Dear Richard,

Your compassion and the compassion of others at petc was not, believe me, 
unnecessarily given.  Nor is compassion ever unnecessarily given, is it, 
really?  It's healthy that you've brought up this issue, these issues.  It's 
takes courage to do as you've just done---to complain directly to the person 
you think has aggrieved you.  An injured heart often's unnoticed--or, if 
noticed, easily misunderstood.   I'm sorry for injuring your heart.

I think it wise to spread many issues before our Poetryetc-ers themselves. 
What better way to work into the group's worth!  How is this ListServ 
different from others for writers, for example?  How does one easily, 
linearly, sort through a heart to find the point of "betrayal" or what more 
commonly's thought of as "loss of trust"?  There's an agony that poets well 
can tap.  In poetizing, as well as in dramatizing, when does the poet or 
playwright become "not herself" and then herself again?  At what clear 
juncture does a person know precisely her motives?  Does playfulness have a 
role in a ListServ?  Have we today fulfilled Petc's mission?  What, on 
balance, has been the failure in this entire event?  What have you learned?

It is sufficient for me to know that you need an apology for me to freely 
give it.  If you feel, further, that I should withdraw from the ListServ, 
you surely are not the only one to think it.  In that case, let me hear from 
others, and let us submit the idea to those who review such things.  And as 
you surely must know by now, I would do as they direct me to do.  If it 
would be to withdraw, I would do it with great pain and with the belief that 
we may have slid further from the goals for which we can only strive 
together.

Judy


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Jeffrey Newman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 10:36 PM
Subject: Re: TO MY DEAR PETCIES: an explanation


> Frankly, Judy, I am not amused, nor does your thanks mean much to me. The
> time I spent writing to you was valuable time I could have used otherwise.
> More to the point, every other list that I belong to, as far as I know, 
> has
> in its guidelines somewhere an explicit statement that, when you agree to
> join, you also agree not to represent yourself as someone other than who 
> you
> are. I do not remember if this list has such an explicit statement, but 
> you
> have violated, it seems to me, a basic trust that is necessary for a list
> like this to work. As Andrew Burke points out, though it's hard to tell 
> the
> tone of his question from his post, how do we know which "you" is you? 
> More
> than thanks for our compassion which, clearly, we gave unnecessarily, I
> think you owe us an apology.
>
> Richard Newman
>
> _________________________________
> Richard Jeffrey Newman
> Associate Professor, English
> Chair, International Education Committee
> Nassau Community College
> One Education Drive
> Garden City, NY 11530
> O:  (516) 572-7612
> F:  (516) 572-8134
> [log in to unmask]
> www.ncc.edu
>