You Can’t See Me
Originally published at Literary Orphans 2015
In November of last year the Paris Review posted a poem by Frederick Seidel entitled “The Ballad of Ferguson, Missouri”. I wrote a furious rejection of their choice in my writing blog and it went viral.
Over 12K views later, many comments both on my blog and directed to me from forums, poets, on Facebook via both my personal and professional pages I have come to a few conclusions.
The main one is that most of the reactions have missed my point entirely. I could write that off as being a result of me blogging while in an emotionally violated place and pretend that the misunderstanding and frequent misrepresentation of what I said is fine.
I can’t because it is just not.
First thing I want to clear up once and for all. I don’t actually care about the artistic merits of Seidel’s poem, I don’t care about his oeuvre, I don’t care about his fans, and I don’t even really care what this poem actually says. I read some of his work, it’s not to my taste and I kept it moving.
The problem here is (as so many things in the literary world stem from) is the editorial discretion of choosing a cis White man to be your sole voice about Ferguson.
I care about the fact that at a time with as much turmoil and danger for Black people…
