Letter to the Editor

I genuinely appreciated the interviewer’s
thoughtfulness. And that she expanded
the context I circled inside.

A circling whose structure is
the most precise. But for a moment
I want to be clear.

I risk clarification in order
to meet you where we are on
the question of accessibility.

When I said a writing life,
I meant the kind where we write
and so our bills get paid.

Gravitating toward financial
security and recognition
makes a certain kind of sense,

but it’s unfortunate when poets
pretend that the field of professional
writing is interested in inclusion as
opposed to exceptionalizing select
writers (which is dangerous
because it erases context),

or that laboring within this
field might threaten the steep
hierarchies of social order
that characterize the United States.

To be clear,

It’s so fake and disrespectful to language,
which might otherwise provide a space
for expansive inquiry, as opposed to obscuring

the glaringly settler foundation, and the violent
consequences of economic disparity, in our industry
through the abuse of concepts like “community.”

To be clear,

I’m talking about we poets who are
paid to reproduce language publicly.

Regardless of intent, the predominant function
of widely celebrated poets in the United States
is to amass cultural capital. And to knit it intimately
to English, Western European traditions,
and particular linguistic justifications.

So those of us who receive
the most capital (literary jobs,
fellowships, book contracts) are
those whose work can sit
inside of aesthetics that were
developed alongside centuries
of exploitation and extermination,
and then expand its borders.

To be clear,

Poets should get paid. Poets should write
whatever they want. All kinds of writing
can be meaningful. So stop playing.

Please don’t say a writing practice
that addresses social inequality
and state violence is inherently
participation in the work
of social justice. Not in an industry
with zero structures for accountability
around the equitable division of resources.

I’m not saying that anybody’s poems
aren’t “good,” but don’t say
that one must first understand
the existing blueprint. This only applies
when planning insurrections.

Everyone should write however
feels best. But don’t say formal
innovation when speaking solely
about formatting decisions, while
the most critical form you write
within is the shape of your life.

Don’t say that you prefer
for your subversive politics
to live only within your poems.

Or that by judging contests
and editing folios we challenge
the roots of racism, classism,
ableism, homophobia ...

Paying a poet who lives
below the poverty line
to give a reading isn’t
redistributing wealth.
It’s choosing who we’ll hire
to perform work for today.

Inviting poets who aren’t White
to be your colleagues isn’t
an attack on the foundations of
white supremacy. It’s deciding who
you’re willing to share them with.

There’s nothing wrong with
sharing. And I’m not expressing
an opinion about what anyone
should do. Or suggesting that I’m
valiant in my efforts. But please stop
confusing sharing with redistribution.

We all need jobs. Some of us
need several. But don’t call it
“a calling” when presenting
yourself at the settler’s door.

Don’t provide smooth-surfaced
propaganda for institutions of war.

I’m saying this from love, which is
the only source of clarity, though it is
regularly degraded along the way.
Which can happen quietly. Swiftly.
Often as no one person’s fault.

Some common justifications:

The poet must have published a book. For example: (though this barrier is most common among academic appointments and prizes) the Academy of American Poets requires all but five Poem- a-Day contributors in one month to have at least one book, chapbook, or significant performance.

The poet believes themself bound to guidelines. Example: the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day curation for the month of February 2025 has exactly five poets without a book, chapbook, or performance work.

The platform can’t accommodate certain aesthetics. Poem-a-Day’s digital interface, which was designed with poems of common shapes in mind, and to look good on cell phones, can only deviate so far.

The poet agreed to clear terms in advance. That I then asked one poet if he and his translator had other poems they might offer. An email to which he, rightly, did not respond.

These may sound like minor
annoyances. But if, within
quite common industry practices,
poets can be excluded on
the basis of so little:

a lack of a pre-existing
recognition that relatively few
of us ever receive; and/or not
conforming to aesthetic norms
established to reproduce
settler traditions ...

What does it mean to be accessible?