Harriet has just lost its last shred of dignity. The recent Comment posted by W.F.Kammann on December 21st has been deleted.
All the Comment said was that for a more balanced and in depth look you might want to check something else out, a piece of information Travis Nichols obviously felt was too disturbing for the Harriet readership.
We wonder how Gary B. Fitzgerald and Margo Berdeshevsky feel about this new move, both having expressed such relief at the decision to lift the Like/Dislike regime which had so spoiled Harriet for them since September.
Do you feel this is better, Gary and Margo? Do you feel relieved that the velvet glove has come off at last, and that there’s no more pretense at openness or respect for opposing views?
Can The Poetry Foundation not accept the fact that the real world is full of contrary opinions, not to speak of poetry? Will there be no more awkward discussions in the lab of Travis Nichols’ new “experiment?” Is that the idea, to surrender all our differences as well as our hopes for a better world?
Dah Daa. Enter The New Thing!
Christopher Woodman said,
December 23, 2009 at 4:31 am
John Oliver Simon, as rock steady a Harriet regular as you could wish for, has had a comment deleted as well. Apparently he tried to discuss W.F.Kammann’s ex-Comment, so inevitably a deletion followed that other deletion.
Let’s just guess about the motives of everybody.
And stay tuned!
C.
Christopher Woodman said,
December 23, 2009 at 8:40 am
But they leave this one up — guess they have to now that the whole issue is getting blown open.
Just in case it gets deleted before you get to see it:
Rare indeed — anyone dare to discuss what’s going on here, what is more to discuss it in our lingua franca? How could it possibly have come to this?
C.
thomasbrady said,
December 23, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Simon is the hero of the day, like the boy who questions the emperor’s clothes.
Excuse me, Simon asks, what happened to that comment?
Now Simon’s comment on the vanished comment has been disappeared from Harriet.
Hey, Mr. Nichols, Mr. Share, it’s just poetry. It’s not national security. Shouldn’t democracy apply?
Harriet links all the time. Kammann’s link (to Scarriet) was completely on-topic.
Mmmmm.
Christopher Woodman said,
December 24, 2009 at 4:56 am
But it’s still not South America, Tom, and look who says it? John Oliver Simon is really rocking the PFoA rock!
And what was it W.F.Kammann said anyway, I’ve forgotten? Good Lord, it must have been awful — I mean, even John Oliver Simon wasn’t allowed to comment on it, so it must have been something much worse than those dreadful slanders of Pablo de Rohka and Neruda.
Makes you not want to even think about it!
Christopher Woodman said,
December 26, 2009 at 1:37 am
Who can wait for it or who can wait for it?
RE-ENTER TERRESON!
John Oliver Simon asks just above, “Shall we lay odds on the passive-aggressive righteous wounded victim, or the huffing dismissive hollow dominant?”
The “huffing dismissive” Terreson, the Maverick Flamer who tries to sound passive-aggressive, assassinates posters on his own site if, like Trotsky, they fight the same fight but won’t carry his banner. So he’ll “wait and see”, he tells us — which means, like Gary, he still can’t keep away from Harriet’s honey:
The thread’s not too slender in Terreson’s case, as the previous deletions, one of a comment by William Kammann and the other by John Oliver Simon, don’t seem to bother him at all. But then he’s into that sort of self-delusion himself. His ears are so blocked and his skin so thick he obviously hasn’t noticed!
thomasbrady said,
December 26, 2009 at 3:04 am
Let’s give Tere the benefit of the doubt; maybe he didn’t know of the Kammann and Simon deletions–after all, that’s the whole point, right? Erase, and then carry on like everything’s fine…
“Off-topic” on Harriet is simply anything which offends, even slightly, the po-biz system. There’s a pecking order of distinguished prize winners who validate everything from English departments at universities to publishing houses, large or small, to distinguished persons in related fields who in turn support other departments and other institutions. So, for instance, if a guy with a Pulitzer wants to make potty mouth insults which have nothing to do with anything, this is not “off-topic,” as long as the pecking order is followed. Franz Wright (Pulitzer) can insult Henry Gould (no Pulitzer) with foul language. Harriet is happy to let this occur. But if Gould used foul language to insult Franz Wright, how fast do you think Gould’s comment would be deemed “off-topic” and deleted? The “topic” Harriet has in mind is not really a “topic” as in a topic of conversation; no, the unspoken “topic” as Harriet secretly defines it, is this pecking order, and sticking to it. The “smart” guys like Travis Nichols implicitly ‘get’ this pecking order business, but people like Desmond Swords and Christopher Woodman and Alan Cordle are offended by the whole idea, as all decent people should be.
Christopher Woodman said,
December 26, 2009 at 3:51 am
Here’s an example of a comment I tried to post 3 times on Harriet, each time pruning it back a little to try to find out why it was deemed unacceptable. The answer was, of course, John Ashbery! — but who knows, there may even have been some sensitivity toward it’s larger subject, that poetry MUST be political or die a slow death (like Harriet!)
This is the final version I tried to post on Eileen Myles’ thread called POST ON THE POST which was about precisely what I’m talking about in the comment. It was immediately put on “awaiting moderation” and then was deleted 5 days later when I was banned altogether.
Christopher Woodman said,
December 26, 2009 at 4:33 am
To be completely frank, I also suspect this comment may have been deleted because the Poetry Foundation Management had already decided to ban the four of us a long time before September 1st, and the comment was obviously throwing a very big and nasty spanner in those works!
Well, they got rid of me but they got Scarriet!
And, of course, they got the New Look Harriet that has Travis Nichols so excited! [click here]
thomasbrady said,
December 26, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Politics can hurt and ravage to the point where it can destroy art. Yet art needs a certain amount of political (moral) awareness, even if it isn’t overtly moral or political.
Christopher, Harriet had you talking in such a way that you couldn’t help but talk about yourself because their Big Brother attitude forced you to keep justifying what you were saying, and then I’m sure Harriet kept reading your posts and remarking to themselves, ‘there he goes, everyone, talking about himself! that megalomaniac!’ And it became this feedback loop of horror, where one part of you desperately wanted to please and the other part of you wanted to lash out. Bad combination. This is what happened as soon as Harriet became irrationally censorious with you. They took an innocent person and turned him into the devil.
They never blocked any of my posts. They never had a problem with anything I specifically wrote. I just woke up one morning and found I was cut off. They never screwed with my head, but they sure tried with you, Christopher. I don’t know why you bring out the sadist in people. But keep on keepin’ on, Christopher! The valley of the Harriet nightmare is over. We’re free.
bluehole said,
December 27, 2009 at 12:41 am
Travis Nichols and his friends feature prominently in the Foetry Book. So I wouldn’t say the Harriet nightmare is over . . . it’s just beginning for the Poetry Foundation. Happy New Year everyone!
Christopher Woodman said,
December 27, 2009 at 4:06 am
Thanks, Alan — and I can’t wait to read the book!!!
Any idea about when it might hit the shelves? Or do we get to do an advance review on Scarriet?
C.
Christopher Woodman said,
December 27, 2009 at 4:14 am
Tom,
It’s very true they never blocked any of your posts, and indeed behind the scenes at The Poetry Foundation you were being discussed as a possible ‘Contributing Writer’ at the time. That was in June 2009. Early in July we received dire warning letters from Travis Nichols, and then shortly after the official announcement of the “new” Like/Dislike Regime went up, so obviously just the opposite of what might have happened, was already happening!
The only way you can explain this swiftness is that there were, in fact, two parties slugging it out behind the scenes at Harriet, one which liked the way the site was opening up, a wonderful new-world poetry wildflower, and another which wanted to close it down, lay out its proprietary little hot-house plants, hoe, weed and discipline the plot for its own suburban-academic vision of the “new Harriet” [click here] instead.
Here’s a copy of an e-mail I received from the On-Line Editor of The Poetry Foundation on June 16th, 2009. A post of mine was deleted, and Catherine Halley wrote me to apologize, telling me it had been the mistake of an inexperienced monitor (?). In thanking her I brought up the subject of you, Thomas Brady, as you were obviously the heart and soul of Harriet at the time, suggesting that you be considered as a ‘Contributing Writer.’ Catherine Halley wrote back very generously, as she always did:
Such a positive response suggests there must have been some jockeying going on behind the scenes at the same time – and not every board member seems to have agreed with Travis Nichols’ attack upon you, Thomas Brady, even for “length!” In the end a cynical decision was obviously made by the PFoA, a puscht was gotten underway, 3 of the most active members were expelled altogether, including Thomas Brady, and everyone else who felt uncomfortable with what was happening simply left. Those who remained behind either liked it as it was or didn’t care, and of course everybody pretended nothing had happened.
Not a single comment was posted about any of this in the following weeks and months after our dismissal. Even Gary B. Fitzgerald and Terreson, the only remaining regulars who might have cared, remained compliant.
And then Amber Tamblyn spoke – and the rest is history!
Christopher
Christopher Woodman said,
December 27, 2009 at 4:36 am
I think my reply to Catherine Halley is also interesting — I had such hope at this point, and the relationship with Catherine Halley, and indeed the whole of Harriet, felt so positive.
As to what I say about Thomas Brady, here it all is uncensored. Was I right in my guesses about him? Well, believe it or not I still don’t know!
thomasbrady said,
December 27, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Christopher,
Don Share lost patience with me at least twice on Harriet, hissy fits really, not very attractive from someone in his position, especially someone who supposedly with no authority, per se, on the Harriet-blog, a ‘Poetry’ magazine editor, Share a self-professed old-fashioned believer in hard copy worth, and supposedly he’s neutral re: the blog itself. Interesting how they say Harriet traffic is small compared to the whole Poetry Foundation site’ traffic, and yet Share takes such an interest in Blog-Harriet. The ‘pecking order’ rule says, however, that his tantrums were my fault, not his. He got mad, I didn’t. He lost face. I did not. I think that was my doom.
You got in trouble for what you said about the living (Levine, Houlihan, Harriet management, etc); I got in trouble for what I said about the dead (Jeffers, Poe, Ransom, etc).
Your mistake seems to have been writing private messages to Harriet management; mine, not to have done so, at all.
We’re both learning how powerful foetry is, Christopher. Fools, we keep thinking it’s about the poetry.
Thomas
Christopher Woodman said,
December 30, 2009 at 3:54 am
Tom,
If I might be so bold, I make the mistake of being too enthusiastic and open, I think, and much too frank. I don’t hide behind scholarship, position, or connections, partly because I’m so old I don’t have to worry about how I look, and partly because I’m so out of the loop I haven’t got a single master or obligation I must observe. That makes me extremely difficult to handle, as you can’t shame me into line.
When I wrote my initial e-mail in reply to Travis Nichols attack upon us, I cc’d my reply to a number of other Harriet participants at the time, including two Board Members and two Contributing Writers. Travis never forgave me for that indiscretion, and I was placed on “awaiting moderation” immediately, no explanation, no respite — until I was banned altogether almost 2 months later.
What Travis said is that I had sent abusive letters to the staff.
On the other hand, an important Contributing Writer replied like this:
A Board member concurred, praising me but also, take note, respecting Travis’ position.
That’s important, to see that a Board Member can respect me and still respect his or her professional obligations. Because, of course, Travis was suggesting I was playing one staff member off against another, whereas I was just making honest contact with everybody.
That’s what I do, Tom. That’s my blessed fault and sacred sin of Adam!
C.
majawalk said,
December 29, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Aw, how cute. The trolls have found a home of their own. Congratulations guys.
Christopher Woodman said,
December 30, 2009 at 1:51 am
Dear Majawalk,
We were pleased to have your comment on Scarriet and hope that the latter part of it was what you really meant.
As I understand it, a troll on the internet is a negative voice that pops up from time to time with mocking comments that humiliate posters, interrupt discussions, and in general undermine the coherence of a site — and then the troll goes back into hiding under the bridge, taking no responsibility for the havoc he or she has wrecked.
There was never a moment when Tom, Desmond, Alan or myself behaved like that on Harriet. Whatever our views, we were always open, fair, respectful — and generous.
If you disagree with something on this site we would be very pleased to have your input, and will almost certainly get back to you. Indeed, nothing would please us more. We have a very large audience, but few visitors have the courage to engage us — or dare risk being associated with us, more likely. CVs. Position papers.
We do hope you are the exception and will actually want to join in our discussions. Indeed, we can go anywhere here, so please do feel free.
Christopher Woodman
thomasbrady said,
December 30, 2009 at 3:59 pm
majawalk,
It’s all about context, isn’t it? Look, now you are a troll.
You have no power here. Be gone! Before someone drops a house on you.
Thomas
bluehole said,
December 30, 2009 at 5:33 pm
I wonder what the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel’s policy is on trolling.
IMITATION IS FLATTERY — COPYING IS PATHETIC. « Scarriet said,
December 31, 2009 at 5:28 am
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