The Woke Dunciad targeting the Poetry Foundation

The Poetry Foundation in Chicago has a lot of money. If it really thinks 'Black Lives Matter', it should give that money to groups whose work saves Black Lives by getting African Americans better legal representation and by suing Police Departments and Prisons so as to improve outcomes for poor Black people. It could also urge poets to stop being so fucking selfish and to make some money- perhaps by selling their kidneys- so as to donate it to Black victims of the discriminatory justice system.

Sadly, the Poetry Foundation did not give away its money. It did help some shite poets- a veritable Dunciad of them. Those poetasters are now busy biting the hand that fed them. They want to kill the golden goose. They demand that the Foundation hand over its money to them directly even though they don't matter to Black Lives at all. Indeed, they harm that cause. Why? Because their poetry is shit and their opportunistic demands actually delegitimize the current agitation sparked by the killing of George Floyd.

This is the letter they sent, which has caused two White people at the top of the organization to resign.

To the Members of the Board and Staff of the Poetry Foundation and Poetry Magazine:
We write to you, as poets who have had associations with the Poetry Foundation as awardees, fellows, contributors, or collaborators, at a time when the centuries-long crisis of American profiteering at the expense of Black life is again made acutely visible.

These American poets want to themselves profit more intensively from those Black lives.

On June 3, 2020, the Poetry Foundation released a vague statement that you “stand in solidarity with the Black community, and denounce injustice and systemic racism.”

Instead of which you should have said 'we gonna hand over all our money to the worthless shitheads we previously helped because Black lives don't matter. Worthless poets do.'

This non-substantive, four-sentence statement—which contained no details, action plans, or concrete commitments—was the Foundation’s sole response to the ongoing state-sanctioned murders of Black people by police and the current wave of violent state repression of those protesting these killings.

How would giving money to worthless poets represent a better response?

For years, your constituents have been calling on the Foundation to redistribute more of its enormous resources to marginalized artists, to make concrete commitments to and change-making efforts in your local community and beyond. We find this statement to be worse than the bare minimum.

A 'marginalized artist' is one who- like me- nobody wants to read or listen to. How would giving money to worthless shitheads help the alleged victims of genocide?

As poets, we recognize a piece of writing that meets the urgency of its time with the appropriate fire when we see it--and this is not it.

But this demand for money for 'marginalized- i.e. unpublishable- poets does not meet the urgency of the times either.

It is an insult to the lives and families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, and the countless other victims of the racist institution of police and white supremacy.

Similarly, if you refuse to give me a blowjob, it is an insult to the lives and families of countless victims of racist institutions.
Also if your b.j is not up to the mark, that too would be an insult to the same set of victims.

This shameless demand for money by worthless shitheads is an insult to the memory of the very people they commemorate. They should be saying 'give this money to the victim's families. Stop doling it out to us.'

It is an insult to the lives of your neighbors who have been targeted, brutalized, terrorized, and detained by the Chicago Police Department in the past week, including many Black youth.

But not worthless poets. Give the money to Black youth by all means. Don't give it to worthless shitheads who may go on to say 'your refusal to get on your knees and suck us all off is an insult to the countless victims of Transatlantic Slavery.'

Given the stakes, which equate to no less than genocide against Black people,

give us money and blowjobs and anything else we demand

the watery vagaries of this statement are, ultimately, a violence.

Yes! The very fact that these posh White dudes are not forming an orderly queue outside the door of these worthless poets so as to hand over their cash and perform oral sex is ULTIMATELY A VIOLENCE on a par with the Nazi genocide!

We demand that the Poetry Foundation and Poetry Magazine do more and do better.

By not publishing such worthless shite? Take the work of the first signatory of this letter- Kaveh Akbar- an Iranian American- it is puerile. Why give him money? What has it to do with Black Lives? The guy looks plenty White.

This is one step in a much larger global fight against racism, anti-Blackness, and White Supremacy,

in the same sense that demanding blowjobs and cash from rich people is a step in some global fight

but it is an important step because of the space the Poetry Foundation occupies within the poetry landscape.

It curates shit whose production it itself subsidizes. This is a waste of resources, true enough.

This is not the first time that the leadership of the Poetry Foundation has revealed itself to be woefully unfit to respond to the crises of our times. Though we can’t detail everything within the space of this letter, we refer you to the numerous critiques made in regards to the Foundation’s failures to support—or even appropriately acknowledge disparities as they relate to—Black and Indigenous poets, Latinx poets, trans and queer poets, disabled poets, poets of color writ large, and artists struggling economically. As it is clear that the Foundation’s leadership is unable to show up responsibly to the demands of this moment, we call for the immediate resignation of both President Henry Bienen and Board of Trustees Chair Willard Bunn, III.

They got their wish. But what difference will it make? Nobody now will pay the slightest attention to the worthless shitheads the Foundation promotes. It will be understood that they are all ignorant fools who receive 'affirmative aesthetic action' on account of their imbecility.

In addition, we have the following demands.
1. The President must be replaced by someone with a demonstrated commitment to both the world of poetry and the project of creating a world that is just and affirming for people of color, disabled people, trans people, queer people, and immigrants.

In other words, someone like Kaveh Akbar.

2. The Board of the Poetry Foundation must write a meaningful statement that details the specific, material ways it plans to “work to eradicate institutional racism.” What are the tangible actions the Foundation will take towards supporting racial justice initiatives?

There is only one 'tangible action' which securest that objective. Poets and Poetry Foundations must earn money and give it to those who are tackling 'racial injustice' in all its 'minute particulars'. To paraphrase William Blake, to trade in vacuous generalities, is the act of a scoundrel.

3. In addition to providing a meaningful, well-researched acknowledgment of the debt that the Foundation owes to Black poets,

a debt created by giving them money- except a lot of it leaked away to people who weren't Black at all but rather Iranian or other such immigrants

this statement must also include a specific acknowledgment of the harm done in recent years to Latinx poets, trans poets, disabled poets, and queer poets.

I take it Kaveh is queer.

4. Ultimately, we dream of a world in which the massive wealth hoarding that underlies the Foundation’s work would be replaced by the redistribution of every cent to those whose labor amassed those funds.

So the money should go to those who worked for Eli Lilly & Co.

As we work toward that world, we thus demand a significantly greater allocation of financial resources toward work which is explicitly anti-racist in nature and, specifically, fighting to protect and enrich Black lives, in and outside of Chicago.

So stop funding Gay Iranians or Pakistani or Indian origin women- like Fatima Asghar and Sumita Chakroborty, the next two signatories on the list.

As a group unified by urgency

we need that moolah now! Also a b.j.

but diverse in our visions,

Some don't want a b.j. They want anal. But we all want moolah.

we imagine a range of ways that such reallocation of funds might manifest--from much more robust local programming, to large contributions to organizations such as Assata's Daughters,

descended from the Black Panthers, this 'grass-roots' organization has only 68 members

Brave Space Alliance,

the first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQ Centre located on the South Side of Chicago, which is exactly as silly as it sounds

and Project South,

 which looked promising but has turned silly by losing focus and substituting utopian schemes for actual community organizing.

to more and deeper partnerships with spaces that support artists from marginalized communities.

By all means invest in rec centers and schools and libraries and so forth.

However it looks, we demand that the redistribution of wealth toward efforts fostering social justice be significant and long-lasting.

In which case, no more money must be handed out to credentialized cretins living off the 'aesthetic affirmative action' dollar while 'Mau Mauing the Establishment' for more money any time some Black people get shot by the Police.

5. As an extension on the above point, currently, the Foundation programming which engages most meaningfully with Black people and other historically marginalized populations is largely coordinated by the department of Community and Foundation Relations. This department is overtaxed and managed by a staff of two women of color. We demand a significantly greater allocation of staff and financial resources in this area.

In other words, there are some jobs for the boys here. This explains why Black Lives Matter. Some worthless bureaucrats can get a bigger budget and hire more of their chums.

More broadly, we demand that the staff of the Foundation more adequately reflect the demographics of the city of Chicago.

In particular, the number of non-graduates employed in senior positions must reflect the proportion of non-graduates in the population. So should the proportion of people who read or write poetry.

We believe that as long as the Foundation’s staff and leadership remain overwhelmingly White, it fundamentally limits the Foundation’s ability to ever be an organization rooted in anti-racist practice.

Indeed, so long as Whites remain a majority in the U.S.A it won't be an anti-racist country- except in the sense that Whites will be persecuted.

Until these demands are met, we will not be submitting any work to the magazine, nor will we participate in any future partnerships with the Foundation.

Cool. You guys could raise money for actual Black Lives instead.

We are invested stewards in the future of poetry,

No. You represent its dreary past as something you could get a worthless M.F.A in on condition of being a gibbering ape.

and so the onus is on us to push those with institutional capital to use it for good.

Why can't the Poetry Foundation fund good poets whom people would want to read?

We call on those poets who feel comfortable doing so to stand with us in this pledge. We acknowledge that material privileges make it such that individuals vary in their ability to make a pledge like this, and we extend love and solidarity to those poets for whom agreeing to this would create a situation of material precarity.

We recognize, for instance, that Poetry is one of the few reasonably-paying poetry journals. Ultimately, we dream of a world in which there are more sustainable ways for poets to support themselves that do not require them to engage with institutions that may not share their values. Indeed, for many of us this is a moment to reflect on the ways in which, while the awards or opportunities conferred by the Foundation may offer material benefits, they also involve forms of extraction, harm, exploitation, or even trauma. For instance, what does it mean for the Foundation to publish one’s work, to partner on various programs, or to see the Foundation use one’s likeness on promotional materials, but to feel unwelcome or unsafe in the Poetry Foundation building?

Good point. They should have better security. Employ some off-duty cops. What a swell idea!

Some of us have formed long-standing relationships with members of your staff, and we are grateful for those in your midst who have served as powerful supporters and allies while they themselves have had to contend from within with the Foundation’s harms. At the same time, we are in agreement with Justin Phillip Reed, who wrote in his June 3, 2020 letter to you: “Poetry Magazine continues to be legitimized by the divergent experiments, experiences, and dissenting voices of people whose lives are made precarious by the very acts and exploits that have aggrandized the inherited positions of these trustees.”

Sadly, this isn't true at all. We all automatically assume that people with exotic names who write like shite are 'diversity hires' and skip past them. Thus no 'legitimizing' is occurring.

We can no longer participate in this legitimizing project.

Sadly, you guys are delegitimizing Black Lives Matter by your brazen and opportunistic behavior.

We request an official, public response by no later than one week following receipt of this letter.

Otherwise we will say ooga booga and bite chunks out of your lily white flesh with our filed teeth.