I want to talk about predators, and why some people should not be given a platform "to redeem themselves."

I want to talk about my creative writing professor, Kirk Nesset.

This thread has CW for CSA, child porn, pedophilia, grooming, and predatory behavior.

When I was a senior at Allegheny College, I took a creative writing class. It was the only class I've ever taken on writing and I was excited about it. Kirk Nesset was an award winning poet, a lead singer in a local band. He was weird, and charismatic, and awkward, and forward.

I also had spent four years being verbally warned away from the professor, Kirk Nesset, for his predatory behavior toward

women and femme presenting people at college (I was not out as nonbinary yet and presented femme then, as I do now.) I was thus cautious around him. But at the time, the entire English department had a pretty toxic culture of drinking, blurring the lines between student/prof.

It is my understanding is that changed, and I'm glad. It was inappropriate. But yes, I went down to the bar with our visiting artists and let Kirk Nesset buy me drinks. And other professors! It was a thing that happened. When I met with him 1:1, I made sure the door stayed open.

But we all knew the stories of freshmen girls that Nesset flirted with and preyed upon. It was an open secret, and to my knowledge, at least one victim who tried to report was encouraged not to report. Small college, small town, that kind of thing.

The only short story I ever wrote that Nesset liked was the one in which my main character alluded to being a victim of childhood sexual abuse. He wanted me to get that published. I did not.

I personally witnessed him interact inappropriately with female students. In my creative writing class, he specifically picked the freshmen girls for special treatment, flirting, and extra help. The whisper network was strong, but not strong enough.

CW: pedophilia, child sex abuse, pornography, child porn

Six years after I graduated, Nesset was arrested on charges of child porn. A lot of it. More than 500,000 images, including of infants. I cannot explain how horrifying that is to write.

As you can imagine, it rocked our small college community. I personally felt incredibly guilty about not doing something about the whispers about him. But back then, I honestly thought the only thing we could do was whisper. I wish I'd known better.

I've spent the last five years angry at him, and considering writing to him specifically to tell him how angry I was at him, for everything he put all of us through and the crimes he perpetuated and supported with the images he possessed.

He was released this past September.

And he was published in @PoetryFound's new collection of work from incarcerated artists.

This is wrong, and he should be removed from the collection.

Nesset used his power and privilege to hide and fund his crimes. He should not get a platform. This is not something where he was in jail because the criminal justice system is predatory and racist (which it is.) He is in jail because he committed crimes *against children.*

Moreover, he's apparently publishing under a Latinx pseudonym. You can pretty easily find it by searching Twitter for his full name plus pseudonym.

There's a petition you can sign here, though I don't think the Poetry Foundation is actually going to do anything: https://www.change.org/p/poetry-magazine-support-the-removal-of-convicted-pedophile-kirk-nesset-s-work-from-poetry-magazine

I know people are going to think this is harsh, that I think there's no redemption for him.

I don't think there is.

And I think it was morally corrupt and bankrupt and wrong of him to take a spot in that anthology that could have gone to someone who WASN'T a former lit professor with a ton of formal writing training, to someone whose voice had never been heard before and needed to be.

So Nesset, if you're reading this, and I assume you are, because you are clearly better at the internet than I though you were in class: you should not have taken that spot. If you think you were who that anthology was designed to shine a spotlight on, you are still

playing the victim instead of making room for the people who are actually victims, including every child you harmed even if you never touched them, including every one of your students who you hurt through violation of boundaries or violation of trust.

I'm going to QRT and include this, but if you are one of Nesset's victims, or you are triggered by this conversation, I'm sending you warm thoughts. RAINN has a hotline and a live chat 24/7. https://www.rainn.org/