Dear friends of Lisablog, today you are being called up into action. This is urgent. Utilize all your peak performance training skills. Use your powers of positive visualization. And most of all, fight the power.

Here are the targets: two organizations The American Thinker which published an article called "Poetry, Terror, and Political Narcissism" on March 4th (read it here: Right Wing Shit and Campus Watch ("Monitoring Middle East Studies on Campus") at More Right Wing Shit which republished the same article on their website.

Here is the beginning of the article "Poetry, Terror, and Political Narcissism": by Alyssa Lappen:

"Poetry is a window on the human soul. But the politics of American poetry, in recent years have veered into more and more radical territory, as an increasing number of poets openly declare their allegiance with ?Palestine,' and implicitly, with terror. Academics with one foot in Middle Eastern Studies and another in literature and poetry are the prime conduits of this degrading development. A few names that come to mind are Tom Paulin[1], a literature lecturer at Oxford University, former New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka[2], Marylin Hacker[3], and Alicia Ostriker[4] at Rutgers University.

A prime example is Ammiel Alcalay, a tenured professor and former chair of Classical, Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures at City University of New York's Queens College[5...]".

Here's another excerpt: "In the present, Alcalay opposes the wars on terror and in Iraq[16]. Thus, in February 2003, he coordinated an anti-war New York poetry event at which he lambasted President Bush, the war in Iraq, and Israel[17] ?and implored the audience to advance pro-Arab platforms at future literary and academic events[18]. He continues to count himself among 100 Poets Against the War[19].

Here's another excerpt: "Little of this would matter if Alcalay did not have increasing influence in the literary world. But his work has become the focus of like-minded leftist writers such as Anne Waldman and Joe Safdie[33], who also use their poetry as politics, rather than art. Alcalay regularly consults with trustees and coordinating committees of literary events and organizations. In 2003, he helped the Islamic World Arts Initiative organize a panel of Arab Muslim writers at the People's Poetry Gathering in New York, which he moderated that April[34]. He translates and writes for the New Yorker and The Nation[35], and often speaks at other colleges and universities. And he has been personally funded by the prestigious Poets and Writers, Inc[36]."

You can read the rest at their websites, if you have the stomach for it.

But dear Lisablog Reader, you MUST have the stomach to do one thing today. Write an email to both of these organizations and tell them that you too are a poet or a supporter of poets. You might even want to re-direct them toward a real terrorist watch-list. Don't forget to include Donald Rumsfeld on that list.

You might want to tell them what a nice guy Ammiel Alcalay is, or how your work was inspired by Amiri Baraka's work or how Anne Waldman is one of the best teachers you know. You might want to tell them that your son or your daughter is a poet or a teacher who deserves some respect.

You might want to tell them that some of your best friends are Palestinians, or that some of your best friends are Jews, or that you hope more university professors will come out and say "I support the Palestinian cause" or "I am a raging queer who supports the Palestinian cause."

You can get in touch with Campus Watch right here: Fill out a campus "incident" form and you can get in touch with The American Thinker at editor@americanthinker.com. The subject line of your email should read SUBMISSION.

Here is a copy of the email that I sent today. Feel free to improvise on this if you wish to:

Dear Campus Watch,

I am an American poet (author of three full-length collections of poetry and a forthcoming biography of the San Francisco poet Robert Duncan) and university professor in the English Departments at Brooklyn College and Long Island University. I often teach English courses that include a survey of current political events, including the ongoing crisis in Palestine. I read the article you posted naming Ammiel Alcalay as a dangerous leftist poet and I think you are totally out to lunch. Please add my name to your list of dangerous leftist poets. We are everywhere. Thanks very much.

Lisa Jarnot
jarnot@earthlink.net
assistant professor, Brooklyn College, Dept of Creative Writing

The first ten people to write letters will receive a special Lisablog gift of Lisa's CD Poems from Ring of Fire and Black Dog Songs.

Peace Dawgs.