THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, U.S.A.
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume V, Issue # 177, July 9, 2003
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
NEW JERSEY -- PROBLEM WITH ITS POET LAUREATE
By Alan Caruba
What do you do with a state poet laureate who writes "a poem" about 9-11 so laced with anti-Semitism and other bilious nonsense that
it offends the Jewish community and a lot of other folks? In New Jersey, you have to pass a law to get rid of the posi- tion in order to get
rid of the poet.
The poem was entitled "Someone Blew Up America" and it's likely that one Amiri Baraka, author of the socalled poem and a Muslim convert,
has conjured up some justification for 9-11. One line from the poem was "Who told 4,000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers to stay home
that day?" The Star-Ledger (Newark) referred to this as a claim "based on the long-discredited rumor that Israeli citizens and
American Jews knew of the attack in advance." Baraka tried to weasel his way out of this by saying "It's Israelis that I'm talking about."
But Israelis translates as Jews and his ugly bias is on display for all to see.
New Jersey has been home to quite a few very distinguished poets, but Amiri Baraka is not one of them. Let the literary
dilettantes proclaim him one of the leading figures of his time, but Baraka is just a third-rate talent who traded on being Black and not
just Black, but the quintessential "angry" Black man. Politics makes for bad poetry and Baraka has only a few strings on his literary violin;
most of which have a racial or political agenda.
In 1934 Baraka was born LeRoi Jones in Newark. By the 1950s he was living in New York's Greenwich Village and, after the assassination
of Malcolm X, he became a Black Nationalist, moving first to Harlem and then back to Newark. In the mid-1970s, he became a Third World
Marxist-Leninist. He taught in the SUNY-Stony Brook Department of Africana Studies for twenty years and retired in 1999. Why any of
this qualified him to be selected New Jersey's first and possibly last poet laureate is any- one's guess.
Beside which, his stuff is really bad. The man would not know a sonnet from a haiku if one jumped up and bit him. His socalled poetry
is mostly just ghastly, rambling prose. It doesn't rhyme much and the only reason to call it poetry is because the writer says it is. Baraka
and his socalled poetry will be forgotten about five minutes after they bury his sorry behind.
Last week, Gov. James E. McGreevey signed legislation eliminating the state post of poet laureate, about the only act of office he's
performed that has any chance of being remembered for the good it has done. Baraka responded by threatening to sue the State of New
Jersey. Tort law, however, prevents a person from suing the State "un- less gross negligence can be shown." I contend that gross
negligence was demon- strated when Baraka was selected for the post.
So, the State of New Jersey is safe once again and the ghosts of Walt Whitman, Wil- liam Carlos Williams, Alan Ginsberg, and quite a few
really good poets can rest in peace.
More on Ethnic & Racial Politics
More on Liberals, Statists, Socialists, & Other Leftists
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, Communications Director of the American Policy Center,
and Founder of the Na- tional Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly
column, "Warning Signs," posted on the Inter- net website of the National Anxiety Center (www.anxietycenter.com). He is the author of A
POCKET GUIDE TO MILITANT ISLAM and THE UNITED NATIONS VS. THE UNITED STATES, both available from the National Anxiety
Center, 9 Brookside Road, Maplewood, New Jersey, 07040.
Copyright 2003 Alan Caruba
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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