'How-To', by Anders Carlson-Wee

For more of this poet's work, visit his website here.

Please join me in not visiting the poetry section of The Nation, where the poetry editors, Steph Burt and Carmen Giménez Smith, after having published this poem, disgracefully caved to public pressure and announced that its acceptance had been a mistake.

The poem was said to be 'ableist' and 'disparaging of many communities'. In the words of the editors: "We made a serious mistake by choosing to publish the poem 'How-To'. We are sorry for the pain we have caused to the many communities affected by this poem." I don't even know where to start. It may be that Burt and Giménez Smith simply have a completely different understanding of what poetry is, and of what pain is, than I do. I will say bluntly that I do not believe that any communities were in fact caused pain by this poem. I do not think that is possible. 

Burt and Giménez Smith also write that as a result of the pressure on them, they are now 'unable to read' the poem as they had initially done (i. e., one supposes, charitably). I can't guess what was going on in their heads, but in their actions these two editors have chosen to place their trust in the ever-shifting winds of online outrage rather than in their own reading ability, i.e., their own capacities as editors. They are unfit for the position they were given, and should resign.

I for my part apologise for having agreed to interview them a few months back, when they had taken on their new position. I cannot say, from our conversation and from what I read by and about them at the time, that I did not see this coming. 

*

If you got hiv, say aids. If you a girl,
say you’re pregnant––nobody gonna lower
themselves to listen for the kick. People
passing fast. Splay your legs, cock a knee
funny. It’s the littlest shames they’re likely
to comprehend. Don’t say homeless, they know
you is. What they don’t know is what opens
a wallet, what stops em from counting
what they drop. If you’re young say younger.
Old say older. If you’re crippled don’t
flaunt it. Let em think they’re good enough
Christians to notice. Don’t say you pray,
say you sin. It’s about who they believe
they is. You hardly even there.

Comments

[Picador]

Holy hell. To quote an old ableist adage that reinforces stigma surrounding mental illness, the lunatics are running the asylum.

I see what you mean about seeing this coming. From your interview:

"I think I would name Auden and Randall Jarrell rather than Frost, there. Frost's politics are authentically terrifying."

... and therefore his poems are no good, presumably.

You know whose politics were "authentically terrifying"? The men whose poems gave us Gilgamesh, Achilles, Beowulf, Krishna, Scheherazade, Lear. Burn their books now, before the Red Guard finds them on your bookshelf.

[MargaretJay]

Several online sources published the poem as printed above and I thought maybe it was an excerpt with some terribly vile lines omitted. Then I learned that this was the entire offensive pain-causing ableist disparaging poem. WTF, I thought. Have we finally reached the bottom of this national wallowing in trigger warnings and self-centered narcissism that claims for itself all categories of speech or suffering with no allowance for empathy or attempts at interpretation? Would the poems of Langston Hughes be misappropriation when he writes in standard white English?

The Nation is, of course, a cowardly one-note magazine, but in this case, it got too many “up-votes” from the public. I, for one, long ago chose not to read anything in The Nation, so I definitely won’t be reading any poetry.

[Martin]

This whole thing seems to me like a plot to publicize poetry. And it worked! I liked this poem very much. Thanks NY Times for your cover story linking me to this poem.

[Bob Blank]

Holy smokes,
He writes like folks
You see on the streets
of America
Slipping some a dollar or two,
Or burger coupons for another few,
But hold on, sonny!
It's not about the money,
Or how we view 'em,
it's about rhyme and meter
and your lack of them,
for even Ted Joans was not
that far gone, and kept the momentum,
that made his fame,
alas, Mr. Wee, you're not made of the same.

[Emmer Parker]

I am an older woman (a liberal working in the arts community, who used to subscribe to The Nation long ago) and I have only recently become interested in poetry. The condemnation of Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” by her own daughter is what led me down the rabbit hole where I finally found Plath’s wonderful poetry.

I became aware of Anders Carlson-Wee’s poem through an article in the New York Times and I find this poem to be quite brilliant. I also find The Nation to be cowardly and poetry editors Stephanie Burt and Carmen Giménez Smith to be a couple of knee-jerking twits. Mr. Carlson-Wee is owed an apology.