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10-17-2019, 06:00 PM
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Well, I've googled 'First Things' and yes, it's bigger than I thought and it isn't particularly nice. It has a circulation of around 30,000, similar to that of Poetry magazine. But if, as Quincy tells me, "First Things is generally known in this country as one of the leading journals of the religious right", then the point of this thread isn't to inform anyone here (the majority US members at least) of anything that they wouldn't already know. After all, that the religious right are likely to be homophobic and transphobic should be news to nobody. To state the obvious, the point is to shame people in this particular workshop community who associate with it. I suppose then it's up to people here to decide whether causing inevitable personal acrimony among members is worth the 'greater good' of that shaming, the best case scenario of which, presumably, would be that 'First Things' might lose half a dozen shamed contributors. I'm honestly not sure. The magazine has some pretty unpleasant content, but I'm not a massive fan of public shaming in a small, close-knit poetry community either. There must be less petty ways to fight bigotry.
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10-17-2019, 06:16 PM
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It's not about shaming, Mark, as many of us have said that we continue to respect many of its contributors and its current poetry editor. I think the point is to make sure that people have the information needed to make their own choice. It was a thread like this one some years ago that made me realize that I wanted to stop submitting to them. I wasn't shamed into that decision, but made aware of facts that swayed me.
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10-17-2019, 06:27 PM
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Hmm. It was just that Quincy's description of it as being 'known as one of the leading journals of the religious right' led me to assume that people would already know what kind of content it published and so wouldn't need a thread like this to inform them. I mean, I hadn't heard of it, beyond mentions on the Sphere, but after what Q said I assumed that was just because I'm English.
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10-17-2019, 06:42 PM
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While 30K is a pretty hefty circulation for a magazine that publishes poetry, it's still quite small in the scheme of things (300 million+ population) and I suspect that most people I know have still never heard of it. I myself would never have heard of it but for the poetry. The first copy I ever held in my hands was a contributor's copy. All I knew at the time was that it was oriented toward Catholics, and I had a translation of a Catholic religious sonnet that I thought would therefore fit. I knew so little about the magazine that I accidentally referred to it as First Light in my email submission. So no, First Things is known in limited circles but is far from a household name.
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10-17-2019, 06:48 PM
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Don't tell me Quincy is prone to exaggeration!
Anyway, to summarise: there are some lovely people working for and contributing to an ideologically objectionable magazine. Make of that paradox what you will. I'd sum it up in two words: organised religion.
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10-18-2019, 12:37 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
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Anyone who conflates circulation with influence has no idea how influence works. First Things has a relatively small circulation, but who reads it is the more important question as to where it’s influence lies. But never mind me. I’m “prone to exaggeration” or some shit.
And Mark’s “organized religion” comment is a cop-out. There are many, many Christians who aren’t homophobic assholes.
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10-18-2019, 02:44 AM
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10-18-2019, 04:24 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2016
Location: Seattle
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Since we're speculating about the intentions behind the thread, and since I started it...
My main intention behind starting the thread was to vent some rage. That's the big one. There wasn't a deep strategy beyond that, whether about shame or about informing people.
But let's talk about shame. There is at least one person here who should be shamed: Juster. His decision to edit First Things is deeply shameful. It's also deeply hypocritical. He likes to position himself as a moral authority in our community—see his outcry whenever anyone apologizes for Ezra Pound (another "generous friend of poets and poetry"). Yet he himself is willing to actively support* the persecution of the LGBT community. I think it's really fucking gross, and deeply shameful.
*For my own part, I think editing the poetry section of First Things amounts to actively supporting their broader mission. But you can substitute "throw the LGBT community under the bus because he doesn't believe they matter" if you like. I don't think you could make a good case for anything weaker.
As for those who submit poems there, still, knowing that the magazine is a hate magazine, all I'll say is that *I* would be deeply ashamed of seeing my work in print there. Actually I'll say one more thing: I have a quite a few LGBT friends, and I think they would (rightly) ask me "what the fuck are you doing?" And I might well lose some of them as friends—again, rightly.
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10-18-2019, 04:49 AM
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Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Portland Maine
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell
Well, I've googled 'First Things' and yes, it's bigger than I thought and it isn't particularly nice. It has a circulation of around 30,000, similar to that of Poetry magazine. But if, as Quincy tells me, "First Things is generally known in this country as one of the leading journals of the religious right", then the point of this thread isn't to inform anyone here (the majority US members at least) of anything that they wouldn't already know. After all, that the religious right are likely to be homophobic and transphobic should be news to nobody. To state the obvious, the point is to shame people in this particular workshop community who associate with it. I suppose then it's up to people here to decide whether causing inevitable personal acrimony among members is worth the 'greater good' of that shaming, the best case scenario of which, presumably, would be that 'First Things' might lose half a dozen shamed contributors. I'm honestly not sure. The magazine has some pretty unpleasant content, but I'm not a massive fan of public shaming in a small, close-knit poetry community either. There must be less petty ways to fight bigotry.
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Collectives like First Things help afford respectability for the basic tenets that underpin the power of the affluent Right in this country, which is the group that has created/opted for the particular Christianity that is the engine of fascism in America. This collective's output has for decades helped create the ideology that has now given us Trump. Trump presently is involved in unleashing a murderous ethnic cleansing of the Kurds in the autonomous zone of Northern Syria. These realities shame anyone continuing to be involved with this collective. As do numerous other realities birthed by Trump and this particular Christian ideology. Quincy isn't inventing the public shame and disgust that should be associated with anyone empowering this collective or this ideology. He is doing a public service and underlining the already present. The ideology of the First Things Collective has been too consistent for too long. I am not baking dissenting dialogue or poems in this pie. This is about shills like Juster.
I get that parts of this collective support the Kurds and now recoil from their work. That they are too stupid to see the logical outcomes of their ideology and life's work doesn't remove responsibility. I am sure plenty of the early fascists in Germany were revolted and opposed to the events that followed their lead. They still "did it".
And what Quincy said on the organized religion bit. There are gods and there are gods and never the two shall meet.
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10-18-2019, 07:32 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Boston, MA
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Andrew: Collectives like First Things help afford respectability for the basic tenets that underpin the power of the affluent Right in this country, which is the group that has created/opted for the particular Christianity that is the engine of fascism in America.
Don't forget, too, there's the affluent Left. Never the twain shall meet. Mitt Romney is not the same animal as Rush Limbaugh. Both are affluent Right. One is extreme. The same can be said about the Left. It may be hard to bear, but both (extreme Right and Left) are cut from the same cloth. Both must capitulate to moderation and compromise for things to change with a minimum of violence, venom, and ugliness that will occur if they (the extremists) should ultimately steal the stage and clash big time.
But to the issue of First Things being an appropriate receptacle for consciencous objectors to publish their poetry, I refer again to James Baldwin:
“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist."
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