I'm not on the Buffalo Poetics list, but like a lot of other poets I dip in
their archives from time to time for a taste of good old Americana lit and
found myself enthralled in late August by the installments on the heteronymy
case (or cluster of them) that Jeffrey was investigating. I'd become
interested back in July in one particular character who would disappear from
Poetics just when the rest of the heteronymous web was coming undone in
Jeffrey's hands, with some help from its own weavers, who were having
trouble keeping their own pseudonyms straight (if that's the word). The
character who was my focus called himself Ammonides (Diodorus?), and if the
name rings a bell or two at Poetryetc, it may be that some of you recall him
as the Poetics listee whose "fascinating" posts on poetry and madness Kent
Johnson proposed to cross-post here with their author's permission, he said.
As you may also recall, Kent was oddly resistant to meeting my routine
request that those posts and the permission to reproduce them here be sent
directly from "[log in to unmask]" to Alison, Randolph, or myself--a
resistance on Kent's part that whiffed more than a little, but the reason
for which soon became apparent from the Poetics posts by "Ammonides" last
July and August. Without knowing I was doing so, but just being naturally
suspicious, I'd put poor Kent in a rather awkward position with that
request, and the rest is history, as they say.

I think I'll leave it to Jeffrey to fill you in on the rest--if he's
willing--since he knows far more about the Poetics/Ammonides side of the
Poetryetc/KJ enigma and heteronymy tale than I do. And he worked hard to
untangle it, so he deserves the narrative prerogative. I'll just get some
corn a'poppin'....

Canndice



> Gosh thank you Jeffrey, I don't know what to make of all this. I had no
> idea. On ground that I can negotiate -- tell Joe Amato that I'm a bit
> miffed he doesn't remember *me* fondly, the dog. And I'm the one who
> ploughed through the creative writing pedagogy essay, goddammit.
> But thank you very much.
> Mairead
>
> On Thu, 11 Oct 2001, Jeffrey Jullich wrote:
>
>> Quoting Mairead Byrne <[log in to unmask]>:
>>
>>> I wonder would anyone have an email contact for Gary Sullivan.
>>> I've been
>>> trying to access Readme and getting the earthlink page. All
>>> suggestions
>>> welcome.
>>> Mairead
>>>
>> Mairead:
>>
>> Gary Sullivan recently posted/claimed on the U.S. Electronic Poetry
>> Center List that, due to some alteration in web server, the URL for
>> Readme had been changed and now required some additional word
>> ("home"?). You might check the Buffalo archives for that--- although
>> I believe you may still find yourself dead-ended.
>>
>> Because, PLEASE NOTE:
>>
>> This posting appeared fast upon the tail of certain legal/ethical hot
>> water Readme had churned.
>>
>> In August, the Buffalo List focused a great deal of public attention
>> and pressure on Sullivan for having published identity theft documents
>> and homophobic hate literature in Readme.
>>
>> He had printed a fraudulent interview between "John Ashbery"and one
>> Jacques Debrot,--- which in fact John had no involvement with or
>> knowledge of. The interview puts words into Ashbery's mouth equating
>> homosexuality with insanity. Sullivan also added to the Debrot by
>> himself commissioning two forged "Ashbery" poems that accompanied the
>> interview, by an author whose identity he has refused to disclose
>> publicly.
>>
>> Simultaneously, the trail lead to another "Ashbery" counterfeit in
>> Andrew Felsinger's litvert, previously accused of being mere copyright
>> violation of a valid text.
>>
>> Felsinger had perhaps been duped (by Debrot, who gave him it) into
>> believing the fake was a real Ashbery poem. Felsinger yielded fairly
>> quickly to persuasion and removed the link to the forgery, and he
>> xxxx-xxxxxxx-ed out the name "John Ashbery" so that web search for
>> John's name would no longer lead to the traces of that deception. His
>> initial plea of naivite is plausible, given the benefit of the doubt.
>>
>> Sullivan, however, remained recalcitrant and, despite heated public
>> disclosure and outcry, he defended his deceit (as in the spirit of
>> Nabokov, or as a nostalgic evocation of a similar mid-1900s petite
>> scandale Berrigan/"John Cage" interview [also, note, aimed at a
>> homosexual man] which he said is a touchstone role model to him).
>>
>> It was only after September 11th had given Sullivan still more time to
>> perpetuate his malfeasance, or to let it openly malinger, that direct
>> contact from John or his agents was reported to have secured a promise
>> that a "disclaimer" would appear in Readme.
>>
>> But it was then at only exactly that point that Sullivan announced,
>> ostensibly, taking the entire contents of all Readme issues into
>> subterfuge by making them inaccessible behind the password protection
>> that you encountered. (By then, intimations and admissions had
>> emerged about additional Readme forgeries or more identity theft.)
>>
>> Within days of that, Sullivan --- when a subsequent case of false
>> identity was found on-List --- theatrically threatened that he would
>> have nothing to do with that on-line poetry community anymore and that
>> he was signing off from there forever, because they should have
>> censored the use of a pseudonym.
>>
>>
>> I hope this is helpful to you and others, and that it answers your
>> question.
>>
>> Fond appreciation for the U.K. List's and that country's ongoing
>> level-headedness and encouragement for us beset New Yorkers, sent
>> gratefully from here on the palisades of upper Manhattan. And regards
>> to Gabriel Gudding, Mairead, whom Joe Amato remembers fondly from
>> their old collaborations on the U.S. List.
>>
>> Jeffrey Jullich