Sherman Alexie Speaks Out on The Best American Poetry 2015

        Like most every poet, I have viewed the publication of each year's Best American Poetry with happiness (I love that poem), jealousy (That poet has been chosen for seventy-three years straight.), disdain (Oh, look, another middling poem from one of the greats.) and hope (Maybe they'll choose one of my poems next year.). I am also proud that I've been in Best American Poetry (BAP) five times and even more proud that one of my poems was included in Best of the Best of American Poetry. But let me tell you a secret: I am also conflicted about my appearances in BAP because I don't love four of my five poems that have been chosen. I don't think those four poems are among my best work. In fact, I am rather embarrassed by my first poem to appear in BAP. But there was no way I was ever going to turn down the chance to be in BAP, no matter how I felt about the poems, then or now. I'm quite willing to accept that I might be wrong about the quality of my poems. I understand that I might be immune to their relative strengths and weaknesses. So, yes, like many poets, I am a bubbling mix of arrogance and selfdoubt. And, yes, like many poets, I carefully studied each year's edition of BAP and was highly critical of the aesthetic range (Okay, there had to be more than two great poems published last year written in meter and/or rhyme.), cultural and racial representation (I can't believe there are only 8 poets of color in this edition.), gender equality (What is this? The Golf Club at Augusta?), and nepotism (Did those guest editors really choose, like, sixty-six of their former students?).

        So, yeah, most basically stated, I take the publication of Best American Poetry very fucking seriously.

        And because I take it so seriously and have been so critical in the past, my first instinct was to decline David Lehman's offer to guest edit Best American Poetry 2015. Then approximately one second after I pondered declining, I enthusiastically accepted the job. Of course, I had no idea that I would spend the next six or eight or ten months reading hundreds and hundreds of poems. Hell, it's quite probable that I read over 1,000 poems last year. I might have read over 2,000 poems. It could have been 3,000. Well, let me be honest: I carefully read hundreds of poems that immediately caught my eye while I skimmed hundreds of other poems that didn't quickly call out to me. It's possible that I read more poems last year than any other person on the planet. It was an intensive education in twenty-first century American poetry.

        So what did I learn during this poetry siege? Well, none of us ever needs to write another poem about crocuses, or croci, or however you prefer to pluralize it. Trust me, we poets have exhausted the poetic potential of the crocus. If any of you can surprise me with a new kind of crocus poem then I will mail you one hundred dollars.

        But, wait, I'm not ready to make sweeping pronouncements about the state of American poetry. I must first tell you that I established rules for myself before I even read one poem for potential inclusion in BAP 2015. And what were those rules?

        Rule #1: I will not choose any poem written by a close friend.

        Rule #2: I will be extremely wary of choosing any poem written by somebody I know, even if I have only met that person once twenty years ago and haven't talked to that person since.

        Rule #3: I will also be hyper-judgmental of any poem written by a poet I already admire. I will not be a fan boy.

        Rule #4: I will not choose any poem based on a poet's career. Each poem will stand or fall on its own merits. There will be no Honorary Oscars.

        Rule #5: I will pay close attention to the poets and poems that have been underrepresented in the past. So that means I will carefully look for great poems by women and people of color. And for great poems by younger, less established poets. And for great poems by older poets who haven't been previously lauded. And for great poems that use rhyme, meter, and traditional forms.

        Rule #6: As part of the mission to represent the totality of American poetry, I will read as many Internet poems as I can find, whether published at popular sites or in obscure emagazines that have nine followers.

        Rule #7: I will not ask for the opinion of any other human being when choosing poems. Oh, I know that David Lehman will make many suggestions—and I welcome the help in winnowing the pile of magazines—but I will ignore David's counsel as much as possible.

        Rule #8: Unless David leads me to a great poem that I am compelled to choose, which he will most certainly do a few times.

        Rule #9: I don't want to fill the damn book with poetry professors. I really want to choose some poets who work outside of academia. But I also don't want to bias myself against any poems because they happen to be written by poetry professors, so I will not read any biographies or contributor notes about any poets.

        Rule #10: I don't want to know anything about any of the poets beyond what I already know or what is apparent in the poem itself. So I will not do Internet searches on anybody. I will do my best to treat every poem like it is a blind submission, even if some famous poet has written the poem I'm currently reading.

         Rule #11: I know that these rules will inevitable result in contradictions, conflicts, hypocrisy, and stress rashes.

        So, okay, as a result of these rules, what did I do with Best American Poetry 2015?

        Approximately 60% of the poets are female.

        Approximately 40% of the poets are people of color.

        Approximately 20% of the poems employ strong to moderate formal elements.

        Approximately 15% of the poems were first published on the Internet.

        Approximately 99% of the poets are professors.

        I have never met or had any previous conversations or contact with 56 of the 75 poets.

        There are 30 poets whom I'd never previously read. I didn't know anything about them when I chose their poems.

        I am close friends with only one of the 75 poets.

        Only three of the poets have ever invited me to speak at their colleges. And one of them was on sabbatical when I eventually visited her college.

        In years past, before I was guest editor for BAP, I'd sent fan letters to nine of the poets and, as a result, have maintained semi-regular pen pal relationships with three of them. I have met in person only two of those pen pals and talked to them, separately, for a few minutes at AWP in Denver in 2010.

        Only four of the poets have ever chosen any of my writing for publication. Two of the poets have rejected work of mine for publication.

        I share a publisher, Hanging Loose Press, with three of the poets, though I haven't had contact with one of those guys in 20 years and share maybe one email a year with the other two.

        I work in the Low Residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Art with two of the poets.

        I have done public readings with only two of the poets.

        Of the four poets with Seattle roots and connections, I know two of them. I had coffee with one of them eight years ago and briefly met the other last year at a book awards party in Seattle.

        I have only provided publicity blurbs for two of the poets.

        I could easily replace at least thirty of the great poems I chose with thirty other great poem I almost chose.

        I suspect I will eventually regret choosing a few of the poems and omitting others. In fact, right now, I can think of one particular poem that haunts me. I am sick to know that it is absent from BAP 2015. And, no, I will never tell anybody which poems I almost chose.

        So did I pick the best 75 poems published last year? Of course not. I picked 75 poems that survived a literary ordeal that happened only in my brain. I think BAP 2015 contains a handful of incredible poems and dozens of good to great poems.

        I am very proud of what the Best American team and I have accomplished. And I wish I could end this statement with that sentence.

        But, of course, I must now address the controversy that threatens to overshadow every other critical examination of Best American Poetry 2015.

         I chose a strange and funny and rueful poem written by Yi-Fen Chou, which turns out to be a Chinese pseudonym used by a white male poet named Michael Derrick Hudson as a means of subverting what he believes to be a politically correct poetry business.

         I only learned that Yi-Fen Chou was a pseudonym used by a white man after I'd already picked the poem and Hudson promptly wrote to reveal himself.

         Of course, I was angry at the subterfuge and at myself for being fooled by this guy. I silently cursed him and wondered how I would deal with this colonial theft.

        So I went back and reread the poem to figure out exactly how I had been fooled and to consider my potential actions and reactions. And I realized that I hadn't been fooled by anything obvious. I'd been drawn to the poem because of its long list title (check my bibliography and you'll see how much I love long titles) and, yes, because of the poet's Chinese name. Of course, I am no expert on Chinese names so I'd only assumed the name was Chinese. As part of my mission to pay more attention to underrepresented poets and to writers I'd never read, I gave this particular poem a close reading. And I found it to be a compelling work. In rereading the poem, I still found it to be compelling. And most important, it didn't contain any overt or covert Chinese influences or identity. I hadn't been fooled by its "Chinese-ness" because it contained nothing that I recognized as being inherently Chinese or Asian. There could very well be allusions to Chinese culture that I don't see. But there was nothing in Yi-Fen Chou's public biography about actually being Chinese. In fact, by referencing Adam and Eve, Poseidon, the Roman Coliseum, and Jesus, I'd argue that the poem is inherently obsessed with European culture. When I first read it, I'd briefly wondered about the life story of a Chinese American poet who would be compelled to write a poem with such overt and affectionate European classical and Christian imagery, and I marveled at how interesting many of us are in our cross-cultural lives, and then I tossed the poem on the "maybe" pile that eventually became a "yes" pile.

        Do you see what happened?

        I did exactly what that pseudonym-user feared other editors had done to him in the past: I paid more initial attention to his poem because of my perception and misperception of the poet's identity. Bluntly stated, I was more amenable to the poem because I thought the author was Chinese American.

        Here, I could offer you many examples of white nepotism inside the literary community. I could detail entire writing careers that have been one long series of handshakes and hugs among white friends and colleagues. I could list the white poets who have been selected by their white friends for each of the previous editions of Best American Poetry. But that would be just grandstanding. It's also grandstanding for me to accuse white folks of nepotism without offering any real evidence. This whole damn essay is grandstanding.

        So what's the real reason why I'm not naming names? It's because most white writers who benefit from white nepotism are good writers. That feels like a contradiction. But it's not.

        And, hey, guess what? In paying more initial attention to Yi-Fen Chou's poem, I was also practicing a form of nepotism. I am a brown-skinned poet who gave a better chance to another supposed brown-skinned poet because of our brownness.

         So, yes, of course, white poets have helped their white friends and colleagues because of nepotism. And, yes, of course, brown poets have helped their brown friends and colleagues because of nepotism. And, yes, because of nepotism, brown and white poets have crossed racial and cultural lines to help friends and colleagues.

        Nepotism is as common as oxygen.

         But, in putting Yi-Fen Chou in the "maybe" and "yes" piles, I did something amorphous. I helped a total stranger because of racial nepotism.

         I was practicing a form of literary justice that can look like injustice from a different angle. And vice versa.

         And, of course, I know many of you poets are pissed at me. I know many of you are screaming out a simple question: "Sherman, why did you keep that poetry colonist in the anthology even after you learned of his deception?"

        Listen, I was so angry that I stormed and cursed around the room. I felt like punching the wall.

        And, of course, there was no doubt that I would pull that fucking poem because of that deceitful pseudonym.

        But I realized that I would primarily be jettisoning the poem because of my own sense of embarrassment. I would have pulled it because I didn't want to hear people say, "Oh, look at the big Indian writer conned by the white guy." I would have dumped the poem because of my vanity.

         And I would have gotten away with it. I am a powerful literary figure and the pseudonymuser is an unknown guy who has published maybe a dozen poems in his life. If I'd kicked him out of BAP 2015 then he might have tried to go public with that news.

        And he would have been vilified and ignored. And I would have been praised.

        Trust me, I would much rather be getting praised by you poets than receiving the vilification I am getting now.

        But I had to keep that pseudonymous poem in the anthology because it would have been dishonest to do otherwise.

        If I'd pulled the poem then I would have been denying that I gave the poem special attention because of the poet's Chinese pseudonym.

        If I'd pulled the poem then I would have been denying that I was consciously and deliberately seeking to address past racial, cultural, social, and aesthetic injustices in the poetry world.

        And, yes, in keeping the poem, I am quite aware that I am also committing an injustice against poets of color, and against Chinese and Asian poets in particular.

        But I believe I would have committed a larger injustice by dumping the poem. I think I would have cast doubt on every poem I have chosen for BAP. It would have implied that I chose poems based only on identity.

        But that's not what happened. In the end, I chose each poem in the anthology because I love it. And to deny my love for any of them is to deny my love for all of them.

        In choosing what I think is the most diverse set of poems in Best American Poetry's history, I also rejected hundreds of poems written by a vast and diverse world of poets. I rejected a bunch of old white guys. And, hey, I rejected a bunch of old brown people, too. I rejected hundreds of young white poets. And I rejected hundreds of young brown poets, including some of the superstars who are most loudly insulting me. I rejected formalists and free-versers. I rejected dear friends and old enemies. I rejected poems I love and poems I hate.

        I rejected at least one thousand poets in pursuit of the 75 who are in the anthology. It was an exhilarating and exhausting task. And now I am being rewarded and punished. And I am pondering what all of this reveals about my identity—perceived, actual, and imaginary. And I hope that you, as readers and writers, continue to debate The Yi-Fen Chou Problem and my decision to keep the poem in the anthology. But in the midst of all this controversy and wild name-calling, I also hope that you take the time to be celebratory or jealous or disdainful or challenged by the other 74 poets in Best American Poetry 2015.

Comments

[ThirteenthLetter]

Here's an idea, Mr. Alexie: since this claims to be the best poetry, period, and not just "best poetry by race X," you could try publishing the best poetry you received regardless of the author's race.

It's real simple. You either do that, or you're being a racist, no matter how you twist and writhe and struggle to avoid admitting it. Your call. And you'll note that the social justice warriors flooding into the comments aren't on your side here.

[ThirteenthLetter]

"It's okay when WE do it." Why does that not shock me?

[ThirteenthLetter]

"What if it had been a Chinese guy posing as a white guy...?"

Well, lots of people have been chiming in to say that's totally okay, because privilege or something.

[G. Scott]

What privilege did Hudson have? Alexie says that he privileged the unknown and non-professors.

He also privileged "people of color." Hudson didn't have that privilege.

[The Sanity Inspector]

The self-pitying notion that whites only aid whites, and so therefore POC must only aid POC is untrue. The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore was honored in his own time a century ago, winning a Nobel prize. Langston Hughes might have spent his career in obscurity, if not for white poet Vachel Lindsay using his influence to promote Hughes' work. There would have been no blues revival in the 1960s if not for white field archivists busily rediscovering the bluesmen of the Twenties and Thirties. And so on. Mr. Alexie's insistence on identity politics just reinforces the impression that poetry no longer has any standards, and may be safely ignored by the wider public.

[Santiago Garcia]

It seems to me the extraordinary thing would have been to own up to your attempt at a literary truth and reconciliation process, publish the piece, admitting you chose an obnoxiously bad poem as a consequence of your bias. Either way, the faux poem calls all of the other poems into question that were selected by the same process.

[Marissa Despain]

I don't follow the logic that MDH's poem calls all of the others into question. Have you ever had a poem published in a journal you admire and looked at the table of contents and discovered that the same editor who picked your poem, which you know is so good, also picked a poem by someone whose poetry you don't like in general and then you read the poem and you think it's awful and furthermore you know the poet is a jerk, and a misogynist or some other kind of hateful person? How could that editor who showed such fine judgement when picking your poem, publish a bad poem by someone else who also happens to be a creep? Does it change your opinion of the other poems that have also been published in the same issue? And isn't in condescending to readers to assume that they will dismiss an entire publication based on one entry? We readers are more sophisticated than that, aren't we? I know I am.

[Steven]

Hughes already had a book contract for The Weary Blues when he was "discovered" by Rachel Lindsay. Just saying...

[Mike Dolphgren]

"And he would have been vilified and ignored. And I would have been praised."

That the white guy would have been vilified for having to change his name to a more asian sounding one, in a white nation built by whites in order to get a poem published, while you would have been praised for being a racist explains a lot. Mostly unpleasant things about you, but I'm sure whites are happy to find out they shouldn't bother to submit poems to you.

It makes me equally happy to know that all the discrimination I dole out in favor of my fellow whites as an HR manager helps balance things out, if only a little.

[V.B. Zarr]

Naive debate at so many levels. Where to begin? Such shallow ideas about, and definitions of, identity and how it intersects with the exchange of thought and ideas. Such a massive blind spot about what poetry is, who produces and profits from it. Ever heard of hip-hop, rap, spoken word even? Um, not only is that poetry as much as this BAP stuff, but it has far more in common with the broader shared human history of poetry--especially poetry created and enjoyed voluntarily, instead of produced and consumed inside the prescribed menu of the brainwashing process known as compulsory education. Care to survey or catalogue the creator and/or audience demographics, production means and ends, the content and stylistic genealogy of THAT poetry? Care to include a comparison of the impact, verve and, dare I say, value of that branch of poetry with the subject of this current storm in a teacup? Colonization? I'd say most parties to this debate have surrendered to their own colonization by the power structure that they've bought into with their academic-literary careerism. And in turn they are participating, under the masquerade of embittered rivalry, in the continuation, reinforcement and even expansion of the viral power structure they serve, not unwittingly, but perhaps witlessly. Poetry depending for its legitimacy on getting into the sanctorum of such an anthology as BAP, approved by this cliquey priesthood or that one, according to this orthodoxy or that orthodoxy, is self-enfeebled, or at least those poets are--so it's comical or just pathetic to see this debate primp itself as focused on any kind of empowerment. Poetry, poets or people who pursue empowerment by surrendering to these kinds of orthodoxies are undermining, not empowering, themselves and everyone else. What's the benefit of corralling your thoughts into poems harvested ADM-style for these purposes? A nice little job in some corner of academia? That's the antithesis of freedom of thought, or feeling. Poetry, and people, should be more free, daring and dynamic. This is just so much misdirected energy cross-dressing as righteousness, but doing bugger all to right any significant wrongs. Go write on a toilet wall, or tag a bus stop with your most urgent thought. Or go be a trade union rep for underpaid workers doing hazardous jobs. Or just extend a hand or a hug or a haiku directly to a friend or stranger who could use one. But for fuck's sake stop complaining about who gets into the country club. No poet (or self-respecting person of any other type of identity construction) should ever want to become a member of any country club that would accept him or her (and thereby turn them into an alibi while changing nothing). This shit is not what's blowing up Syria, or our own neighborhoods, but the mentality that would obsessively argue about distracting shit like this IS. Poets, my ass!

[Kelle Grace Gaddis]

I've followed Sherman Alexie's career from its beginning. I love his work, read all of his books, and gone to hear him read for decades at various venues. And, I've done all of this knowing that if I were to mention to Alexie that I am a quarter Native American or that my grandfather was Sioux and another family member Oklahoma Cherokee that he would have wanted to punch me because he is proud to be the right percentages of Native American. He is also clear about how pissed off he is about colonialism. My being part-NA probably wouldn't make me good enough. In case minorities didn't know this, it is painful to not belong anywhere. I'm conflicted because I'm primarily of Irish and integrated Native American heritage, two groups that know all about colonialism, but that don't count by modern standards. People like me are held up as "guilty" when it comes to colonialism regardless of a lack of historic participation. I get plenty of microaggressions from pure whites and minorities. These facets of my heritage are rendered meaningless because I have a couple of relatives from England way back there and this, apparently, makes me colonial scum by person's with more solid minority backgrounds. Besides that, I look white and only lived on a reservation for a short period of time as a kid, and everyone in my family has integrated into the dominant culture. I get blamed for this even though my family was duped out of their Native American rights when I was a kid without a say in the matter. Long story short, I don't count as a minority because I'm not a card-carrying Indian, I'm an assimilated one. This means that I'm supposed to hate myself and every relative linked to colonialism, of course, I don't. I'm proud of my family because I'm human. Now, I'll leave my personal history hanging before I get attacked and told that I know nothing about pain and suffering. Like most Caucasians I've learned that compassion isn't a two-way street. I sometimes feel like I'm paying somebody else's debt, a person that died a hundred years ago. At any rate, race issues are impossible, so I give up and will just be sad about it. Alexie's essay doesn't surprise me but it is depressing to know that "special attention" will be paid to people of color regardless of merit or talent, but such policies have long been allowed. Alexie is a great writer, I still love him and his work, even if he wouldn't love me back because of my fragmented culture and assimilation. Lastly, I was horrified that 99% of the people in BAP this year are professors. I guess nobody else should bother writing. It appears that we've all wasted money on MFA's if we don't also teach. Prof's, from what I've seen, show more favoritism than any other set. I hope someday to be somebody's favored class, worthy of nepotism in some regard. I have had work published, but the gatekeepers seem to be ruining this world. I am so depressed now I feel like walking into a lake with stones in my pockets or sticking my head in an oven like Woolf or Plath. These would be acceptable deaths, white deaths, for a depressed and neglected female poet.

[Dasha Kelly]

"Built by whites?" Are you from Scandinavia, Mike? Native Americans, Asians, African Americans ... people of color BUILT this nation. White people swindled, connived and killed to take everything NOT their due ... and to engineer a bit of aggressive revisionism, to boot. Clearly, it's still working. But it's not your fault that you're a misguided could-be adult, Mike. You have a millennia of misinformation and perversely-biased hard-wiring inside you. Sherman, at least, intended for his racial antennae to *actually* "balance things out" by giving audience to a writer who would have been summarily ignored by the likes of you. I know you don't understand this, Mike. You've been raised to think .. no BELIEVE.. that you deserve everything. You deserve to have whites dominate your payroll. You deserve to be outraged that someone could dare be outraged by your brand of thinking. You even deserve unfounded credit for building a nation that has the blood and brilliance of non-whites as its very foundation. You should checkout the bestseller "Lies My Teacher Told Me." Just in case, I dunno, you were interested in sharing an informed comment sometime. If it helps your soul, a white guy wrote it.

[Eric]

Because Luke, if most editors are white people, which they are, then they accept poems that they love based upon their white experience and push away other pieces which do not conform to their white aesthetics and experience of the world without ever knowing what said poet looks like. The same goes for gender etc.
Sincerely,
a white male.

Also.
http://lithub.com/on-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary/

[Titus Corleone]

So perfect to see... the racially correct storm - that abashed the little white bird, and the academics are shorn...

and the ivory towers fell

Titus Corleone

yes, yes... Emily Dickinson

[Teager]

Looks like I'm going to start submitting poetry here using Asian-sounding names! Because hey, as long as I don't claim to be a fake Native American and choose a nationality that the editor won't be personally offended by, I guess they'll accept anything! Thanks, Sherman!

[Teager]

You DO know that Rowling's own editors asked her to go by her initials because they were afraid boys wouldn't read a girl's work, right? That it wasn't her idea, and that her editors' suggestion actually reinforces the idea of male privilege? Keep digging.

[ThirteenthLetter]

I'd bet a crisp ten-dollar bill that the moment you discovered the poem was written by a person of the wrong race is also the moment you decided it was "obnoxiously bad."

[ThirteenthLetter]

You should probably read some history. Or any history, really.

[ThirteenthLetter]

And you completely miss the spectacular racism of approving a poem only because the author was of a particular race. No wonder nobody reads poetry any more.

[D]

A white man with pen name 周怡芬? Hints at temptation as a way to attain his desires.

[D]

For the Best American poets not familiar with Mandarin: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=1&wdqb=%E5%91%A8%E6%80%A1%E8%8A%AC