I am working on an article that you might be interested in publishing, or if you wish, I could focus it as a letter. At this point, it might seem a bit unfriendly, because I am under the impression that P&W may have opened a can of worms for which it is disclaiming responsibility. Part of it will appear in International Quarterly if I can't find a more widely distributed place for it. That place, most appropriately, would be Poets and Writers. At some point, it and a larger discussion may also be aired on our website and linked to other websites. Please let me know if you are interested and under what terms. This is a very important matter. I understand that you may believe Fred Viebahn has had the opportunity to present and defend. But neither I nor International Quarterly have been given such an opportunity.

As editor of International Quarterly, I felt the July/August 1998 comment on Fred Viebahn's letter was, in fact, slanderous and costly, since it implied we did not check things out or think things through. I had offered to e-mail the author of your article the complete text as it was to appear in International Quarterly with its full context, but she e-mailed me that she already had your deadline for her piece. Obviously none of your authors and letters critical of Fred Viebahn's piece was interested in the whole story, and I was as shocked as Professor David Mura, ) whose response to your piece was rich and eloquent. He is the only person of color in the discusssion, though you asked a white person connected to the Academy to respond. When I saw your article and Kathleen Norris's misconstruing response, yes, I was shocked that P&W distorted the facts re. the Academy's resistance to change over a period of years as documented in Viebahn's letter and in the articles with it in International Quarterly. Because you are advertisement-driven, you reach a very large audience. We cannot reach your audience to correct your misinformation. That is your responsibility.

Note: We would not have published Fred Viebahn's letter had it been as you and your chosen representatives for the Academy represented it. I corresponded with Viebahn before hand. Yes, like you I had qualms about criticizing the powerful Academy, the venerable Stanley Kunitz, whose work and life I admire, and Chancellors who I honor and consider friends as well as former teachers. But the facts are that if your readers and authors read the context of Viebahn's essay, it will be much clearer what damage has been done to American poets and readers, especially all people of color, by the Academy's tenacious clinging to its white status-quo structure. In fact, I think the members of the Academy who had simply ignored Viebahn, Toi Derricotte, and others over the years owe them both a sincere apology. If the distinguished president of the Academy who had ignored these complaints over a period of years, is highly placed in the management of one of our most distinguished publishing houses, that too is cause for alarm.

I have been aware of, opposed to and resistant to it since I was a small child. Yes, I am an American, and I am a racist because I am an American (I have never met an American who was not), but I am not a Racist, and we can only use the small "r" by recognizing it and going against its grain whenever it is called for and not raising questions of these practices where they do not apply. And it does not involve implying people are Racists, but this is what your distortions have done to Fred Viebahn and International Quarterly in implying that we raise the question where it does not need to be raised. I think you are good people and that all of the members of the Academy are good people, but it appears by your refusing to publish corrections to the unquestionable and bizarre distortions of your own article that you are declaring yourself part of by joining in the denial of our persistent and tiresome white hegemony and that you are adding to the Academy's insult of, not just the valuable and beloved poets such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes, and Robert Hayden (who have given us some some of our best work) but all Americans of color for whom these poets are the truest spokespersons of America. I went back to check my feelings on this, rereading much of their work. We would be poetic paupers without the work of poets of color, including African American poets, Hispanic poets of all traditions, and Asian American poets from all cultures. So why are they not been among the society's highest symbols, the Chancellors? Your whole discussion as evaded this question.

International Quarterly probably would not have published Viebahn's piece, but I had met Fred Viebahn and talked to him at length at the Nobel Laueates Cultural Olympics in Atlanta, and I had found him a reasonable, soft-spoken, trustworthy person, not one likely to engage in spurious accusations and complaints. Revisions had been made in his essay because of considerations of tone that were misrepresented in your article. The advance draft Viebahn gave you, had said "The 'Massas' of Verse" --but the final versiion, that he had referred you to me for and that you had no need of seeing, said "The Masters' of Verse." I am reminded of a small-town jack-leg reporter who wanted quotes from me at the very moment I was leaving for class. When I returned from class an hour later, I called to respond to the reporter and she had already made up quotes and put words in my mouth that I would have never said..

Unfortunately, you misinformed far more people than we can correct on the web, even if you publish our URL. Let's settle this all for the welfare of the Academy of American Poets and for Americans of color. We can make suggestions. Nothing says there should only be ten chancellors. Why not fifteen? As Whitman said, "Very well then, I contain multitudes." Who else should advise us?