Someone at the Poetry Foundation doesn’t like me. They keep visiting this site, and as you can see in the screencapture below, opted to search for my name, along with mature words like “asshole” and “dumbshit.”
It could be Travis Nichols who seems to have his grips on the Poetry Foundation’s blog, Harriet. He didn’t like two posts I wrote about him, so they got deleted, despite their polite nature.
Someone has also banned three or more of the smartest commenters. They can now be found posting at Scarriet.
An Open Letter to Travis Nichols, Board Member in Charge of Blog:Harriet,
The Poetry Foundation
Dear Travis Nichols,
Blog:Harriet is an extremely important expression of the mission of the Poetry Foundation, a major organization to advance poetry all over the world. The Blog is there specifically to provide a forum for poets and lovers of poetry to express their views freely, regardless of what poetry school they come from, who they know, or whom they serve.
You, Travis Nichols, have just presided over a very messy, introverted coup d’état on Harriet. Not only have you banned a whole group of enthusiastic and positive outsiders, you have protected insiders who have been negative for months, a group who were regularly trashing those who would expand the discourse. Furthermore, and this is really damaging to the Foundation’s reputation, one of your clique is being compared to John O’Hara in POETRY right now. Indeed, you have let Harriet be taken over by a clique who are specifically located in Chicago and want to become a celebrated new ‘Chicago School.’ And you want Harriet to be their own private bandwagon!
This is disgraceful, and totally against the Foundation’s principles. Indeed, you should resign.
I myself am one of the posters whom your friend Michael Robbins, the new O’Hara, regularly trashes, and you have done the same yourself, mocking me in public a number of times. Furthermore, way back at the end of May when I was just beginning, I had a whole post deleted, poof, just like that. I complained to the Webmaster and got a very nice letter back not from you but from the On-line Editor herself assuring me the deletion was just the mistake of an inexperienced monitor.
The subject was already Foetry!
The On-line Editor also assured me that I could repost what had been deleted, but because four days had past by then, and it was no longer relevant, I didn’t. When I finally did, I posted a much longer and more detailed Comment on the same matter, and was not only thanked by Martin Earl for it but he even bothered to go to my site, read a poem of my own, and to praise it (it was idiot simple and unprofessional, but still he liked it!).
I think you, Travis Nichols, should have taken a page from Martin Earl’s book. As the editor in charge of Harriet you should be welcoming and tolerant, not engage in cyber-cleansing as you did.
And those were the good old days, so good that they terrified you, Travis Nichols and Michael Robbins – yes, you felt you were losing control of the field!
Well, THE FIELD’S NOT YOURS, I’m writing this letter to tell you. Indeed, it’s the biggest mission of Foetry of all to see to it that it isn’t yours, so no wonder you were so afraid right from the start. For opposing the insidious take-overs of poetry people like you is Foetry’s main mission. The Contest was just the tip of the iceberg right at the beginning — because the Contest was so visible it was possible for Alan Cordle to prove that influence was actually being peddled, even in poetry. Indeed, he always made it clear where he was headed, and still is.
A revelation, influence peddling in poetry, but you still haven’t got it. That’s why you’ve gone to such lengths to hide it!
Yes, resign, Travis Nichols. You must resign and hand over the management of Harriet to someone not in cahoots with anyone, someone who is large enough to rejoice in the Irish outrage of a Desmond Swords, in the genius fun and challenge of a Thomas Brady, and even in the stutterings of an old poetaster like me.
We’re not better, just worth it as much as a Michael Robbins, and because we’re also funnier we’re healthier!
Christopher Woodman
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