Dodgefestival2000

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  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...

    Organizers of the Dodge, named the Saturday night ending ceremonies "Imagining a future: an evening of readings, reflection and music." The self-important craving of poets to sound like poets drives me crazy. They seek to envelop us in a bubble of effervescent bullshit the poetry must eventually struggle to live up to. In truth, poetry hardly conforms to themes. When it does it ceases being poetry and becomes propaganda.   Yet these hardworking master of craft gave it their best shot, conforming to rules set down about keeping their choices short and reading two poems -- one of which was not their own. Time for such created characters is always a challenge since they lacked the bureaucratic talents required in such events as these. These poets would do much worse on Sunday when confronting time constraints without theme or poem number limitations.   At no place did my vast ignorance of the poetry's range so reveal itself than during the Saturday evening festiviti...

    The meat and potatoes of the Dodge was a series organizers this year called the Poets among us. By meat and potatoes (I hope I spelled that right) I mean the middle and upper level practitioners of poetry who gather in the tents through the village to read their poetry. This is not the theoretical "how my life has been magically transported through my dedication to craft" crap, but instead the craft itself, each poet presenting us with his or her art.   Here I must insert a disclaimer. I am a narrative poet fan. Lyrical or totally image-based verse doesn't do a thing for me. Give me the tail of a sailor lost in a sea full of angry gods and I'm completely with you. But track life via the angle of a hanging toenail through various weather and moods of light and I'm out the door.   Some people are particular to the clash of images, getting their kicks out of the thunder and lightning of eclectic poems, the repeated rhythms of crashing waves, of mood swings or int...

  I realized later after New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey called for Amiri Baraka to resign as the state's poet laureate that we had not heard the version of the poem that had incited so many Jewish groups to hate Baraka. After being booed by poets whose distant relations once saw the Nazi burning books (as well as people), Baraka cut those six lines of apparently mistaken history surrounding the attack on the  World   Trade   Center  on Sept. 11 in later readings at the Dodge Festival. This act was later interpreted by the Jewish rights groups as Baraka's admission of guilt. In retrospect, I believe Baraka may have stumbled on some fundamental truth. There was indeed a Jewish conspiracy, one much more insidious than the wanton destruction of the twin towers. Jews didn't merely want to bring down our economy, but they wanted an even greater prize. They wanted to take over  New Jersey 's poetry scene. Didn't Baraka notice all the Jewish names associated with th...

  Any reasonably close study of poetry involves taking chances. At what point do you go beyond the author's intent? Are you picking up on unconscious elements even the author did not intend? Are you imposing upon the work your own limited view. The events surround  Sept. 11, 2001  and its anniversary a year later have left few untouched or created an unbiased basis upon which to begin a study like this. In fact, a shallow interpretation such as mine risks broad generalizations that the poem might not justify. In this study, I attempt to read what is in the work and try not to bring too much to it from outside the poem. In some cases, this is impossible, and I speculate on images or the meaning of passages. I also artificially divide subject areas. Poems of this quality do not break down easily into easily categories, so that this is a bit unfair, and you will find a strong overlap in each area. This said we begin.   WHO IS SPEAKING IN THIS POEM?   It is difficul...