In solidarity
Small acts in response to genocide
As one of 2000+ signatories on a letter to The Poetry Foundation board last year1, I don’t know whether my individual name or voice has actual impact on the Poetry Foundation. And whatever minuscule impact that might be, it’s even less disruptive to the greater powers that uphold the Zionist occupation and ongoing genocide of Palestinians. But no matter how small the effect, it’s mine to contribute, and poetry is a world I spend a lot of time in.
This week I was asked to teach a workshop for the Poetry Foundation in the summer for a not small amount of money. Under other circumstances, I would have jumped all over the request. I asked them if the board had responded to the letter at all, most notably the following three (reasonable) demands:
Take a stand against imperialism Zionist settler colonialism of Palestinian land and the genocide of the Palestinian people
Commit to supporting, instead of censoring, Palestinians and anti-Zionist voices.
Commit to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
My contact thanked me for my position and said they understood but that this was the official line from the Foundation board:
The Poetry Foundation is aware of the space it takes up in the poetry world, and we do not want to use that presence to divert attention away from the efforts of those who are actively involved, impacted, and organizing. Instead, the Foundation will continue to uplift the work being done by those people, where appropriate. If you know of any such efforts, such as fundraising readings and solidarity efforts by poets, please let us know. You can send that information to media@poetryfoundation.org.
So basically, they will pay in exposure.
I’m lucky to be in a position to be able to turn down this gig and not have it sting. The choice would have been harder at other times in my life. I don’t sit in judgment of those who didn’t sign the letter or who continue to work with the Foundation.
One of my favorite writers, Dr. Devon Price, recently withdrew from a speaking gig at SXSW because of that festival’s relationship to the Department of Defense and weapons manufacturer Raytheon.
In his post explaining that choice, he mentions, “None of us need the ‘platform’ offered by a pro-genocidal conference,” and he also shares what he would have said at SXSW. This helped me make my own decision more easily. I don’t need the Poetry Foundation, especially if they can’t make simple choices in support of Palestinians - choices that risk relatively little and that certainly wouldn’t result in a boycott with 50+ pages of signatories. What would they lose by committing to even one of the letter’s demands? Would it come close to what a single Gazan loses every day? Nah.
Onward.
The inciting incident for the letter and boycott was when POETRY Magazine decided to indefinitely shelf a review of sam sax’s Pig by Joshua Gutterman Tranen - an anti-Zionist Jewish writer responding to and critiquing the anti-Zionist messages of sax, who is also Jewish. That review was later published at The Poetry Project and can be read here. While it was written before the Hamas attack on Israelis on 10.7.23 and the subsequent, ongoing invasion of Gaza, the magazine purportedly decided not to publish it in light of those events as to not appear to be taking sides. The authors of the boycott letter do a good job explaining why not taking a side in this conflict IS taking a side and why it’s disingenuous to proffer that as a real reason for not sharing the review.