Context N°15
by Anne Burke
Boards, ya gotta love ’em . . .
It’s been less than a year since Poetry magazine was given 100 million dollars by Ruth Lilly. This is old news, as well as all the controversy about whether a single publication should be awarded this amount of money, and so on. What has not been much reported on is that Joe Parisi, the longtime editor of Poetry, “resigned” a few months ago “to pursue other interests.” It didn’t take much inquiry to find out that the resignation came about as a result of a conflict with his board about how the money should be used. The 100 million came as a result of Parisi’s practice of sending personal rejection letters (Ruth Lilly got one of them) and then (though this has never been widely publicized) managing at some point to interest Ruth Lilly in helping the magazine. Throughout this time, Poetry’s board of directors sat on their hands, perhaps setting some kind of record for the largest literary board in the country doing nothing (do keep in mind that one of the do-nothings is Eileen Mackevich, who heads the awful Humanities Festival in Chicago). But as soon as this 100 million arrived, the board got busy, and one of the first things it did was to get rid of Parisi.
Apologies to the Irish and everyone else . . .
I received a total of 139 letters and e-mails of complaint concerning certain comments I made about my travels to Ireland, Russia, and Germany this past year. In short, I suggested that the Irish in Dublin were drinking rather heavily and that one could observe Russian businessmen, while on their way to work, drinking large bottles of beer. Well, in “times likes these” in America, one is not supposed to say such things, even if they are true. What is strange to me is that I usually had a hard time detecting whether these complaints were coming from the Left or the Right—both seem to be equally intent upon censorship. These are scary times in which we live. I should also mention that 87 of the 139 complaints ended by saying that the letter writers were canceling their subscriptions to CONTEXT. Well, since this is a free publication, one can’t do that. Normally, the publisher of this magazine wouldn’t let me go on like this, always worried as he is about rocking someone’s boat, but (and this I didn’t report in the last issue) he, on this trip to Ireland, was mugged at seven at night on High Street by a gang of twenty-plus-year-olds; the policeman who arrived to investigate kept referring to them as “da byes.” This policeman was one Patrick (“Paddy”) Doolin. I could hardly understand a word he said, but he seemed to be suggesting that “tings” would go much harder for us were we to pursue legal action against “da byes.”. . . Yes, these are the kinds of things that one is not supposed to talk about in post-September 11 America. I don’t know why this is, but it simply is. As my grandmother from Kinsale, Co. Cork, used to say, “Go fook you-self.” But, I do apologize to all and everyone I may have offended by these past remarks.
And other apologies . . .
Special apologies to Charles “Chip” McGrath for the many times he or his New York Times Book Review has been scathed in these pages. Under his stewardship, the Review did in fact deteriorate even further (just when you thought that wasn’t possible!), but I suppose ten years from now people will look back upon this time as the glory days, as they do now for the time when John Leonard (God help us!) was the editor . . . And apologies for thinking (yes, even thinking) that there is so little American fiction of interest being written . . . And apologies for thinking that all American literary agents, save one, are ignorant pimps . . . And for thinking that the only interesting thing about the book-review editor of the Chicago Tribune, Elizabeth Taylor, is her name . . . And endless apologies to the MacArthur Foundation for accusing them of being arrogant hypocrites (whose new tag line should be: “and to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, promoting mediocrity everywhere”) . . . And to Mel “Barnum” Gibson . . . And to the town of LeRoy for being the butt of far too many jokes . . . And to almost all editors of poetry magazines who themselves are second-rate poets . . . And to the heads of English departments for just being second-rate . . . And to the hypocritical writers who take big career risks by criticizing Stephen King as THE example of what’s wrong with publishing when, of course, they aspire to BE Stephen King . . . And to NPR for creating those background sounds of real life that make the stories seem so interesting . . .
