Yup, folks - you read it here first - I've been banned from The Critical Poet.

Here's what they wrote:

You have drawn negative attention repeatedly here. You know that. Some see it as a penchant for verbal jousting and caginess. I don't care anymore about the details, or whether you might deny it. That negativity is taking up the board's time.

The basics here are simple: any member either fits socially with the group, or does not. It doesn't make you a bad person if you don't fit. People who can't adjust to their surroundings --who just don't fit in-- are no longer here. You are at that point. I'm sorry, but we must ban you from TCP, and it was not an easy decision nor one made impulsively. I hope you will recognize we gave you many chances to make it work here and it just hasn't. I sincerely wish you well in your writing,

And here I thought the basics were:

either a member posts poems and crits that are worth reading, or does not.

Live and lean, live and learn.

Interesting conversation with Demo about this very point here:

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(My post regarding Welles' famous speech from The Third Man - "In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.")

Alas, David, the question is not which discussion board has banned you, but which discussion board has not banned you. You are fortunate that Slate does not ban people "who can't adjust to their surroundings --who just don't fit."

MA

No, Mary Ann - it is Slate's readers who are fortunate that slate doesn't choose to ban people "who can't adjust to their surroundings - who just don't fit".

David, over the last few years, when you have announced you were banned from yet another poetry workshop shop, I would sometimes go there to see why you had been banned. I could see why some might consider you annoying or even a pain in the ass (now known, I guess, as a PITA), but I could not figure out why that should lead to banning.

As a former high school teacher, I would often run into PITAs. Kids were kicked out for being disruptive in class or being abusive to others, but certainly not for "verbal jousting" or for not adjusting to their suroundings. I enjoyed those who questioned Conventional Wisdom.

So it is a bit disappointing to see, on so many poetry discussion boards, a tendancy toward closed, homogeneous societies. Perhaps the moderators think someone different inhibits open discussion, but I don't see how. Perhaps they get personal messages complaining about you, but I don't know why that should be a problem either, since it's relatively easy to ignore someone on a discussion board.

I'm not going to check out The Critical Poet to see why you were banned, but last week I read the discussion between you and the poster named Seamus about your poem on feminists thru the centuries. I thought he did a fine job of skewering you on your Johnny-come-lately mention of reification. If I had been Seamus, I would have thought you a PITA and not bothered posting much to you in the future, but I don't think your "jousting" there merited banning.

(And no, you may not send a copy of my post to the head moderator at Critical Poet.)

: - )

MA

There is one and only one question you must ask yourself David, and that question is this: Has anyone at any of these so-called poetry forums ever done anything worth a flying fuck in your opinion? If not (which I have found to be the case in most instances...I mean we both know some folks who actually think posting their poems on their own site along with other people is publishing..a certain shitty magazine and editor comes to mind) then sticking around at these so-called forums is not a very wise idea anyway. Lookit, what passes for poetry at most of these soc-alled forums is pure unadulterated hogwash that no one in their right fucking mind would even consider. So there you go. Of course that's just my opinion...lol...

MaryAnne - I find it amusing that you dismiss the discussion of "reification" as "Johnny-Come-Lately".

Are you really that threatened by the idea that feminists have reified their heroines just as the patriarchy has always reified its villainesses?

I know what you're saying, Jack, but there are actually a handful of excellent "readers" at TCP, and I was able to improve three sonnets considerably as a result of their throwing down certain challenges.

Since all three are going to the Nemerov, the improvements are actually important - and that's the only thing I'll miss about TCP - the opportunity to be challenged by a few sharp people and improve as a resultt.

But as you say - the price is too high ...

MaryAnne - I find it amusing that you dismiss the discussion of "reification" as "Johnny-Come-Lately".

David, when I said "Johnny-come-lately," I was referring to something Seamus said in one of his last posts about the idea of "reification" not coming up earlier. (I think his point was that the idea of reification was not readily apparent in your poem.)

Are you really that threatened by the idea that feminists have reified their heroines just as the patriarchy has always reified its villainesses?

Not threatened at all. I just happened to use that particular poem as a recent example to discuss my comments on poetry discussion boards, which were the main focus of my comments.

MaryAnn
(not MaryAnne, who, as you know, is someone else on Slate)

Yeah - sorry about that "e" - I still do it once in a while.

Anyway, I want you to know I really do appreciate the metropoetical attitude you expressed in your post - I just bridled at the Johnny comment. (For another expression of the same metropoetical attitude, see bernie/mojave's comment in Palaver and Natter at webdelsol writers block.)

But regarding whether reification shoul have been considered upon first read by anyone (including Seamus), isn't it sad that folks don't give other folks the benefit of the doubt - they just assume that if it looks like misogyny and smells like misogyny, then it must be misogyny.

I mean even folks as sharp as Zeeb sometimes fall prey to this error - he just never got the point of my "situational misogyny" post.

Nice chattin with you

tNT

Dear TNT:

I figured I might mount the barricades for a minute to say what a positive impact your presence on this particular list at Slate has had for me. Despite your reputation as a ferociously poetic outlaw, one I'm sure you must savor as well as resent, I have found you a really helpful critic and back channel companion. You were able to patiently listen to my reasons for rhyming, suggest useful alternatives, and generally deal with my angst in a kind and attentive way.

One of the fun things you shared with me was the perfect blend you draw between pop culture and the classical artistic cannon. I think your foindness for drawing on the vocabulary and references of one world and inserting them into the voabulary and references of another probably lifts eyebrows and gets you in trouble, but I think this is a time-honored and useful function of those who write about poetry and, at least, some poets.

I find you acerbic but warm and humane. I'm glad you have a berth here and am sorry no one else gets to hear the fabulous country music you compose.

Aw shucks, Lisa - I'm blushin ...

Anyways, my honey is a whiz with sites and mpegs an' all, so I thought maybe I'd put some files out there from the CD I sent you - I realize there's a lot of "good ol' boy" posin' goin on in some of them, but as you observed, the arrangements and execution are really top-notch - exactly what you'd expect from experienced studio musicians down here in N-ville.

So far as po-boards go, I have to thank our local doyenne/duenna here (MaryAnn) for not falling prey to the idea apparently prevalent at all po-boards that group dynamics - what I call "socio-poetics" - are more important than individuals, their poems, and their crits/responses.

I thought that the Gaz and Eratosphere were bad in this respect until I met Beth Viera (in her posts) at TCP - that is one scary group-thinker, and even more so because she's educated not once but twice-over.

To see her in group-think action, you have to register at TCP - then you will have access to the "Everything Else" forum and will be able to see her comments in my thread entitled "Question for the Mods and Site Admins".

Anyway, best to you, Lisa ...

PS - when I say "group-think" in the above post, I don't mean "group-think" in the classic sense - slavish repetition of mantras heard by others (although that is certainly a part of it)

I mean thinking by those who put the good of the group above the good of the individual to such an extent that they are willing to sacrifice individuals for the good of the group ...

Another PS, Lisa -

To see that not all po-board participants are group thinkers, you might want to see bernie/mojave's comments here at webdelsol's The Writers Block:

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He's also a remarkable poet - see his many posted poems in the crit forum at the same site ...

best regards ...