FIFTY-ODD YEARS OF PISSING OFF POETS

Dear Editor:
A History of Poetry in Letters
edited by Joseph Parisi & Stephen Young
W.W. Norton & Co., 2002

You know what the truth is?
Somebody is going to like your poem.
It may not be Harriet Monroe,
but there is an editor for each poem.
The editor may be your cat, but each soul has her/his soul mate.
Perhaps it's the kid at the quick change oil salon.
You could be the favorite poet of a war-crazed president.
Maybe your therapist likes you for more than your money.
It can happen, don't kill yourself over it.

In his new book, Dear Editor, meta-mega-rich Poetry editor Joseph Parisi chronicles all the bitch fights conducted among the famous poets and the editors of Poetry magazine over the last 50 years. WCW says something to the effect that once you start calling yourself an editor you must edit. The basic theme of this book: Editors are kind-hearted buttheads. Hey, everybody has an opinion, especially when it's wrong. Even when Monroe made changes in the famous second-tier poems of the last century's poetry bigwigs, they most often simply changed the poems back when they were published in later books. Why was she such a fussbudget? She didn't edit any red wheelbarrows.

What's missing from Dear Editor are the letters from lesser known poets whose work didn't get published in Poetry, the letters that read:

Dear *&^%$# Editor:

You couldn't &*(&(*&^% If ^(&(&%%$
#@$##@ !!!!!! if &&^^&**(( !!!!
??^%$$### ??%$#### your **&^%%$

I remain
Best,

Mrs. Amanda McKittrick Ros

I am not saying we should nuke editors. I just think being an American gives me the right to choose as my favorite a poem about how poems are ugly and useless compared to trees and isn't that right? I mean, you can't build a house out of poems unless you use cut-down trees in thin sheets all stacked up into walls and stuff.

Vachel Lindsey was the first performance poet. He gained his fame at a Poetry dinner for Yeats, where he hoo-doo'ed his racist masterpiece “The Congo.” (For something with less “Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom...,” read his paean to Kansas.) He was the last performance poet to be loved and coddled by Poetry. These editors didn't just reject and meddle; they loved and coddled too. Vachel Lindsay killed himself. He drank a bottle of Lysol. He loved Sara Teasdale. She wouldn't marry him because a guy who wants to walk around the country trading poems for loaves of bread is not good husband material. She said he made love well, beating his voodoo-sized drum. She killed herself too. She never had kids.

See, even when you publish poets and get them cash awards, they kill themselves. Can you imagine how many poets kill themselves when they get rejected by Poetry? Or do only the good ones kill themselves? Are we only interested in good, young corpses? Take poet Maxwell Bodenheim for instance, getting gunned down in that Bowery flophouse, all those years ago. Was his slutty wife to blame? Isn't that interesting? Wouldn't you like to walk by the site on a poetry walking tour?

WHAT TO DO WITH ALL THAT MONEY
Can you believe Ruth Lilly gave Poetry $100 f…king million dollars? After they rejected her. Can you imagine how much money she would have given if they had published her? Did you know she is legally incompetent?

Here are ten things I would like see Parisi do with the money:

1. Start low cost health insurance for poets.
   
   
2. Combine poetry with animation and create a Saturday morning poetry cartoon show.
   
   
3. Create a school for poets to learn to work with digital video.
   
   
4. Give 100 grants a year to poets for innovative programming ideas. Pinsky doesn't get to decide what is innovative.
   
   
5. Pick ten poets by lottery and give them funds and a place to write for a year. The lottery aspect will insure no one “type” of poetry is favored, bringing the magazine back to its roots.
   
   
6. Buy 100,000 poetry books to be given away by poets standing outside big-box discount clubs. Buy the 100,000 books from poets willing to stand outside a store with their books.
   
   
7. Create a school for poets to learn public speaking skills from top actors; have the actors and poets engage in the exchange of greasy popcorn and ice cubes.
   
   
8. Bring a wide range of poets to the moon.
   
   
9. Create a poetry video game based on the Poetry Slam with quick skin, fast cars and poetry guns.
   
   
10. Bring back the laurel wreath -- laurel wreaths for each and every poet!

Gary Mex Glazner