But we are not talking about other submissions, we are talking about this particular one. You may be right that there may have been others that were brilliant and that Alexie’s curation was flawed in missing those pieces. This poem wasn’t good. We have to look at the reasons why that poem was accepted.

I’m not sure you can really say that without seeing the rest of the successful submissions (and for that matter, some of the other submissions that almost made it in, but didn’t). It may not be brilliant, but taste is subjective, and we also don’t know exactly how brilliant all the other poems were. What you’re…

I agree that perspective and context plays a role but the quality of the perspective matters even more. The poem that the fake guy submitted and was excepted isn’t very good. We can’t just settle for mediocrity for us to be at least heard. The quality needs to be up to snuff to what is considered noteworthy. We become…

Well, I think fixing this stuff requires a “both, and” approach, rather than an “either, or” approach. Yes, we should re-integrate schools, and that will help. But it also helps to deliberately do things like what Sherman Alexie did here in order to help correct existing imbalances. It takes all kinds of tactics at…

This one is tough for me. As an African American man, I can see why Alexie did this. He wanted help someone of color get a leg up in spite the fact the work is mediocre to just plain not good. In trying to raise the voice of someone of color - who traditionally has had and still has trouble having their voices heard -…

I love poetry (literally have favorite poems, poets, lines that make me tear up a little, etc) but also I am very very mentally ill. So like much of art, it only makes sense to people who are overdramatic and wrong in the head.

Give a man a saw and he stabs for one day.

It be like what George Eliot wrote: “Mill, you ain’t flossin’.”

My life is finally getting its shit together. I’m taking a VISTA Leader position in Vermont, my finances aren’t on fire, and my summer project absolutely rocked. This is a weird feeling for me.

I’m alive because my mother had an abortion before me.

So it’s almost like... These fetal stems cells are helping to save lives... Like actual lives... Like actual, living, breathing, thinking, reasoning, emoting lives with histories and personalities and complexities.

As interesting as it would be for a show like this to flirt with more edgy presentation, I enjoy its family friendliness. What a great show to watch with kids, you know?

Funny, people say the same sort of thing about gay people. “If he’d only kept quiet about it, no one would have done anything.”

Atheists still not welcome though... just sayin’...

*Sniffs*

So I got overwhelmed last week and didn’t answer all the lovely replies to my “OMG I am falling the fuck apart” comment, but thank you thank you THANK YOU to everyone who commented. It was amazing receiving that much love and support, and I can’t tell you all how much it meant to me. Also, while things sadly still…