Dodgefestival2000

  The sad part of Gov. Jim McGreevey's effort to censor poet Amiri Baraka is that it takes the whole state senate to fire him, a senate that has still not managed a way to fairly fund public schools or feed and cloth the growing population of needy. This same senate can bicker for months over what to do about the budget, but when several Jewish activist groups call for Baraka's head, these senators jump.                 If standing up for a principle defines courage in our time of shifting ethical standards, and then we are a state thick with coward -- particularly our public officials that cower to special interest groups. Are these senators so blind to their communities that they don't understand that Baraka doesn't only speak for himself and that if Baraka believes something, then so do other people in his community? By censoring Baraka, our senators do a disservice to both blacks and Jews, by feeding t...

    Seeing the man again at the gate to this year's Dodge Poetry Festival startled me, partly because I had not seen him since we drove him home from the last festival two years ago, and partly because he looked so thin. Whereas I had reviewed his poetry as part of my newspaper coverage, his appearance had always defied the stereotype of poet. He did not have the feminine features so commonly painted over poets by the general public. Indeed, he looked more like what the public might think of as a truck driver with a rugged face that would have made the U.S. Marines proud -- features overly emphasized in September 2002 by his loss of weight. Like most poets I reviewed, he didn't always agree with my interpretations of his work. But he told me often my opinions made him think. Until our last encounter at the 2000 Dodge, we had remained professional acquaintances, each of us nodding as we passed each other on the streets of Hoboken or Jersey City. Then, we found him wan...

    Governor Jim McGreevey and the New Jersey Arts Elite attacked poet Amiri Baraka for a passage of a poem he read at the Dodge Poetry Festival in September. McGreevey -- who is hardly a freedom of speech advocate and who earlier in the year tried to clamp down on information journalists might have access to (making New Jersey the most restrictive state for public information in the country) -- demanded Baraka's resignation as New Jersey Poet Laureate. McGreevey has been deluged by pro-Israel groups to remove Baraka after Baraka questioned whether or not Israel knew of before hand of the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 and deliberately ordered its citizens to stay away from the buildings. Although Governor has no power to remove Baraka -- and Baraka has refused to leave the post -- McGreevey could eliminate the position for which Baraka receives $10,000 per year. Baraka's remarks came in the middle of a poem several hundred lines long, part of a q...

  The gathering of the five  U.S.  poet laureates was never meant as a contest, although a few poets viewed it that way. David Messineo, founder and editor of Sensations literary magazine, reported his take on the events of that night. He had made it to the festival late on the last day -- although in previous years he and his staff had maintained a tent where they distributed information about their magazine. "It was the first time in 6 years I had the opportunity to hear the Poet Laureates read," he informed me later. "I heard the full programs by Rita Dove, Robert Haas, Robert Pinsky, Stanley Kunitz, and Billy Collins. I thought Pinsky was the best of the five: his poem "The Shirt" was fantastic, and a poem he did related to September 11 was one of the best I've heard on the subject. I liked the different cultures and perspectives that Rita Dove brought to her work." This was the second time he had heard Stanley Kunitz, and thought the over 90-year ...

  Although poets jokingly called the Dodge Festival "Wordstock" to convey the feelings and magnitude the event had for them, this year's festival actually managed to live up to the level of myth-making. For the grand finale, the best of the best in American poetry took to the podium. While I am still not completely clear on the criteria for becoming a  New Jersey  or  United   State  poet laureate, I do realize that talent plays an immense part.   In  New Jersey , of course, the selection process involves a clique of self-important purveyors of poetic powers, mostly academics -- who have hooked onto the government's coat tails, taking charge of issuing grants and such to particular groups of worthy people throughout the state. These funds often as not go to poets whose output would rarely be agreeable to the taxpayers forced to foot the bill -- the way taxpayers were forced to pay for what they considered offensive art on display at the  Broo...

  Like most Americans of good conscience in the post 9/11 world, the poets at the Dodge Festival struggled to present their peace platform without appearing anti-patriotic. With the exception of Baraka -- and on Sunday night, Pinsky -- few ventured to present a sharply political opposition to the upcoming war with  Iraq , and even when they issued their lukewarm statements only about half the audience clapped.   Yet as careful as these poets were, they could not shed their growing horror at the mad man they believed occupied the White House, or of the great regret they felt at  America 's perception that the countries we planned to attack were somehow culturally inferior to our own. As much as public propaganda makes savages of those we would fight, in fact, much of what is central to our own culture can trace its roots back to that part of the world. Many of the masterpieces from that region date from ages before Shakespeare or even The Bible.   Of The two nigh...