Tupelo

[Expatriate Poet]

Mr Bickerstaff wrote:

actually, i prefer sir bickerstaff--and i will now take this thread and hang myself in boredom...
rip
-ib-

You appear to have done so already, Sir Issac, as you've clearly no head on your shoulders. Otherwise you'd know your own name!

And just as a matter of curiosity, would you say this banter was less boring?
C.

[Isaac Bickerstaff]

actualy i know my name well.  
and if i did spell my name issac then i would need the last name bickerstaffe.  but since i like old mr. swift most, i will take on his spelling of isaac bickerstaff.  

-ib-
(from the dead...)

[Expatriate Poet]

Issac Bickerstaff attempted to write:

actualy i know my name well.  
-ib-
(from the dead...)

Proving beyond all shadow of a doubt (as in dead) you don't.

Honesly, ib--do you find this interesting?

Christopher

[poetastin]

Levine--what an asshole!



 :|

[Isaac Bickerstaff]

dear x-pat, don't you have another poem to recite for us...

-ib-

[Monday Love]

At least it's not Levine posting his poems here.

But he never would.

There's proper channels, after all.

It's not considered polite to inject one's poems into a conversation.

Alas, Christopher, this is true.

We have violated a cardinal rule.

And it's probably rude to drag Tupelo poems onto this site for analysis.

Poems should be in their place!

We should just shut up.

Bickerstudge is right.

Quietly, furtively, slip your manuscript with a check into the mail to Tupelo.  Tippy-toe about your house until you get reply by post.  Whisper to the squirrel next door: I'm going to be published by Tupelo!   Look ashamed when you give the squirrel the news.   Do not show anyone your poems.  Wait until the right moment.   After you've told your mom and dad, walk quietly to the podium.  When the mice are silent, clear your throat.  Deliver your poems like drops of rain. Smile at the book signing.   Here's Bickerstudge, advancing on you, with his pen!

[Matt]

Let's move on folks.

Unless you want to get serious and take it to Backyard Brawl.

Thanks,
Matt

[arnold]

Thank you, Matt.  I agree completely.

[Expatriate Poet]

Let's move on folks.

Thanks,
Matt

As someone who has submitted 10 manuscripts to the Tupelo Press over the years, and who was an injured party in both the recent Tupelo debacles, with separate manuscripts in the July Open Reading as well as the subsequent Dorset Prize competition, I'm in a good position to summarize the grievances of the 1000 or so participants.

1.) We July Open poets never received a refund for the fraudulent critiques combined with various other dubious enticements we were sent by U.S. Mail, no less, in October and November 2006, nor did we receive an apology--or even a coherent explanation.

2.) Those of us who entered manuscripts in both readings did so with the assurance there would be a level playing field for all, including strict anonymity combined with equal and individual attention to each and every  manuscript. We now know some of the Dorset Prize submissions were not only known personally to Jeffrey Levine, the editor-in-chief of the press, but were actually improved by him, yet he refused to remove himself from the Dorset Prize judging panel as I, for one, requested of him on two occasions. Indeed, he never even bothered to reply to my discomfort.

3.) Jeffrey Levine himself announced that some of the Dorset Prize submissions he knew personally would be allowed to skip over the first round of cuts, in spite of the fact that he had always insisted no specially greased relationships were tolerated in Tupelo competitions. Even when this conflict of interest  was pointed out to him by myself and others, he not only continued to judge the Dorset Prize contest but personally shook the hand of the winner, Sandra Meek, at the prize giving ceremony at the recent AWP Conference. Obviously Sandra Meek need not blush for the impropriety of that handshake as long as she knows in her own heart cronyism played no part in the selection of her book. On the other hand, as a committed poet who presumably cares about her work and the company it keeps, she must ask herself what sort of hand it is that's in hers--and do something if she discovers its greasy!

And what do we all do about this, those of us who do feel sullied by the Tupelo experience--just snap, crackle and pop in the bowl as above?

"Are we nearly there yet?" asked Alice at the limits of her own credulity. And the Red Queen's reply--is that still acceptable to us today? Or is it going to be more sacred jam tomorrow and sacred jam yesterday but never just plain strawberry jam today?

No, let's try nunc this time, and work together in the present. At the very least let's never ever send our manuscripts to Tupelo again. On the other hand, let's not boycott the books or the readings as that will damage some very fine poets--but let's rather plead with those poets that have been published to tell us the truth about their experiences with Jeffrey Levine, because this leopard has obviously not just accidentally changed his spots this once, nor is it the first time he's had to weep to cover them up!

Like did anyone ever get paid?

And is that important? Yes, indeed it is, because it would be a very concrete indication of Tupelo's  commitment to the ancient game of bait and switch!

Christopher

P.S. If Jeffrey Levine, his lawyers or his friends are reading this letter of mine, I encourage you to go back over my correspondence with him, some of which I've made available on this site. Was Christopher Woodman unreasonable? Did he not offer Jeffrey Levine and Margaret Donovan sympathy, understanding and good will?

You at Tupelo Press cannot dismiss me as bitter or hysterical. Indeed, you  have to ask yourselves why you dismissed out of hand my compassionate and very constructive suggestions as to what could be done to remedy your crass and unethical behavior.

Dear Jeffrey and Margaret, if you want to defang Foetry you've got to listen a whole lot better to people like me, otherwise the chorus against you will swell until you too have to quit!

C.

[Monday Love]

I'd like to briefly address the impatience some have expressed here with Expatriate Poet posting his poems on this thread.

Since the Expatriate has chosen to come here and speak about his personal experience with a Foet, I think that makes his voice not only welcome, but extremely important.

His 'voice' includes his poems, and so I do think it is relevant that he speak with his poems, and that others respond to his poems.

There is always going to be this two-fold aspect to Foetry, and I don't believe they are easily separtated: 1. the nuts and bolts of behavior and cheating behavior and 2. poetry itself: are the participants, the victims and the cheaters good poets, or not?  What is the aesthetic truth of all this?

Does it matter that Expatriate Poet is a better poet than Jeff Levine?  Yes, it does matter.  It makes the  cheating that much worse.  

Sure, it gets messy sometimes, when we analyze poetry, and try to determine who is better, and what is really good--but why shouldn't we try?  Why should we run away from the poetry?  We should not.

We should treat Expatriate Poet like royalty, for he is the living embodiment of what we are trying to be on Foetry.com.

[Bugzita]

I agree, Monday.

[Thewayitworks]

Mr. Woodman your posting spells out very nicely the problem with Tupelo and the way that Tupelo has faiiled. Actually, failed is the wrong word. Bait and switch sounds nice.

I admire you for your tenacity in trying honstly to follow the rules, in submitting and trusting that those i control will be ethical an honest.

Thank you for your posts.

[Wilson]

Levine made a huge mistake.  I said this earlier: he should have, in the very least, apologized openly and quickly.  If that meant also sending everyone back a check, then he should have done that too.  This may be one of those places where being a lawyer damages your abilty to be a good businessman. What Levine has done for most of us is make us consider the motivations behind every single person he has published or will publish from here on out. He has raised a level of doubt regarding the quality and integrity of ALL Tupelo authors.

[alan]

You are correct, Wils.  Every publishee seems like a pawn in his big plan now.  I'm sure signing Emily Galvin before she even had her book written had nothing to do with who her parents are and what at least one of them can do for Levine.

[Expatriate Poet]

THIS POST IS A CONTINUATION OF THE DISCUSSION OF JEFFREY LEVINE'S ETHICS AS A POET AND AN EDITOR THAT HAS BEEN TAKING PLACE ON THE "WORKSHOP THE EXPERTS: JEFFREY LEVINE " THREAD (LIT CRIT Section, "Poets, Books, and Poems"). URL http://foetry.com/forum/index.php?topic=1067.0

I think at this point we should look once again at Jeffrey Levine's Tupelo Open letter to me, just to be sure, and as an old man with no face to save or institution to defend or future to ensure I will offer it to you in its entirety. No white-out applied  anywhere—neither to my name, nor to the name of my precious book, nor to the surprising reference to my poem called, appropriately enough,  "Apologia Pro Vita Autistica!"

So here it is exactly as I, a Tupelo Press Open Reading hopeful, received it in Chiang Mai, Thailand on November 21st, 2006.






NOTES

1.) The chronology of my response begins in fact the day before I received the letter. On November 20th I had sent off an entirely different m.s. as a submission for the Dorset Prize. The cover letter went like this:

2007 Tupelo Press Dorset Prize 
P.O. Box 539
Dorset, VT 05251

Dear Carol Ann Davis, Sarah Hannah, Ilya Kaminsky, Jeffrey Levine, and Sophia Stone,
         So here we go again, even while I’m  still feeling quite confident that Jeffrey Levine has in fact selected my  Gold Leaf on the Waters!  during last summer’s Open Reading—no news is always good news when it comes to submissions! I also understand quite well that you will not read this letter unless you choose to publish me, but I’m very willing to take that risk!

          So now I enclose an entirely new version of one of my other books for the 2007 Dorset Prize…

2.) On Novemver 22nd I visited Foetry.com for the first time and discovered my letter was not what it claimed to be. I stopped preparing the m.s. plus $295.00 I intended to send directly to Jeffrey Levine at his home in West Hartford, CT, as instructed, and instead submitted  my first post to Foetry. You will find that letter on the “Tupelo” thread, Expatriate Poet, p. 5, Wed. Nov. 22, 2006, 4.12 pm. URL  http://foetry.com/forum/index.php?topic=850.msg10808#msg10808

3.) On December 4th I posted a letter outlining my attempts to deal with the conflict between my sense of outrage on the one hand and my disbelief that such a great editor could have done something so sleazy on the other.  In other words, it’s an attempt at reconciliation. At that point I decided to reveal my own name, very aware that as a poet who had not yet published a book I was almost certainly burning my bridges forever. “Tupelo” thread, Expatriate Poet, p. 8, Mon. Dec, 04, 2006, 2.42pm. URL  http://foetry.com/forum/index.php?topic=850.msg11001#msg11001


4.) On January 5th I posted the poem, "Apologia Pro Vita Autistica," that Jeffrey Levine claimed he had liked enough to put up on his own bulletin board—that intervention moved  on to a discussion of the ethical issues raised by such behavior, and the thread was moved to the LIT CRIT section and  called “Judging Poetry and Integrity,” Expatriate Poet, p. 5, , Fri. Jan, 05, 2007, 2.25pm. URL http://foetry.com/forum/index.php?topic=937.msg11337#msg11337

I might add here that the parenthetical assertion that Jeffrey Levine had posted a poem from Gold Leaf on the Waters! on his bulletin board certainly distracted me from questioning the rest of the letter, I was that pleased,  and I suspect that was precisely the strategy behind the remark. My book must have been very difficult to fit into any of Jeffrey Levine’s 15 pigeon holes, it’s such an odd-man-out’s  freak show, and he had to add a special bit of schtick to distract me from the fraudulent ‘scent’—because no other critical comments in the letter are specifically applicable to my work! Indeed, I know that at least one other poet also had a poem on Jeffrey Levine’s bulletin board—a PM arrived in my Foetry mailbox from another maverick like myself who got the same distracting compliment!
 
5.) By January 9th I was able at last to express my full sense of outrage, and apologised publicly for having tried to defend the indefensible. . .  “Tupelo” thread, Expatriate Poet, p. 10, Sun. Jan, 13, 2007, 12.26pm. URL  http://foetry.com/forum/index.php?topic=850.msg11542#msg11542

There is a lot to review here, and new-comers should remember that this post follows a passionate discussion of the whole phenomenon of Jeffrey Levine the editor as poet, or vice versa if you see it the way he would like you to. You will find all that in the thread called "Workshop the Experts: Jeffrey Levine," LIT CRIT, "Poets, Books, and Poems." URL  http://foetry.com/forum/index.php?topic=1067.0