This may be of interest to those of you who are also on the British and
Irish Poets List.
Due to reasons that have not been explained to me, I have been
banned from the British and Irish Poets List. I am at a loss to see why
this has happened. The list managers in their email notifying me of this
banning failed to tell me exactly why, mentioning only that I had
made ‘speculative attacks’—against whom or what has been omitted.
Here is the email:
Dear Jeffrey,
Due to your repeated, unsubstantiated and entirely speculative attacks,
in accordance with list rules you have been removed from the British
and Irish Poetry List.
Your sincerely,
Randolph Healy
Ian Davidson
If by that they are referring to my posts on the Oxford Professor of
Poetry elections, then I can’t see those as meriting my banning. Anyone
is free to view these posts, and if they do they will see that I said
nothing like the portrayal of them by the list managers.
Perhaps they are referring to one of the following comments I
attempted to post but for some reason didn’t appear (presumably
vetted). I will leave it to you to judge for yourselves if I said anything
in them meriting the ban:
In response to Jamie Mckendrick regarding the Oxford Professor of
Poetry elections:
“Ideally, the electoral rules and procedures you mention should prevail,
but we are both old enough to suspect that given the potential for
favouritism (and the politics of poetry seems to operate on this basis)
such transparency could be jeopardised."
In response to Jamie Mckendrick regarding the Oxford Professor of
Poetry elections
“When Heaney held the post, most of his lectures concerned
themselves with defending the sort of poetic styles that his own poetry
relied on. So the post seems to have the potential to enable the
particular poet holding the position to use it as a platform for apologia
for their poetry. And because most of those likely to hold the position
will be those who write mainstream poetry, the pedagogical process of
disseminating the virtues of such poetry publically will continue. By the
way, the same would also be true if an “avant-garde” poet held the
post. Given this, I see no reason for the post to exist.”
In response to Robin Hamilton regarding the Oxford Professor of Poetry
elections
“I don’t see such a sharp contradiction as you do, Robin. I didn’t
actually say the thing had been “fixed”, though that was perhaps the
inference (which I have apologised for) I gleaned from Stevenson’s
quote. I merely suggested that she might know something about any
behind-the-scenes machinations that went on. I certainly didn't claim
that I knew about such, also. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the
word “fixed” in my apology, as it was not a word I used in my original
post, and has obviously misled you as to what I did say.”
My apologies for burdening you with this, but it is merely for the record.
I tried to get this forwarded to the list itself, but the list managers
intercepted it and rebuked the person who had tried to forward it for me-
-so much for democracy and free speech.
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