The Advocates… Dubious and Questionable

Freedom of expression should include debate regarding all points of view. Poets & Writers, Inc., a prime cog of the literary/publishing establishment, certainly does NOT do that. When some points of view are excluded, freedom of expression is diminished to the point of becoming restricted expression.

My diverse experiences criticizing P&W, a de facto for-profit non-profit, clearly indicate that it is not really a proponent of freedom of expression. For example, it will not respond to an iota of criticism, let alone encourage and publish it.

And yet an email recently sent by P&W presented the organization as a champion of freedom of expression. It then concluded with a request for money (donations) so it could fight against the Trump administration’s “Executive Order restricting the use of federal funds to ‘promote gender ideology.’”

Well, it would have been far better if the Trump administration had ordered the restriction of funding to organizations with huge assets and well-salaried personnel. The total assets of P&W, for example, are $10.69 million! And it generates “nearly $3.9 million annually through magazine subscriptions, donations, and grants”! The “Nonprofit Explorer” ProPublica provides the details. Cause IQ, another interesting organization, provides even deeper details. P&W’s editor-in-chief Kevin Larimer’s salary of $158,232 and Executive Director Melissa Ford Gradel’s salary of $220,536 are quite hefty for a so-called non-profit. It would seem that the very concept of non-profit has become egregiously corrupted by organizations like P&W, which, according to AI, has been receiving an annual sum of $25,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). According to P&W, however, it has received more than that. In 2019, for example, it received $70,000.

Larimer/Gradel begin their email with the following statement: “Last fall, Poets & Writers made the difficult decision to turn down funding from the National Endowment for the Arts because the agency’s current review criteria are a direct affront to our values and to free expression.” And yet, why would the NEA (i.e., Government) be funding an organization with such high-salaried employees and assets like P&W?  It refused to fund the non-profit journal I’ve been publishing since 1998, which has NO ASSETS and my salary, considering the time I put into each issue, is essentially in the negative. In other words, as a nonprofit, I do not profit.

The NEA’s rejection of my request was simple and childish name-calling without an iota of detail: “artistic merit of the publication is low; the design and readability of the publication is [sic] poor.” What precisely might the definition of “artistic merit” encompass? DEI conformity? Do the NEA judges possess poor eyesight and need better eyeglasses? As a citizen, I requested a more specific explanation. As a cultural bureaucracy, the NEA refused to respond to that request. Long before the Trump administration’s rightful assault on the ideologically-driven NEA, I chose to break the great taboo of openly criticizing the it via essays and satirical cartoons. Again, in the darkness of the cultural bureaucracy, the cultural bureaucrats (curator censors) were unresponsive, as you can see here. Why would P&W not give a damn about that, if indeed it were truly a champion of freedom of expression? Silence is not golden, nor is it somehow an intrinsic element of the latter! And yet for the NEA and Larimer/Gradel it clearly is.

The email further noted that “We recently took further action. Poets & Writers joined a group led by the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) in filing an amicus brief urging the courts to uphold an earlier decision prohibiting the NEA’s implementation of the Trump Administration’s Executive Order restricting the use of federal funds to ‘promote gender ideology.’” Sadly, the NCAC is yet another organization that refuses to respond to hardcore criticism with its regard. It too embraces the concept of silence is golden. The real question, the one Larimer/Gradel and the NCAC fail to pose, is whether or not the NEA has been disproportionately supporting (funding) DEI organizations, which it has probably been doing in the same darkness of the academic/literary machine, which includes P&W. Government grants should be objectively issued. Clearly, they are not.

The email’s third statement is questionable, to say the least: “Poets & Writers is proud to stand with the NCAC and other arts organizations in insisting that the NEA stop discriminating against transgender people. We stand with trans writers. We stand for the full humanity of every person. And we stand firmly against censorship in all its forms.” First, the concept of “trans” is in itself aberrant in seeking to replace biological reality and rude truth. Moreover, P&W does NOT stand for the full humanity (whatever the hell that means!) of every person. Again, my personal experience with its regard proves the point. And clearly, it sure as hell does NOT stand firmly against censorship. If it did, it would not be shadow banning critical poets and writers from its pages, as if they didn’t even exist. Shame on it and its editors for making such a fraudulent self-aggrandizing statement. In essence, it simply emphasizes that its editors, writer and poet minions are no better than political hacks. Shame on Larimer and Gradel.

In conclusion, the email declares “we need to raise $50,000.” And yet, are there no DEI pro-bono lawyers out there willing to help P&W further entrench DEI-ideological unreality into the realm of writing ? Why does it not stipulate precisely what the money would be used for? And why does it not simply get the money from its own huge assets?

Then, days later, yet another email arrived.  More hypocrisy of course!

Dear Writer,

Poets & Writers is committed to democratizing access to information about how to get published and helping writers from all backgrounds, identities, and circumstances share their voices. That’s why we work so hard to provide free resources for writers. 

How to explain the total absence of critical writing in its pages and its blatant refusal to publish any information and opinions that I send it? Does that sound like “democratizing”? How does its shadow-banning of my voice jive with its statement? Does that not chill my artistic expression? Ah, but I am not a trans. The email then repeats.

It’s also why we recently signed on to an amicus brief urging the courts to uphold an earlier decision blocking the NEA’s vague, discriminatory review criteria that chill artistic expression and harm transgender writers and artists. […] If Poets & Writers has played a role in your writing life, please join us in supporting an uncensored literary landscape by making a gift today. 

And so, how does its own censoring of critical voices somehow make it a supporter of “an uncensored literary landscape,” let alone jive with its new mantra: “Freedom of expression is non-negotiable”? It is truly sad just how closed the bulk of literati tend to be with regards to hardcore criticism and alt-points of view. Their doors tend overwhelmingly to be hermetically closed. Test the waters of democracy and inevitably you will agree with that statement. If you choose not to test the waters and turn a blind eye, you will end up choosing ad hominem to dismiss the rare individuals who do test them.