The following was submitted:
You may or may not have heard about a current imbroglio at Poetry Magazine. It’s the leading magazine in the area, been publishing for more than 100 years, and is supported by the Poetry Foundation. It recently published an issue in which the poems were all written by individuals currently or (in a few cases) previously incarcerated. Someone figured out that one of the published poets had been convicted of a child pornography offense and began an effort to pressure the magazine to somehow withdraw or disavow its publication of his poem. They even started up a petition on Change.org calling upon the magazine to do that.
The folks at the Poetry Foundation have so far held firm to their principles. But I think they need to know that there are many of us who support their principled stand. And I think there are wider implications to this dispute. If we are going to bar registrants from writing poems, then I suppose there’s no limit on the restrictions we can impose on them. On the other hand, if we can show that an organization that takes a principled stand like this will find support, that could help more widely.
So, I have started my own petition on Change.org in support of the Poetry Foundation’s decision to stick to their principles and not “depublish” this poet. I am hoping you might be able to add your name to it and, more importantly, to help bring it to the attention of others who might also support it. The petition pressuring the board to reverse course started up a week or so ago and now has 1500 signers. I’m somewhat amazed to report that my petition, which only went up late yesterday, already has nearly 400 when I last checked.
You can sign on to my petition at http://chng.it/qPKGgVP7. And of course, please do circulate this to anyone else you believe might be interested.
If you want to learn more about this, here’s an article from The Guardian, and another from Slate:
Signed and donated….
Signed , donated and left a comment……..
FYI — When you send a donation on Change.org, that donation does NOT go to anyone but change.org, so if you want to support the cause, donate to one of the various anti-registry activist groups like FAC.
Petitions are fine and all, but I hope people do more than just sign a petition.
I am a member of FAC and donate to FAC and to the various sustainers when I can. The petition signing and donating was because I wanted to help the opposition…if you are going to see their ridiculous petition I wanted them to see ours. Possibly it is like voting which I know does no good/nothing at all….sometimes I just do something because it makes me feel good. May never win the war but I pick and choose which “battles” just to let “them” know we are not all alike, never have been and never will be.