From: "steve duffy" <[log in to unmask]>

>> What crap Steve. This kind of sneaky bullshit really gets up my nose.

"
and this kind of sneaky rhetoric really gets up my nose. i've watched
kent being hounded off two lists, and by way of explanation all you can
seem to say is that everyone ought to trust you and the other listowners.
"

-- well, let's just get this a little straight: it was four lists and five
occasions. There was Buffalo in 98. Kent the martyr for free speech
[reported in various publications by -- who else? Kent Johnson]. Then there
was british-poetry, which ended up being "reported" in VeRT
(complete --though this was, apparently the responsibility of Kent's
collaborator Jacques Debrot -- with doctored posts). Then there was the
subsub meltdown, in the course of which Kent made the "whimsical" suggestion
that Richard Dillon's posts were actually written by David Hess. This might
be accepted as a typical Kent Johnson joke (if, leaving aside the venom with
which Richard was being treated on subsub at that point, a singularly
tastlesless one) if it didn't happen that not so long later, we have Kent
and Hess carrying on a public/private psychodrama on poetryetc. That was
resolved with Kent being reinstated as a full member of poetryetc.

Now the latest fiasco ...

How many bites on the postman's leg does the dog get to inflict?

"
i'm sorry if having to explain what a person is charged with is boring
for you. i can assure you it is exceedingly boring for me to have to
attempt to get blood from a stone - i'd much rather be getting on with
my work. but if kent can be "written out" and protest landscaped over
then who is safe?
"

Well, given that well +before+ this reached the point it has, Kent was
already negotiating publication rights (egoless copyright) for his version
of events on poetryetc, he's hardly being "written out". VeRT was asked,
not to censor the Johnson/Debrot "Lacan Letters" but to include statements
(perfectly fair, as the whole issue of 'censorship' on british-poetry was at
issue) from various members of british-poetry. Did they? Did they fuck.
So stop prating about censorship.

I could go on -- but I'd make the point that the archives of Buffalo, subsub
[I think], british-poetry, and poetryetc are open for public inspection.
Fewer people will read them than will read The Kent Johnson Version in VeRT,
or wherever. Nevertheless, they're there to be consulted.

This isn't an issue of censorship, it's an issue of disinformation.

Robin Hamilton