brilliance and stupidity!
“It has to be based on something other than your single sophomoric idea that every academic intellectual who has ever won an award or spoken at a conference is a charlatan.” Never have I made such a statement. Are you taking lessons from Winter in faulty argumentation? But this is my take on a poet’s duty when reading before academics or other poets:
Bridges Like Shackles… Burn Them!
When reading at a poetry reading,
always make certain to read at least
one poem critical of the audience,
one critical of the other readers, and
especially one critical of the organizers!
In that way, you will have spoken truth
and obtained an excellent free feed of bad vibes.
Dig it? Do I really give a hoot about your friendships?
“Anway, I'm begining to see why so many of your other correspondents have given up or have finally snapped and laid into you with a series of expletives.” Yes, and it is certainly not because I’m a fearful, dull fellow poetling like the bulk of them! One only snaps, when exposed. Keep that in mind!
“You don't know anything about Adrienne Rich…” True. And I’m no more interested in her than I am in Lifshin, for example. One cannot be interested in everyone. As mentioned, in my previous email, send me something spectacular by Rich… and I’ll become interested in her. But you did ignore that request.
“I hope you can someday enjoy the safety of tenure without having to compromise your beliefs.” That is evidently not possible! Are you trying to rationalize your own tenure? “It's getting harder for that to happen these days, but every now and then a good guy slips in.” Again, it sounds like you are saying you are a good guy cause you slipped in. Well, I’m sure you did “slip” into a number of people to get your tenure… if you get my drift. TENURED POET constitutes an OXYMORON.
Sincerely,
G. Tod

Subject: RE: Line break -- with a few typos corrected please post
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 13:29:41 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org> 
To: "George Slone " <todslone@yahoo.com>
Dear Mr. Slone:
I am not a buddy of good ole Don Winter.  I do like his poetry.

Thanks for attempting to clarify the issue of you not having heard of Scully twice.  I wasn't trying to give you too much credit.  I don't think you can remember every detail of every exchange, but since you were pretty adamant (to put it mildly) in your missive to Winter, I thought it unlikely that the name wouldn't have rung a bell.  But your explanation now is even more of a spectacular stretch! Yw you state you're certain that you wrote the review BEFORE your exchange with Winter.  Incredible.  So rather than just forgetting Scully's name after a brief email, and then happening across his book and writing a review, you wrote a whole review, posted it on your website, forgot his name and the review, THEN had the exchange with Winter?  Incredible.
If you don't care about Rich, then why make such a big deal and make so many hypothetical guesses based on nothing about her inner motives? 
But here is the impasse.  You believe that it's impossible to have tenure and be principled at the same time.  So any book by a tenured professor doesn't stand a chance with you, right off the bat. The illogical nature of this should be obvious.  I understand that you personally had a very bad experience when you were attempting to obtain tenure, so I really do sympathize.  But it seems you've let your bitterness cloud your logic.
The other problem with operating from this single idea -- that the tenured professor cannot be genuine in their radical beliefs or actions (or rather 99% of them, as you state on your website in an interview) is that Dennis Brutus and Noam Chomsky -- two intellectuals you've drawn from significantly in your own writings, must also be disingenuous.  You made this argument about the "egregious contradictions," not me.  If you do believe there are exceptions, then why were you so sure Scully wasn't one of them.  See? Your position is untenable. Your basic premise is false.
As far as "tedious" goes, you're right, of course.  It is a personal judgement.  It's just that usually readers like to see at least a shred of evidence behind the assertion.  And yes, I can't be the most impartial judge of Scully, which is why whenever I've written anything about him -- in praise and criticism -- I've been way up front about our connections.  But again (how many times now?) this connection stems from my admiration of his work.  And yes, I'd like to get as many people to see his work as possible, since I think his poetry is high-quality, anti-establishment, and fearless.  I've also critiqued his work -- for giving up on poetry altogether for a time, and for not being personal enough.  But then, that was after actually reading it and thinking about it. 
Finally, I didn't revert to name-calling.  Please read my response again.  My point was about your other false premise about "clubs."  I was demonstrating how your logic, taken to its faulty conclusion, would turn right back on you -- leaving you as nothing but a crank forming his own club.  I then said I didn't think this was true.  By the way, since you've published Winter; and you and I are both fans of Tim Hall and Struggle; and your site contains a link to Pemmican; and I like the poetry of Luis Berriozabal; and Berriozabal have both appeared in a number of common publications, could that mean that you and I George, are in the same club? I'm not trying to "shut you out" of anything, as if I had any such power.  That's your own delusion.
I'm sorry you had to get so nasty.  I'm not part of the "lame Bastards club."  I'm not a "buddy of good ole Winter."  I have nothing to do with your projected rejection of your work at Curbstone Press (your hypothetical scenario) or anyplace else.  Of course, in that potential scenario you've already decided that it would be out of clubiness and couldn't possibly have anything to do with the quality of your work or the tastes of the editors.
Again, I really do wish you the best.  I'm sad that you're so venemous and illogical in your assaults.  Yes, assaults, not critiques.  We need dissidents, but the work needs to be effective.  It needs to be focused on the real enemies, not the imaginary ones.
Sincerely,
Jon Andersen
PS  Please post.
PSS Maybe I'll send you some poems sometime.  I should warn you though, that I've received tenure at the high school I teach, which might automatically make me ineligible.  At any rate, this is my last email to you.  You can get the last word and declare victory. Congratulations.

Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 11:37:44 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> 
Subject: RE: Line break -- with a few typos corrected please post
To: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
Jon,
“Only those who don’t give a damn about rising in the literary echelons ought to dare write negative reviews.”  You may quote me on that.  “For the rage of those used to receiving positive acclaim from friends, cronies, and colleagues will have no bounds!” 
What seems to you to be “incredible” is in fact quite damn “credible.”  But you are too emotionally involved in this discussion, not to believe that my responses are all quite “incredible.”  The explanation is really quite damn simple, my friend.  It just came to me now.  The review I wrote on your friend’s book was actually published in Counterpoise quite a while (probably a full year) prior to my deciding to put up those “old reviews” on to The AD website.  A-men.  And sure if this were a court case, it could easily be proven with hardcore documentation.  So, I guess that ends your argument, eh?  Just the same, what the hell did it really matter?   
“If you don't care about Rich, then why make such a big deal and make so many hypothetical guesses based on nothing about her inner motives?”  The big deal is made for the simple reason that Rich is of the rich and famous variety of poets. 
“You believe that it's impossible to have tenure and be principled at the same time.”  The word “impossible” is your exaggeration, not mine.  Evidently, anything of the kind is possible… though most likely unlikely.  The very process of tenure is in place to assure that very unlikelihood. 
“So any book by a tenured professor doesn't stand a chance with you, right off the bat.”  That is your assumption and those are your words, not mine.  However, I would certainly give a tenured poet tougher scrutiny than I would a non-tenured poet.  Capiche?  I am all too aware of the kowtowing, eye-closing, mouth-shutting, curtseying et al it takes to achieve the sublime state of tenure. 
“I understand that you personally had a very bad experience when you were attempting to obtain tenure, so I really do sympathize.”  I certainly do not need, nor want your “sympathy.”  I do not at all regret that tenure fiasco because if I had gotten tenure I would not be the man I am today.  I would probably be more like you and Scully and Rich and Chomsky.  In fact, I would surely have become, horror of horrors, a tenured-professor poet.  Because of that tenure fiasco, I was able to “see” quite clearly the prevarication that goes on behind the scenes.  Capiche?  IT OPENED MY EYES!  So, why should I be sorry about it?  ANY EYE-OPENING EXPERIENCE IS TO BE CHERISHED. 
“But it seems you've let your bitterness cloud your logic.”  I am far from bitter.  I am a man with OPEN EYES.  The two are not the same.  Calling me “bitter” is another example of name calling, which you seem to excel at, as opposed to logical argumentation. 
“Dennis Brutus and Noam Chomsky -- two intellectuals you've drawn from significantly in your own writings, must also be disingenuous.”  Actually, I just discovered Brutus about four or five months ago.  So, how the hell could I possibly have drawn from him “significantly”?  How absurd!  What the hell gave you the right to draw such an erroneous conclusion?  Nor do I draw from Chomsky much at all, let alone “significantly.”  Chomsky is more political.  I am more literary.  There’s a big difference there.  Chomsky is not into literature much at all.  Don’t you see how absurd you’re getting?  Besides, the fact that Chomsky has tenure has always kept me somewhat suspicious of him.  And, I believe, I once wrote him about that very thing.  Also, if you had carefully read my review on Brutus, you would have noticed I remarked that his doing the ole American academic circuit belittles him… or something of the sort.  I am equally disappointed with Yevtushenko, Milosz and any of the other poets who came here to suck on the academic nipple of see no evil, hear none either. 
“As far as "tedious" goes, you're right, of course.  It is a personal judgement.  It's just that usually readers like to see at least a shred of evidence behind the assertion.”  Ah, so you agree with me on this!  Bravo.  I’m certain in that review I backed up my assertion that it was tedious… with reasons.  No matter, I’m certain many (NON-TENURED) poets would agree with me that the very idea of declaring the “enjambement” or line break a tool for radical poetry is nothing short of absurd, that is, academic absurdity.   
“And yes, I'd like to get as many people to see his work as possible…”  Ah, so here too I have hit the bull’s eye! 
“Finally, I didn't revert to name-calling.”  Well, what the fuck is calling me a “crank”?  Is that not name-calling?  And there are other such terms in your emails; “bitter,” “nasty,” and “venomous,” for example!  Give me a break, man!        
“By the way, since you've published Winter; and you and I are both fans of Tim Hall and Struggle…”  We all make mistakes (mine RE Winter and A. D. Winans).  I am not a fan of Hall or anyone else for that matter.  My writing has not been influenced by Chomsky or anyone else for that matter.  Many writers have confirmed my thoughts.  There is a great difference between the two.   My thoughts and ideas and observations come from personal experience and personal conflict.  They do not come from other writers.  Get that clear, please. 
My site contains a link to Pemmican because Pemmican suggested we link up. 
You are the one who got “nasty,” not me.  You are the one who wrote me first to complain and ATTACK.  I never heard of you before, never saw your name before either. 
Sincerely,
G. Tod 
BTW, I just noticed your PSS.  “I should warn you though, that I've received tenure at the high school I teach, which might automatically make me ineligible.”  Only if while getting tenure you kept your mouth shut RE the educationist, multiculturalist, do-not-offend, ego-bloat horseshit they’re indoctrinating your students with.  Well, we know the answer to that one, don’t we?  See what I mean about tenure?  Evidently you did keep your mouth shut… and evidently you continue to do so.  Why?  Now, they can’t even fire you!  I’ll tell you why, since you probably don’t even know.  BECAUSE THEY’VE TENURED YOU TO FEAR… even when there’s no reason to FEAR.  That is the very crux of TENURE.  Your great FEAR is of offending your colleagues… and that’s just what they want… so all of you can sit in your comfy chairs in the teachers’ room… safe from criticism. 
“At any rate, this is my last email to you.  You can get the last word and declare victory. Congratulations.”  That seems to sum up the paltry (utterly lacking in robustness) concept of debate that so many of you have.  You all walk away like little hurt whimpering schoolchildren… because someone actually dared challenge you and not feed you more self-esteem building PAP.  God the help the democracy… because you and they sure as hell will not.

Subject: a broken promise
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:54:20 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org> 
To: "George Slone " <todslone@yahoo.com>
Mr. Slone:
In my last email I promised to not write you again, but I have to break that promise.  I want to sincerely apologize for making you so upset.  That was not my intent. 
Also, sincerely: I believe the explanation that suddenly came to you of how you could claim in a posted exchange with Don Winter that you had never heard of Scully, in the next sentence brand Scully with one of your favorite epithets "name brand poet, all the while having a review of Scully's Line Break only a click away -- a review you claimed to have written without ever having heard of him before.  I'm not being sarcastic; some will probably call me gullible or naive, but I believe you.  You wrote the review and then, six months later (couldn't have been a year, given the incredible amount of text you deal with, you forgot about him.  Plus, you wrote the review for Counterpoise, so that explains why Winter would wonder if you had ever heard of Scully.  You honestly reply to Winter that you hadn't, but in your subconscious the name rings a bell. This explains how in your next sentence you could call this poet you had never heard of before "name brand."  I'm not great with names, and I could totally see myself doing something like this, especially with a lot of projects going on at once.  Then you eventually posted the review on your website, forgetting about your other posting with Winter.  Again, I'm being absolutely sincere -- I believe you.  How many times have I left my house with a vague notion I've forgotten something, and then had to run back to get a bill I was mailing off or whatever.  Funny how the mind works, isn't it?
It's also funny how this all started with a critique I made of what was really an overall favorable review of Line Break.
I do, however, have to stand by my critiques of your work.  Yes, there's treachery and corporate slavery in the institutions of higher education, but there are also many remarkable free thinkers.  This is what's called a paradox.  Yes, there are suck-ups who get tenure and good people who get cheated out of it, but that you can't then just make psychic leaps and say that Scully (or Rich or anyone else in the "club" of tenured academics) has a chance of over 99% of being a sell-out or careerist or name-brand or whatever.  And even if you could, you need to show evidence in any particular case, not just make wild guesses based on incomplete biographical information or blurbs.  This is intellectual sloppiness on your part (see the mess above).
I raised Brutus and Chomsky because you have cited both of them in making arguments.  Perhaps I overstated their significance to you -- sorry.  At any rate, in your article on poetry you use the words of Brutus, a tenured radical, to great effect.  Yes, you do offer a counterweight of criticism to his participation in academia, but that counterweight doesn't negate his contributions.  Ditto for Chomsky and many other tenured radicals. You state that your writing hasn't been influenced by anyone -- only by the crucible of experience itself.  Writing or thinking, I don't see how anyone can claim to be free from the influence of others.
Furthermore, I've answered twice before, but I will answer one more time your accusation that I called you a crank.  Again, deal with the actual text.  All it takes is a few clicks.  I turned your own ill-conceived process of judgement back on yourself hypothetically, to show how one could know one or two items about you, and then write you off as a just a crank forming your own club.  I expressly said that I did not believe this to be true of you (although at this point, I'm honestly beginning to wonder). I was hoping that you would see how this demonstrates what I believe is a major fallacy in your thinking.
Finally, yes, there is a lot of egregious back slapping, back stabbing and ugly opportunism.  There are also many poets or artists or writers who have pitted their work against such crap, or, even better, pitted their art agains the dictatorship of money and capital that fuels such mendacity and treachery.  Some of us have discovered each other's work and supported each other.  Some of us have made PRINCIPLED critiques of each other and ourselves.  Every one of us has had to figure out how to compromise least with this system, but still survive, put food on the tables for our families, etc.  Many of us teach.  We critique the system we work under -- some of us get away with it somehow, and others don't. Some of us swing hammers or work in factories or offices.  The true ones among us don't sell each other out.  It's an amorphous, international club that's dedicated against oppression, of which literary cliquiness is but a footnote.  It's dedicated to a truly humane future.  This is the only club I want to belong to.
This really is my last email to you.  My apology is sincere, as is my stance regarding critique of your work.  I would appreciate no more contact from you, especially if it's the kind of groundless, border-line violent hate mail you sent me last time.  As always, feel free to post, but only on the condition it comes with our complete exchange.
Sincerely,
Jon Andersen

Subject: RE: Line break -- with a few typos corrected please post PS
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:43:13 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org> 
To: "George Slone " <todslone@yahoo.com>
One final note (I promise).  If you do decide to post our exchange, please post the whole unexpurgated work.  I noticed you said that you would post some of my responses.  I wouldn't want my words cherry-picked. 
Thank you.

Subject: a broken promise
Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:54:20 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>  Add to Address Book  Add Mobile Alert 
To: "George Slone " <todslone@yahoo.com>
Mr. Slone:
In my last email I promised to not write you again, but I have to break that promise.  I want to sincerely apologize for making you so upset.  That was not my intent. 
Also, sincerely: I believe the explanation that suddenly came to you of how you could claim in a posted exchange with Don Winter that you had never heard of Scully, in the next sentence brand Scully with one of your favorite epithets "name brand poet, all the while having a review of Scully's Line Break only a click away -- a review you claimed to have written without ever having heard of him before.  I'm not being sarcastic; some will probably call me gullible or naive, but I believe you.  You wrote the review and then, six months later (couldn't have been a year, given the incredible amount of text you deal with, you forgot about him.  Plus, you wrote the review for Counterpoise, so that explains why Winter would wonder if you had ever heard of Scully.  You honestly reply to Winter that you hadn't, but in your subconscious the name rings a bell. This explains how in your next sentence you could call this poet you had never heard of before "name brand."  I'm not great with names, and I could totally see myself doing something like this, especially with a lot of projects going on at once.  Then you eventually posted the review on your website, forgetting about your other posting with Winter.  Again, I'm being absolutely sincere -- I believe you.  How many times have I left my house with a vague notion I've forgotten something, and then had to run back to get a bill I was mailing off or whatever.  Funny how the mind works, isn't it?
It's also funny how this all started with a critique I made of what was really an overall favorable review of Line Break.
I do, however, have to stand by my critiques of your work.  Yes, there's treachery and corporate slavery in the institutions of higher education, but there are also many remarkable free thinkers.  This is what's called a paradox.  Yes, there are suck-ups who get tenure and good people who get cheated out of it, but that you can't then just make psychic leaps and say that Scully (or Rich or anyone else in the "club" of tenured academics) has a chance of over 99% of being a sell-out or careerist or name-brand or whatever.  And even if you could, you need to show evidence in any particular case, not just make wild guesses based on incomplete biographical information or blurbs.  This is intellectual sloppiness on your part (see the mess above).
I raised Brutus and Chomsky because you have cited both of them in making arguments.  Perhaps I overstated their significance to you -- sorry.  At any rate, in your article on poetry you use the words of Brutus, a tenured radical, to great effect.  Yes, you do offer a counterweight of criticism to his participation in academia, but that counterweight doesn't negate his contributions.  Ditto for Chomsky and many other tenured radicals. You state that your writing hasn't been influenced by anyone -- only by the crucible of experience itself.  Writing or thinking, I don't see how anyone can claim to be free from the influence of others.
Furthermore, I've answered twice before, but I will answer one more time your accusation that I called you a crank.  Again, deal with the actual text.  All it takes is a few clicks.  I turned your own ill-conceived process of judgement back on yourself hypothetically, to show how one could know one or two items about you, and then write you off as a just a crank forming your own club.  I expressly said that I did not believe this to be true of you (although at this point, I'm honestly beginning to wonder). I was hoping that you would see how this demonstrates what I believe is a major fallacy in your thinking.
Finally, yes, there is a lot of egregious back slapping, back stabbing and ugly opportunism.  There are also many poets or artists or writers who have pitted their work against such crap, or, even better, pitted their art agains the dictatorship of money and capital that fuels such mendacity and treachery.  Some of us have discovered each other's work and supported each other.  Some of us have made PRINCIPLED critiques of each other and ourselves.  Every one of us has had to figure out how to compromise least with this system, but still survive, put food on the tables for our families, etc.  Many of us teach.  We critique the system we work under -- some of us get away with it somehow, and others don't. Some of us swing hammers or work in factories or offices.  The true ones among us don't sell each other out.  It's an amorphous, international club that's dedicated against oppression, of which literary cliquiness is but a footnote.  It's dedicated to a truly humane future.  This is the only club I want to belong to. 
This really is my last email to you.  My apology is sincere, as is my stance regarding critique of your work.  I would appreciate no more contact from you, especially if it's the kind of groundless, border-line violent hate mail you sent me last time.  As always, feel free to post, but only on the condition it comes with our complete exchange.
Sincerely,
Jon Andersen

 

Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 12:12:58 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com> 
Subject: Spine
To: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
Jon,
You jump to too many conclusions.  Upset?  Me?  Hardly!  No, my friend, you were the one who was so upset, which is why you contacted me in the first place.  If you refuse to see that, then you do have a severe reality problem.  
No need to promise termination of discussion.  Unlike you, I am always open to further discussion.  Most come up with all kinds of excuses for terminating discussion.  I do not.  Never would I seek to publish only part of our correspondence in an effort to twist it in my favor.  I am far above such sophistry.  Besides, I sure as hell don’t think I need to “cherry pick” from it.  You bury yourself.   
You have NO IDEA how many exchanges I have like the one I had with Winter in any given year.  Hell, I don’t recall the exchange I had with him on this subject at all, nor do I feel compelled to hunt for that exchange in the archives.  Sure, I remember battling with him and that he had implied he was living in abject poverty, but that’s about it.  But it’s all so ridiculously immaterial.  Why don’t you write a review and publish it instead of whining on and on about the review I wrote. 
“It's also funny how this all started with a critique I made of what was really an overall favorable review of Line Break.”  Yes!  But it’s not really funny.  It’s an insanity!  Yours!  Even a little negative critique shakes you fellows up so much. 
“Yes, there's treachery and corporate slavery in the institutions of higher education, but there are also many remarkable free thinkers.”  Horseshit!  Free?  Give me a break.   
“Writing or thinking, I don't see how anyone can claim to be free from the influence of others.”  This is probably true.  Just the same, in my case, the influence would be small, not large.  My experience is the much greater influence on my writing. 
“I was hoping that you would see how this demonstrates what I believe is a major fallacy in your thinking.”  You have not demonstrated any fallacy in my thinking at all, let alone major.  On the other hand, I have certainly exposed a certain number of fallacies in your thinking.  Ha! 
“There are also many poets or artists or writers who have pitted their work against such crap, or, even better, pitted their art agains the dictatorship of money and capital that fuels such mendacity and treachery.”  Who, for example, among the poet starlets of our day?  And please don’t push your friend’s name on me yet another time.  There are others out there besides ole Scully and Rich. 
“Some of us have discovered each other's work and supported each other.”  Well, isn’t that nice.   
It has been my experience that guys like you rarely if ever respond to logical argumentation. 
This is all a load of high school teacher horseshit:  “Every one of us has had to figure out how to compromise least with this system, but still survive, put food on the tables for our families, etc.  Many of us teach.  We critique the system we work under -- some of us get away with it somehow, and others don't. Some of us swing hammers or work in factories or offices.”   
Yes, how to rationalize ones own life as a kowtow lifer in the system!  You could probably write a book on it and make a little cash.  Ha!   
So now my critique of you is labeled “hate mail.”  Christ, man, do you have a spine or did you hand it over to the high school principal the day he hired you?  Well, I guess we both know the answer to that one.  Hmm.  That would make a good cartoon.  Wish I had your photo, but since I couldn’t find it, I’ll do one with your back turned and will let you know when it is done.
Sincerely,
G. Tod 

 

Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 08:21:03 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: a broken promise
To: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
Jon Anderson,
By the way, the proof is in the pudding.  That Scully book and theory are both already dead.  How many poets have run to follow his advice RE the line brea k?  You?  Probably not even you !     
You failed to answer my question as to what precisely you’ve done as a tenured teacher to challenge the educationist inanity rampant, no doubt, at your own high school.  Have you published guest editorials decrying it? 
T. 
  
Subject: RE: a broken promise
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2007 05:54:30 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
To: "George Slone " <todslone@yahoo.com>
Mr. Slone:
I know I shouldn't -- and said I wouldn't -- respond to your emails any longer.  Your ad hominem attacks/ hypotheses about who I am or Scully is or anyone else so far in our exchange are illogical, so I know I'm wasting my time, but here goes:
You write: "...the proof is in the pudding. That Scully book and theory are both already dead.  How many poets have run to follow his advice RE the line break? You? Probably not even you!" I think what you mean is that the book hasn't sold well (ie dead book) and this is "proof" that the ideas behind the book are not valid ("the proof is in the pudding").  If this is what The American Dissident is actually claiming here, then no response by me or anyone is necessary.  It would not only be a manifestly absurd claim, it would be a terribly ironic one coming from a writer who supposedly demands logic and anti-sheep mentality.
Now, about my "refusal" to answer your "question" about my own credentials. You have written that my description of where I'm coming from "is all a load of high school teacher horseshit....
Yes, how to rationalize ones own life as a kowtow lifer in the system!  You could probably write a book on it and make a little cash.  Ha! So now my critique of you is labeled “hate mail.”  Christ, man, do you have a spine or did you hand it over to the high school principal the day he hired you?  Well, I guess we both know the answer to that one.  Hmm.  That would make a good cartoon.  Wish I had your photo, but since I couldn’t find it, I’ll do one with your back turned and will let you know when it is done." ( I found this last part to be more than a little creepy)
You also wrote before this that I was correct "Only if while getting tenure you kept your mouth shut RE the educationist, multiculturalist, do-not-offend, ego-bloat horseshit they’re indoctrinating your students with.  Well, we know the answer to that one, don’t we?  See what I mean about tenure?  Evidently you did keep your mouth shut… and evidently you continue to do so.  Why?  Now, they can’t even fire you!  I’ll tell you why, since you probably don’t even know.  BECAUSE THEY’VE TENURED YOU TO FEAR… even when there’s no reason to FEAR.  That is the very crux of TENURE.  Your great FEAR is of offending your colleagues… and that’s just what they want… so all of you can sit in your comfy chairs in the teachers’ room… safe from criticism." (I'm sorry if I mischaracterized this as 'hate mail.'
At any rate, you've already made your mind up as evidenced above. So why try to change your mind?  But here we go one more time: I don't write editorials critiquing my school, or haven't yet, but I take on issues exactly where they're playing out: in the school, at the faculty meetings, in the hallways, in the classrooms.  Every single day I go in, I am teaching my students to think critically, think for themselves.  I get them to question a social/economic system that does its best to produce dutiful worker/consumers (as opposed to citizen/human beings.  You don't -- and how could you -- know how many lives I've changed for the better and how those lives have changed me for the better.  I have been called on the carpet many times -- usually because my unorthodox Marxist arguments (I've never been able to be a party-line guy) have offended liberals or conservatives. But I know I'm lucky too; there is a strong tradition of free speech in the community -- in other schools, I'd be out by now. And I do more outside the school -- much of which I won't get into in a forum like this.  On the line, I've stood toe-to-toe against troopers protesting racist police brutality, against neo-fascists, against ultra-right wing Zionists.  All in all, however, none of this is really risking much when compared to people fighting oppression, fighting for their lives all over the globe and right here in the USA.  I always wish I could do more.
We all end up compromised in this system -- this isn't rationalization -- it's just true.  For example, you hate blurbs and the poetry industry and self-promoting small presses, but you publish poems in slick little magazines like Slipstream which claims to publish some of the "best poetry each year," and so you get your name and work in with folks like Charles Bukowski, Gerald Locklin, Wanda Coleman, Lyn Lifshin, Kurt Nimmo, and Sherman Alexie.  Personally, I like Slipstream and many of these poets.  You publish poetry in a slick anthology by Gival Press, an anthology replete with blurbs and bragging rights like puschcart nominations, small press anthology awards -- not to mention a whole stable of "name-brand" poets.  And this press is releasing a bilingual edition of your work this year, no?  I don't fault you for any of this, and sincerely wish you the best in these publications.
This really is my last email to you.  Now, I'll ask you one last time: do not contact me anymore.
Thank you,
Jon Andersen

 

Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 06:30:48 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: a broken promise
To: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
Jon,
Well, you skirted that Scully book question.  Selling well?  No, that’s not what I meant at all.  Who is following his line-break advice?  That is my question and what I clearly meant.  You did not answer it, so one must conclude YOU ARE NOT FOLLOWING IT.  WHO IS?  That proves my assertion it was an academic exercise and little else.     
You write: “(I found this last part to be more than a little creepy)” regarding my desire to cartoonify you.  Well, I hope you didn’t shite in your underdrawers over it.  If I am frightening you, it must be paralyzing for you to simply step out of your home.  AND TO THINK YOU ARE A ROLE MODEL FOR HIGH SCHOOL KIDS!
You write:  “At any rate, you've already made your mind up as evidenced above. So why try to change your mind?”  What I wrote “above” was written after you failed to answer that question. 
Big surprise.  You write:  “I don't write editorials critiquing my school…”  God forbid, if you did, eh?!  You might upset a colleague or worse yet the principal WHO CAN’T EVEN FIRE YOU because you’re tenured.  You prove the points I make and can’t even see it.  YOU HIDE BEHIND ORTHODOXY—  IN YOUR CASE, MARXISM!  You are too frightened to act as an individual.  YOU NEED AN ORTHODOXY TO FUNCTION. 
You write:  “Every single day I go in, I am teaching my students to think critically, think for themselves.”  Oh, how many times have we heard that before by high school and college English instructors???!!!  Yes, teach them to think critically as long as it doesn’t upset, offend, and otherwise ROCK THE BOAT, GO AGAINST THE GRAIN, AND MAKE WAVES… REAL WAVES!   Educationists like you ought to be ashamed to call what you teach CRITICAL THINKING!  You’re an English teacher and poet, for chrissakes!   STAND UP!  Have them write critical poems of your principal, vice principal, the English department, the educationist idiocy crippling future citizens, yes, the IDIOCY that you willingly partake in and spread!   Have your students submit their critique to the student newspaper, then have them analyze the reaction.  Have them STEP ON THAT EDGE!  HAVE THEM TASTE THE FORBIDDEN WATER!  Hell, it won’t take much for the principal to threaten to close down the student newspaper.  NOW, that would be an exercise in REAL CRITICAL THINKING.  It would be an eye-opener, a character builder, instead of an assignment within the dull, acceptable English critical thinking paradigm.  BUT YOU DON’T HAVE THE COURAGE DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT.  THAT’S WHY THEY GAVE YOU TENURE. 
Talk about egotism, and the typical educationist backslapping and self-congratulating modus operandi: “You don't -- and how could you -- know how many lives I've changed for the better…”   God help the high schools!
Now there’s an amazing oxymoron!  “unorthodox Marxist arguments.”  How not to laugh OUT LOUD? 
Your googling my name has resulted in nothing, nothing except more meat for your hollow arguments.  My trying to get published does not compromise my principles, nor does it conflict with my decrying of the inherent corruption in the literary milieus and “poetry industry,” as you term it.  “Hate” is your word, not mine! To decry self-promotion does not mean I “hate” all the small presses and zines.  Criticism is only equated with “hatred” by those who can’t bear looking in the mirror at themselves.  How do you ever draw such whacko conclusions?  You write:  “For example, you hate blurbs and the poetry industry and self-promoting small presses, but you publish poems in slick little magazines like Slipstream…”  Slick littles?  Not that I’m aware of.  Slipstream?  Hardly what you’d call slick… at least when I was published in it ONCE about 15 LONG YEARS AGO!  And back then I was certainly not the same person I am today.  Back then my poetry was not very critical at all.  And why should it have been way back then… before my eyes had opened, thanks, especially to Fitchburg State College?  As for Gival, I expressly told the publisher that I wanted NO BLURBS on my future chapbook and he granted my request.  Your arguments are entirely immaterial. 
If you could only understand how limp-wristed lame you come off when you write:  “Now, I'll ask you one last time: do not contact me anymore.”
FUCK MARXISM!  FUCK ORTHODOXY OF ANY KIND!  Teach your students some good solid quotes by Thoreau, Emerson, and Solzhenitsyn!  (Oops, how hateful and offensive of me:  I’ve used CAPS and forbidden words!)  Below is a poem I wrote last night as a direct result of our correspondance  Unlike you, rather than desire to curtail discussion and debate and critique, I welcome it heartily because I feed off it and often end up creating from it.  Yes, I suppose that makes me different from you and the poet herd.
Sincerely,
G. Tod Slone

 

The Pavlovian Crux
They’ve tenured you, professor
and high school teacher

They’ve tenured you to fear

They’ve tenured you to keep
your mouth shut

They’ve tenured you to turn
a blind eye

They’ve tenured you to dread
with the mocking smirk
of contemptible denial

They’ve tenured you to cower
even when there is no
threat at all

They’ve tenured you to seek
comfort in twisted rationalization

They’ve tenured you to argue
in treacherous blindness

They’ve tenured you to feel good
about yourself and to actually
believe you’re doing good

And they’ve flooded the nation
with your ilk
for indeed you are
                                doing good… for them.

 

Subject: RE: a broken promise
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:23:11 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org
To: "George Slone " <todslone@yahoo.com>
George:
1) I did not skirt the Scully book "question" in the least.  You were not very clear.  So you've clarified: "the proof in the pudding" is that poets aren't "flocking" to Scully's advice about line breaks and that this "proves" that his ideas about line breaks as tools of a socially engaged poetry is invalid, or merely "an academic exercise."  I'll stick with my last answer, the crock logic of your statement is apparent on the face of it.  As if validity is a function of popularity! There's irony here on at least two levels: one, you insist on LOGIC (usually in bold caps) and you're THE American Dissident, extolling an anti-herd mentality.
Logically, it would be possible for only a handful, or even one, or even noone to follow his "advice," and this fact, in and of itself, would have nothing at all to do with proving validity or invalidity.  You write: "who follows this advice, you? probably not even you....etc. etc."  This is hardly a sincere question.  I am very aware of line breaks, and I use them in a number of ways -- always trying to push poems as socially engaged.  Check out Roque Dalton (oops -- a Curbstone poet -- sorry for being "clubby").  No, check out Jim Daniels -- especially his poem "Time/Temperature."  Check out Jayne Cortez and Amiri Baraka, Eric Fried, Rozewicz, -- just a few off the top of my head.
2)On my response that your suggestion to "cartoonify"(sic) me was very creepy: No I did not "shite my drawers over it." (What are we, in the 5th grade, now") I was merely giving your own words back to you and noting that, after laying into me as a spineless sell-out and being unable to find my image on the web, you wrote you would draw me WHEN MY BACK WAS TURNED is a very creepy idea.  George, trust me on this, buddy, most people would react the same way.  I'm not AFRAID of you.  Also, yet another little problem with logic: how would drawing me from the back help you if you don't know what I look like?  I mean, I could be 5'4", weigh 200 lbs and have dreadlocks, or I could be a jacked, six foot-six, crew cut, etc.  Or maybe these details don't matter to you if you approach your cartoons with the same lack of thoroughness as your scholarship.  George: this is just my personal opinion, of course, but the  cartoons I've seen of yours are really pretty bad. I'm not even referring to the ideas in them, just the clunky artistry. I've seen a couple of your poems, even the one I inspired above, and they're much better. 
2)You claim that you were not prejudging me in asking me to defend my credentials.  I was reluctant to allow you to shift the focus of our exchange to personal ground, at first.  I said to a friend who I showed these exchanges to: "Watch, I will give him an overview of what I do, and my philosophy. I won't pump it up, and I'll note, in fairness, that my multiple levels of activism and risk taking is nothing compared to others who are truly fighting for their lives, and you know what he'll still probably do? He'll cricize me for bragging"  This is the kind of trick you see in prep school debate club.   Bait someone into defending themselves and then skewer them for being self-aggrandizing.  Sure enough....thanks, George -- you fulfilled my prophecy, and I'm not very talented in that department.  But you were easy to read.
As far as my teaching students to think critically, which you responded to by saying that "educationists" like me should be ashamed of because it's safe and easy:  You chopped off most of my quote to respond.  You will not find any mainstream 'educationists' teaching students to question the corporate culture that seeks to turn them all into dutiful workers and consumers as opposed to thinking, acting human beings and citizens. I have had my student write critical letters to the principal.  Again, you can't know everything I do, and I can't enumerate every damn thing.   As far as your guest editorial idea: I put myself on the line where it counts.  I confront, face to face, in public forums, in faculty meetings, at board of education meetings, and I've done this with and without tenure.  I've stirred up my fair share of trouble and will continue to do so.  But I don't do it to be self-aggrandizing; I don't do it out of an adolescent need to "stick it to the man" I do it because I care deeply about what's going down.  I want to change, fundamentally, this education system that mirrors the barbaric inequalities in the overarching system it mirrors.  I do what I can, and many of my students do what they can. Many of them have taken enormous risks among their peers and teachers to radically criticize the status quo.
3) Your publications are not "immaterial," in the least.  My point, which you skirted with semantics, is that if you are going to severely criticize other poets for using state-funds, university funds, mainstream prize and grant money, small presses that make self-congratulatory statements or boasts, and hook up with "name brand poets," all to disseminate their own poems, then you shouldn't participate in those very same activities.  I'm glad you requested no blurbs form Gival Press for your upcoming book, but it's already being promoted on their website, as is the slick anthology you're in with its pushcart nominations, small press awards, name brand poets, blurbs, and facile self-congratulatory introduction.  If I used the word "hate" to categorize how you feel about the careerism and perfidies of the literary establishment, it's only because everything you've written on your website on this topic exudes that emotion.  You'd have to be willingly deaf to language to deny this.  But I'll cut you some slack: use "intense dislike."  Or that you find such careerism "highly objectionable."  Either way, you can't excorciate others for playing this game, then go ahead and do it yourself.  I hope you'll tell the folks at Gival that you want no part of their promotions, and to dissassociate your name from such actions immediately.  Muckrake Gival unmercifully on your website for its particpation in the name game.  You can think of it as free speech experiment.  I'll be looking forward to it on your website.  Make sure you let the folks at Gival know what you're doing!  Invite a response!
4)I have tried to deal with you fairly, but this has just made you more determined to denigrate me (suggesting I'm spineless, fearful, etc.)  For example, I said no more when you admitted that saying you never heard of Scully to Don Winter, and then calling Scully name brand was a mistake. No biggee. As you said, to err is human.  When, on the second or third try you were finally able to explain how you could say, twice, that you hadn't heard of Scully, I wrote that I believed you with all sincerity. You wrote a review of Scully's book, posted it on another website, subsequently forgot about it six months or so later, had an exchange with another poet in which you claimed not have heard of Scully.  Sometime in here, you posted that review on your own website, a few clicks away from your exchange with Winter, and then later told me, (now forgetting your adamant exchange with Winter) that you had never heard of Scully before the review. I can be forgetfull.  I mean, all this could happen. I wasn't making a mountain out of a pile of shit, as you suggested, I was demanding consistency and logic.  I didn't think such a demand would be so objectionable, or if it were, that you would object with an attack. (Yes, your false accusations about my character is called an attack, not a critique, George.  You still need some work on this distinction).
5)You accused me, falsely, of calling you a crank, and I had to explain to you two or three more times that I hadn't, which is evident to anyone who can scroll down the exchange.  I wanted to point out the fallacy of jumping to conclusions, as is your wont.  I showed that someone could know one or two things about you and write you off, wrongly, as a crank.  I expressly said that I didn't think this was true, but this is what would happen if your "logic" boomeranged.  You still have not acknowledged this obvious logic and your obvious oversight, making me wonder if perhaps you are a crank, after all.  Truthfully, I'm now leaning in that direction, given the mountain of evidence you've provided.
When I suggested that you were perhaps bitter from your Fitchburg State College experience, I was not name calling. Your writing about it on your website sounds very bitter. And I could sympathize with you if your were.  Then again, I guess your ear for tone in language is very...well...different.
6) You accused me falsely of being a buddy of Winter and the Bastard Gang and being sent to do their fighting for them.  Again: logic. How about facts?  I have never had any direct contact with Winter or his colleagues. But we both like Scully, but I'm afraid this fact will only reinforce in your mind that we are all part of some careerist club.  Like when I wrote that of course I want to see as many people read Scully's poetry as I can and you wrote "AHA!" unable to conceive that a fellow poet/artist whatever would be enthusiastic and want to share that enthusiasm.  What do you think, we've got movie deals in the works?You think we're hooked up with Poetry Magazine or some big funding source somewhere?  Again, do your research first.  If you do find out that I'm well connected, please let me know!
7) I am ending correspondence, not because I'm not "open," as you claim to be ( a claim belied by almost everything in this long exchange), but because you do not inspire me.  You exasperate me.  The emails from your end have been filled with mendacious suggestions and suspicions, all lacking in evidence, or even sense.  I'm patient with my students.  I've been patient with you, but they deserve my attention more than you.
Again, you can post the whole thing, all of my comments, if you want.  You can even quote yourself for an epigraph: "One only snaps when exposed".  That will prefigure some of your most -- how should I put it --"spirited" passages most nicely.
Goodbye, George.
Jon

 

Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 06:24:44 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: a broken promise
To: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>
Jon,
Every poet knows what he shouldn’t write about.  THINK ABOUT THAT.  WHAT ARE YOUR TABOOS?  I know what I’m not supposed to write about… and kick myself in the ass and write about it.  One thing I’m not supposed to write critically about is my immediate colleagues and institution of employment.  SO, I WRITE ABOUT IT and take that extra step AND POST IT.  YOU DON’T HAVE THE BALLS TO DO THAT, WHICH IS WHY YOU MUST DENIGRATE ANYONE WHO DOES.  Yours is the poet herd reaction.  I have seen oh so often.  IT IS PRECISELY WHAT MAKES POETS NOT SPECIAL PEOPLE… DESPITE THE POET HERD DESIRE TO MYTHIFY/ROMANTICIZE THE LAURELED COW.  The logic is evidently there, Jon.  BUT to see it would mean to see yourself in the MIRROR.  AND herd poetlings hate mirrors more than anything else.  Ha! 
“Then again, I guess your ear for tone in language is very...well...different.”  Thank you for the compliment, Jon.  I’d much rather sound bitter and angry and hateful, than WHINEY, which is the TONE OF YOUR WRITING.  Give me bitter any time! 
Your letters are tedious and windy. 
The crux of the matter is in that poem of mine… thanks again for the inspiration.  Hell, somebody has to be inspired by SHIT.  And, I suppose I’m the guy. 
What does this mean?  “I am very aware of line breaks, and I use them in a number of ways -- always trying to push poems as socially engaged.”  It means, nothing really.  Line break has nothing to do with engagement.   
When poets start seeking new gimics as in line brea ks, it is usually because they have nothing more to say, if in fact they had anything to say in the first place. 
Please, please, don’t give me the “most people would” hackneyed non-argument, though I suppose your being a tenured herd member would in fact actually give credence to your purported knowledge in how most in the herd would react.  Yes!  Ha! 
I’ll draw you as a cow in academic regalia.  That will solve the lack of photo problem. 
Please, please don’t give me the hackneyed “your cartoons suck” and “your poems suck” herd reaction to critictism horseshit.  Try being a little more unique and creative!!!
Must I repeat to you what would be risky for a HS teacher?  There is no risk at all in teaching students to hate corporations. 
You are a proven SAFE MAN, which is why the HS principal and flock of teachers gave you TENURE.  Why do you refuse to see? 
“If I used the word "hate" to categorize how you feel about the careerism and perfidies of the literary establishment, it's only because everything you've written on your website on this topic exudes that emotion.”  Well, if Solzhenitsyn, Emerson, Thoreau, Rushdie, Celine, and scores of other writers on my website are HATE, then I’ll also be HATE. 
YOU EQUATE CRITICISM WITH BITTERNESS.  That is YOUR PROBLEM, NOT MINE. 
Why not post that poem I sent you in the teacher’s room!  HA!  That will cause stir, eh?  BUT heaven forbid we upset the little life-secure teachers in their little chatter teacher’s room séances. 
T.
PS:  Are you Jon Anderson, the poet on the net?
PPS:  Here is another poem you directly inspired.  Thank you. 

 

The Laureled Beulah
                For Jon Anderson, tenured high school teacher and poet
Every poet knows—oh, yeah, every
goddamn poet knows! 

Every poet knows what he shouldn’t
write about! 

Think about that, herd poetling, think
about that.

What are your taboos?  What would
make you shake in your hoofs, pour
out a gushing of bouse de vache?

Hell, I know what I’m not supposed to
write about…
but unlike you, herd poetling, I kick
myself in the ass, shake off that fear,
and write about it— 
leftists, poets, literary circles and prizes,
fellow professors and the very
institution employing me.. 

So, I step out on to that edge, compose,
publish, and post it
right under their multitudinous snouts!

But you, herd poetling, don’t have the
balls to do that,
which is why you are compelled to
denigrate those who do.
Yours is the reaction of the flock, pack,
and congregation—How often I have
witnessed it!
And it is precisely what makes poets
no more special than cows, despite
their unremitting efforts to mythify
                                their laurelled Beulahs. 

Every poet knows, oh herd poetling,
                every goddamn poet knows…

 

Subject: RE: a broken promise
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 13:25:44 -0500
From: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org
To: "George Slone " <todslone@yahoo.com>
Epigraph: "One only snaps when exposed"
  -- G. Tod Slone
The American Dissident

Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 11:00:01 -0800 (PST)
From: "George Slone" <todslone@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: a broken promise
To: "Jonathan Andersen" <JAndersen@EOSmith.org>

Your response is that of a coward.