poetry foundation critiques & reflection

[from this IG post]

Just signed this collective letter to the Board of Poetry Foundation, demanding for change—mainly the resignation & replacement of the current Board President; a tangible commitment to antiracism initiatives; the hiring & real support of more Black staff members & staff members of color (in editorial & other depts); & the redistribution of financial & other resources to Black communities, particularly in Chicago, where Poetry Foundation is based. I encourage you to sign if you feel called to & can.

On a personal note: I have work contracted to come out in the Young People’s Poetry Issue of POETRY this fall; this was solicited by guest editors Margarita Engle, Naomi Shihab Nye, & Jacqueline Woodson. I was going to donate the payment anyway, but will withdraw the work if demands are not met.

All appreciation toward these guest editors, who are each brilliant writers. & I understand that not everyone can make this kind of commitment to withdraw work. In the recent past, during my grad school days, a payment from POETRY meant not having to worry about rent for a month.

Thank you to all the poets who’ve worked on this document—the letter and the demands. & to all the poets who’ve been critiquing PoFo & pushing for action, sometimes at great professional & personal cost.

Although the financial support I’ve received from PoFo is modest, I recognize the large cultural capital & prestige my career has benefitted from. I apologize for not speaking up more & taking up more action earlier. These literary reward systems must change.

As my signature on this document says: until these demands are met, I will not be submitting work to POETRY or partnering with Poetry Foundation for any event or project.

*

[from this Twitter thread]

i've been in POETRY twice, been a Ruth Lilly finalist, & read once at PoFo. but i see how much cultural capital i've gained. i'm redirecting more resources & energy to other places, & people. while working to ensure places like PoFo don't take such a central & powerful position.

i've made many critiques of PoFo privately, not as many publicly. & after that 1st pub, i've refrained from sending to POETRY unless it was solicited by poets (guest editors) i trusted—but i see how, for one, the Asian Am Poets issue, also fed into a problematic notion of canon. tbqh i felt like i had to stay (mostly) quiet online bc i didn't want to appear jealous of others' successes (& i did get targeted for that) & bc i didn't want to seem ungrateful, thus not considered for future opportunities. i knew this was a trap, but i went along with it.

& all along i was seeing the parallels with being a QPOC in grad school—like mfa & phd programs, PoFo also expected me to be quiet about the systemic problems & grateful for the opportunities, which were sometimes big, but really often ended up benefiting these institutions. those who have followed me for a long time know how outspoken i've been about the extreme cishet whiteness of creative writing graduate programs. i should've been more outspoken about PoFo at the same time. i will always be now.

thing is, institutions like PoFo (& most mfa, phd programs) need "diverse voices" in order to appear progressive—& also to actually innovate. bc let's be real: it's Black poets, poets of color, QTPOC poets, disabled poets, who are making that work that pushes every journal.

the trap of institutional support, for marginalized writers is this: to receive more of it, you must stay grateful, stay loyal to the institution instead of your own wider community & yourself. & you end up playing a waiting game. dutifully waiting your turn, which might never happen. i'm not upset with marginalized writers who, like me, have had to get institutional support in order to make a living & build an audience. indeed, i am always suspicious of white people in literary spaces who seem very eager to critique Black writers, writers of color.

if you are white & one misstep from a Black writer or a writer of color is enough for you to turn your back on them, you were never interested in actually supporting them in the first place. you were using them as a prop you could then discard, a gesture to build yourself up. if you are white & your critique of PoFo only involves class, then you are missing a whole part of the story: how for many writers of color, it is a negotiation between access to opportunity (& safety) and addressing how these systems are ultimately traps—& racist ones!

i have few illusions about how racist any white-led institution or org is. incl. the small ones. the indie ones. my life & my career as a queer asian am poet is a constant negotiation. there are trade-offs. i'm trying to make fewer trade-offs & be more honest about what they are.

moving forward, one thing i'll be devoting more resources & energy to is Underblong, the journal i founded with Sam. we are proud to publish mainly queer & trans writers of color. we are committed to publishing more queer & trans Black writers in particular. we will also start paying contributors, starting with the next issue of Underblong—a modest amount per poem (or interview or review). we hope to increase this amount in the not too distant future. & we are committed to publishing different poets every issue.

i will also be devoting more resources & energy to other small journals & presses, especially those led by Black editors and editors of color. i will amplify the work of these journals here & in my teaching, rather than relying on POETRY & PoFo's site. & i've been doing this, but will do so with more critical reflection now: if i'm in a position to judge a book contest, a fellowship etc. i must consider whether i'm the best person for the job/if this opportunity could go to another poet. i can't be the selector so often. same for reading series, panels, workshops, etc.—if it's not the right opportunity for me/if i've appeared in & benefitted from that space multiple times, i need to recommend another poet. & recommend a different poet each time.