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I know this post is a few days past us now, but it's still been on my mind. To be brief, I find this statement inadequate. But I also want to expand on why, as the title of this special issue, "The Practice of Freedom," has continued to poke at me a bit. https://twitter.com/poetrymagazine/status/1357778081767960577
The word "practice" has multiple definitions, but generally, they refer to either the application of theory or the repetition of a specific act or set of actions. While the title of this issue is aspirational, POETRY was not ready to take flight as it pertains to abolition work.
Before most realized KN was featured in this issue, I feel there was a general enthusiasm for POETRY making dedicated space for the writing of incarcerated poets. I state that to remind that folks are not angry with the intention or idea, but what is seen as specific malpractice.
Let's not lose sight of why incarcerated writers should be given a platform: it is because they can offer vital perspective on the intersectional violences endemic to the carceral state and our criminal justice system and how the world can and must be made anew.
This is the power behind platforming marginalized voices. But with incarcerated writers, there comes the added complexity of working with a group who challenges our normal ideas of victimization. They are victims of an inhumane system, but they also may have victimized others.
This doesn't make them unique; many violent people will never see the inside of a prison cell (for many reasons), but unfortunately, incarcerated people carry the stigma, scapegoated for ills owned collectively, culturally. And, of course, some have committed no crime at all.
But, still, we embrace them because we understand that justice is not a jail for you and a house for me; we embrace them because prison is not restorative, but a weapon turned too often against the most vulnerable in society to no ends but further exploitation.
Platforming itself, however, is not restorative. While we acknowledge incarcerated people are human beings who are far more than whatever crimes they may have committed, we cannot excuse harm done that still requires accountability, where restorative effort is needed.
That returns me to the special issue, as the contention of most is that an abuser on a large scale, who has used privileged positions to inflict harm on people, was lifted up with no evident aims at restoration having been made on their part.
Given the scale of the crimes and allegations, I'm not sure how that is possible, but that's for another time, when my imagination has successfully divested from carceral resolutions; for now, it suffices to say keeping the work is *far* more harm done than help offered.
Again, the principle behind efforts to lift up the voices of the incarcerated is not to hear their voices alone, but to allow their voices to steer us toward real justice being possible in society; all systems of oppression begin to unravel if incarceration is eradicated.
After all, guest editor Joshua Bennett astutely connects prison abolition to eradication of the police state, racial capitalism and chattel slavery; many "in the system" were already marginalized before they were marginalized, making protection of KN all the more dubious to me.
In editorial work, discretion is going to be a key responsibility. In abolition work, discretion is going to be a key responsibility. I'm of the mind that emancipation is an individual or limited reward, but liberation is a collective bounty that requires collectivist thought.
If there were no lines drawn as to whose work would be considered based upon their criminal record, I don't have much of a problem with that, actually. We shouldn't be in the business of reviewing rap sheets and acting as judges. But that doesn't mean harm doesn't matter.
The failure here is that when voices crescendoed calling *HARM*, those voices were seemingly ignored. It was conveniently forgotten that POETRY had waded into communal work when the community cautioned no restorative action from KN has demonstrably occurred.
To see KN's work protected on (flimsy) principle against the true aims of abolition work (as I see it) stung. Stinging even more: that he, individually, even given his incarcerated status, doesn't live with the precariousness of others in this issue before or after prison.
Forgive me, but I'm not sure how KN's voice helps us remake the world given it was his comparative power/privilege that facilitated his misdoings to begin with. That he now holds a place above the other poets in this issue in our minds due to this decision: immensely regretful.
Look, y'all: this work is messy. People in this work every day will tell us that if we just listen to them. But when we make a mess, we can't well leave it alone. We have to clean it up. And I know, even in a pandemic, there's no shortage of mops and brooms in Chicago.
I'm sure there were all types of internal fights before this statement was released, but at the end of the day—after petition and, on the part of many, a boycott—the magazine and foundation has committed to doing better. Candidly, this response doesn't honor that to me. Nah.
Also, everybody send some strength to a survivor today.
And thank you if you stuck with this lengthy thread and made it to this point. I'm just thinking out loud, really. I'm learning just like anybody else.
And thank you if you stuck with this lengthy thread and made it to this point. I'm just thinking out loud, really. I'm learning just like anybody else.
