May 11th, 2020 - The Resident Poet
Dear TNY,
Fuck you for publishing “The Resident Poet”.
I’m going to hit, very shortly, the mechanics of this story: The narrative flow was reasonable but the descriptions were often too writerly and I want to debate about the VW because parts of the descriptions are right and others are not right (I would know, I owned one as my first car).
But I don’t want to talk about the story, mechanically, today. I want to talk about responsibility.
This story is toxic. It’s toxic in the same way that “Cat Person” was toxic. The vast majority of human beings don’t read your magazine, so the people that would read this and recognize that the main character is a fucking pig of a human…won’t. So that means there won’t be the level of voices necessary to shit all over this fucking poisonous, stereotype-reinforcing bullshit. No, I imagine this will garner the same kind of attention that “Cat Person” did. The twitters will be alight with a heap of elitist, academic snobs who can “relate” to this story, it having validated their own experience (which I’m not trying to invalidate; I’m arguing for whatever healing can happen instead of hyper-focusing on an old wound). And there will be the ugly opposition, the people who are the stereotypes, who have waited for another moment to be terrible and say their ugly shit which will, in turn, reinforce the previous group’s opinion that the story is valid (and those ugly people are everywhere and something bad happened to them along the way too and, I know it’s hard to fucking do it, but you have to try to understand where they are coming from instead of just dismiss their opinion because it’s not yours). And there will be a few people in a different group that argue how regressive stories like these are for fiction (and the progression of humans), like myself, and they will get ridiculed for doing so, publicly and by both groups, which will make them feel terrible for trying and silence their voice in favor of radical, inaccurate, and damaging vitriol.
Was the poet a piece of shit? Yes, in action. I love how he needed to have a pregnant wife and a tiny daughter at home, though. That was a particularly inspired authorial choice. He could not have been the epitome of a cliché male professor otherwise. And just like “Cat Person” we get to see that shallow stereotypes, mostly ones about weight, are repulsive to female characters, especially ones who are pretty (quick aside: the “grotesque” poet seemed to think women of all shapes and sizes were beautiful; the MC did not. Curious).
I’m gonna digress and do the exact thing that will get other critics of this story beat up which I told myself I wouldn’t do but seem to be doing: If a man wrote this story, it wouldn’t get published. He’d be criticized for making an unsympathetic and “man’s opinion” of a female character and for being sexist himself (even if he wrote this exact cliché of a professor to say, “Look, I made a man ugly!”). If the roles were reversed in this story, an overweight, ugly (as a human) female poet took a freshman boy with some shape out for the weekend, this story would also not get published. The woman character would not be “believable”, because women could never do this (ha-ha!), and the male character would have been a predator, gathering his stories. Oh, not to mention how eviscerated the author would have been for describing women so superficially. To mention, about a million times, a woman’s weight? To make her body disgusting? Fuck my face. The actual pages of the magazine would have caught on fire. If the man in this story, the poet, was handsome, single, and treated the girl well, that wouldn’t have been published either. Because he also wouldn’t have been “believable”.
I could go on. But, something else is tugging at me. You want this. You want this reaction. I…I mean. Truly. Fuck you for publishing this. You don’t even care what real Art is about. Your fiction is a waste of my time. But maybe not everyone’s time, though. See, you’ve got me thinking now. About the whole idea of this story. Does this shit happen in the world? Yes. Yes it does. But the world is changing. It’s always changing. Better, worse, etc. It’s moving. I think the reality is that most people would read a story like this and discount the whole thing as phony. Maudlin. Played out. Tired. And I mean most, like most actual fucking humans. Because bad things happen. And people move on. But I think your readership, a good portion, will read this and see it as genuine. See it as relevant. Your readers will be that spouse that brings shit up that happened 22 years ago and is still mad about it. See, this type of story perpetuates the cliché. It perpetuates the stereotype. It stops us from growing. Accuses us of not growing. Again, I’m not invalidating anyone else’s experience. Bad shit happens. People are terrible. People always will be. But this story holds us in that moment. We don’t heal. We don’t get a chance to. And that’s what I’m thinking about.
I’m thinking you, TNY, need the world to look like this. I think you like being the victim. It sells magazines. Makes you seem edgy. Gets you talked about. Makes you seem progressive to publish shit with antiquated and cliché plots (that, yes, I acknowledge still exist in the world; this is not how one resolves them, though). You think this kind of shit makes you seem woke. But actually it makes you seem weak. Because you can’t and don’t publish stories that offer progress. A way out. You keep dredging up the past. You keep dividing people. You keep publishing fiction that ensures that we have to have these conversations over and over and over again. And when the conversations look the way you make them look (read: imbalanced and confrontational), they don’t offer the aforementioned way out. It’s just the same shit over and over. Causes fatigue. Bolsters a small group on one side of the argument. Enrages the equally small opposition. And for everyone caught in the middle, they just tune the fuck out. Nothing changes. No empathy is created. The world is made worse. Fucking toxic. Just like I said.
Also, note the similarities between how you operate and how American politics operate. Nice one, Trump.
I went to lunch with my son a couple months ago before the ‘ronies took the world out. He’s in fourth grade. And I sat at this round table with a bunch of kids his age and this small argument started. About using the F word for gay people (I won’t use it now and you’ll see why soon). I guess one kid, who was not present, had called another kid, who was also not present, that word. And every kid at the table was discussing how wrong it was that that had happened. And they all were using the word. Openly. Just throwing it around. And I spoke up and said, “You know, even though you have the right intentions and you know that word is wrong, you keep saying it to discuss it. The best way to eradicate it is to not say it at all. The kid did a bad thing. He was corrected. Now we move on and don’t keep saying it because that just perpetuates it.”
They were kids. I’m sure it didn’t get in.
I’m not saying we should just not talk about bad things. At all. There are so many issues with humans. We are fucking terrible to ourselves and each other. And those things need to be talked about. And I don’t think they will ever be fully resolved. We don’t learn. We cycle. Hopefully we cycle upwards, to a better place. But that happens through self-reflection, kindness, forgiveness, and day-to-day, single interactions. Trying to be a good human. Recognizing times that you aren’t. Trying harder next time, etc. But stories like this don’t do anything for us. They just push us down. Hold us back.
Art is fucking forgiveness. It’s empathy. It’s saying, I know you fucked up. We all fuck up. But I see you. I fuck up too. I try my best. You are trying your best and you fell down. And we can talk about how we fucked up and then we can learn from that and try harder next time. And maybe a whole life is a fuck up. Mine sure feels that way, TNY. But I can only fix one person. Maybe I can raise my two sons to not make some of the same mistakes. But I can only control me. And not very well most of the time. Art says bad things happen, and sometimes you’re the villain and sometimes you’re the hero. Most of the time you are both at the same time. So you do your best. You work hard. Try to treat people with respect. Express empathy, because you must remember that other people are also the villain/hero as well. And you try to cause as little negative energy as possible.
Your stories are not Art. Your stories are ruining humanity.
I don’t really want to post this. Because I’m sure there will be the, “Well, I guess we should all just forgive Bill Cosby,” and “Harvey Weinstein was just doing his best” stuff. No. I’m not defending that kind of behavior. That’s not what this is about. I can’t change the world. I think, like most people, I’ll get more done by putting my head down, working hard, and trying to be a good person in my actual life and not one outside my reach. Arguing about shit I cannot control doesn’t do me any good. And there are bad people. And good people. And good people who act badly. And bad people who act good. There’s everything. There always will be.
I’m sorry if something bad happened to you. I’m sorry if you are having trouble healing. I get that. Hugs. Big ones. I understand that maybe you don’t want what happened to you to happen to anyone else. That’s totally valid and I really appreciate you thinking of others. But, as a species, we don’t win by telling each other what we are doing wrong over and over. We win with empathy. We win with Art. We win with forgiveness. With understanding.
Now I’m sitting here crying. Because you once again show how petty, greedy, and uninterested in changing you really are, TNY. So, instead I did something I do from time to time when I feel like we are fucked as a species. I read about the aftermath to the West Nickel Mines School shooting. And about the Amish community’s response. And now I’m going to go on with my day and remember that I have the power to forgive and that’s how I can make the world a better place. And that there will be people like you out there, forever, endlessly dragging us back to the same place and not allowing us to move on. I understand there is evil in the world. I understand that you think you are helping. I understand that’s just another type of bad behavior. And I understand that I’ll be vulnerable to harsh criticism of this argument, too (I recently received and email that accused me of being r******d, which, as an argument, says far more about the author of the email than it does myself). But, I’m doing my best. Trying to be a good person. Not wanting to see the artform I love get degraded so terribly.
So I’ll play disc golf with my boys today. Walk around this little town. Get a sunburn. Play Pokémon Go. And tell them about this story. Your magazine. The Amish. And the school shooting. And forgiveness. I’ll cry while doing it. And they’ll see that too. And that’s how I’ll try to make the world a better place.
I’m sure you’ll get the attention you are looking for by publishing this. I hope it’s enough.
Nick
P.S. I did consider that this story was supposed to be ironic, but I think the end result is the same: If no one gets that it’s irony, it’s accusations of Nabokov being a child molester all over again (I think that book is a masterpiece, by the way, the language of it; I also think it’s a powerful book in the wrong hands).
P.P.S. There was this website called thenicestplaceontheinter.net once upon a time. It’s been taken down. Sadly. I used to go there when I wanted to die. To remember why I shouldn’t. I read Art to remember why I shouldn’t. We all need to remember. More importantly, we don’t need you, TNY, like you need us. We need more hugs, motherfucker. And the song from that website does it for me in a way you never will.
