it felt good to have ignored this press for 4 yrs, occasionally reading a poem whenever a friend was published but for the most part vocally expressing my opinion of this literary collection of text c. 2001 as “problematic”
i’ve since read ellen’s other writing and enjoyed it without much internal struggle, something that I enjoyed to enjoy given the irreconcilable political differences in the ~10 sentences I read from her yrs prior in what I now think is a somewhat brave article to publish unanonymously given the climate of our mutual social media at the time, for context, I’m writing this some weeks after someone I was peripherally friend’s with on social media has, (I would find enjoyment it calling ironic if these two events didn’t happen yrs apart but hoping I can still find some moral maybe,) called me a rape apologist and told me to “stay the fuck away from their safe spaces,” not something you want to hear but something that may happen from time to time if your opinion differs with someone of privileged socioeconomic class on facebook
anyway, since bud smith is guest editing this month I thought I would give a quick shout out to him: sup bud, thought I’d actually submit something to this thing even though I hate the process of submitting poetry to be slowly peer reviewed
there’s very few presses that I’m actually interested in associating with, and if you’re a poet or writer, I encourage you to feel the same way I do
no one is doing you a favor by publishing you, and you will learn more as a writer by developing relationships w ppl of similar thought and aesthetics as you than you would by getting impersonal publications in a literary magazine that’s over 10 yrs old
weird leftbook fails in community building similarly to how the majority of larger literary magazines have, which seems only natural given similar synthetic hierarchies being imposed on us, and encourage mainly poets to branch out to other communities for artistic support, as well as cultivate personal relationships with one another rather than caring about your projected online brand
like in ellen’s essay, which I’ve reread in full (80%) since beginning this, I relate to feeling like this piece is also losing it’s train of thought but am dissuaded in editing it too heavily given my aforementioned soft-contempt for literary institutions such as this one and am inclined to copy/paste and finish this poem with an unfinished portion of a poem I recently gave up on:
we are the silent majority of a vocal minority
like atheists, born as anarchists
we learn from tumblr posts to expect the harmed to push agendas
i ask those performating their politics online what one nonbinary noise-punk vocalist from bushwick put nicely: "why should I trust you if you have no relevant experience or haven't put in the hours? Why should I care? And why do you get to chastise me and everyone else? What qualifies you to tell your friends what to do?"
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