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Ayaan Hirsi Ali's War
For a couple of centuries now, we have had to make due with Samuel Johnson's famous phrase: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." Thanks to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, we can now revise this phrase for the twenty-first century. Tthe last last refuge of a scoundrel, it appears, lies in taking up the battle against something called "Christophobia."
Hirsi Ali coins this term as part of her alarmist and deeply hateful cover story for Newsweek. "The War on Christians" is splashed across the cover, but the actual target of Hirsi Ali's piece becomes more clear in the title provided for the online version of the piece: "The Global War on Christians in the Muslim World."
The terms of Hirsi Ali's argument, such as it is, are all set out in her opening paragraph:
"We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring's fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway—an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm."
The criminally careless tossing out of the term "genocide" gives us a clue about what is to come. So too does the style, which is a classic version of her usual mode, that of the lone brave voice crying out about injustice in the wilderness, surrounded by dupes who are too busy portraying Muslims as "victims or heroes." Fortunately, Hirsi Ali is prepared to offer us "a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends," leading to what she sees as her inevitable conclusion and allowing her to coin her useful new term: "the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other."
Having already reached her inevitable conclusion in her opening, Hirsi Ali appears to feel little need to support it with anything so mundane as actual facts. Instead he offers a loosely-connected cherry picking tour that ties together incidents of violence against Christians and other religious minorities in Nigeria, Sudan, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, and Indonesia. All the instances she references are real and terrible acts of violence. And all of them are symptoms of complex political and social situations that need to be analyzed and addressed. This makes it all the more horrible that Hirsi Ali treats them as mere data to be added to her deeply simplistic argument. Indeed, she raises the same two points in each case: first, that Muslims are killing Christians; second, that the world (by which she means "the West")—apparently distracted by its uncritical admiration for the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring and its obsession with stamping out Islamophobia—stands idly by and watches. So Hirsi Ali is forced to beg her readers to help break what she refers to as a "conspiracy of silence."
Were the consequences of such an argument not so grave—and I will come to those consequences shortly—it would be possible to simply dismiss this article as the nonsense that it is. To reduce the complexity of the political violence in Nigeria and Sudan to instances of "Christophobia," for example, is simply ludicrous, as is the suggestion that somehow Western political and media figures have been "reticent" or "silent" when it comes to Darfur. This is in no way to downplay the full horror of these situations; indeed, what is most disturbing here is Hirsi Ali's cursory citing of them—Nigeria merits just two paragraphs of her article, Sudan just one—in the service of her hateful argument.
In other cases, what is striking is the utter thinness of the arguments she tries to marshal. When, for example, she tries to make the case that "not even Indonesia...has been immune to the fevers of Christophobia," she cites data complied by the Christian Post suggesting an increase in violent incidents against religious minorities of nearly forty percent between 2010 and 2011. Again, this is certainly a cause for concern, but it would be interesting to ask Hirsi Ali how she would compare this increase to the more than fifty percent increase in hate crimes against Muslims in the United States between 2009 and 2010, as reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She might also have turned to data on Indonesia produced by Human Rights Watch rather than that of an obscure Christian website, which would have confirmed her point about an increase in attacks on religious minorities (including Ahmadis) in Indonesia—except that rather than attributing this increase to the rise of "Christophobia," HRW's conclusion about this key US ally is quite different: "The common thread is the failure of the Indonesian government to protect the rights of all its citizens."
Of course, these sorts of fact-free claims about the "Muslim world" by conservative commentators are nothing new. What is more worthy of note, however, are those claims by Hirsi Ali that suggest a number of moves taken out of the contemporary neo-conservative playbook. Hirsi Ali's connections to the neo-con movement—she is, among other things, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute—have been widely noted. For example, Hamid Dabashi lists her prominently among the "comprador intellectuals" who have helped sell the neo-con agenda in the United States and Europe. (Indeed, it is clear that the title of her article is meant to resonate in this election season with the claims being made by conservatives about an alleged "war on Christians" here in the United States.)
One strand of this neo-conservative reasoning as it can be read out of Hirsi Ali's article has to do with her references to Egypt. She only devotes one paragraph to Egypt, but the print version of the article includes four images (including the cover image), some quite graphic, of violence against Copts in Egypt. Hirsi Ali preludes her point by noting that the alleged rise of Christophobia in Egypt comes "in the aftermath of the Arab Spring." Her key example is the attack by security forces on pro-Coptic protesters outside Maspero on 9 October 2011, which killed at least twenty-four people and wounded more than three hundred. From this example, Hirsi Ali moves forward with her relentlessly superficial line of argument: "By the end of the year more than two-hundred thousand Copts had fled their homes in anticipation of more attacks. With Islamists poised to gain much greater power in the wake of recent elections, their fears appear to be justified."
The first and most obvious problem here, of course, is Hirsi Ali's attempt to transform an attack by security forces against protesters—the sort of attack that has marked the bloody fule of the Supreme Council of Armed Force (SCAF)—into yet another example of "Muslims attacking Christians," driven solely by the relentless power of Christophobia. The deeper problem, and the one that betrays the mark of neo-con logic, is her implication that the source of this violence springs from, not the US-supported and armed military junta currently ruling Egypt, but the forces supposedly unleashed by the Arab Spring. This becomes clear in the final sentence, which resonates with the neo-con mantra that has been constant since the beginnings of the popular uprisings: if they get their democracy, we'll wind up with the Islamists.
This disdain for the forces of democracy in Egypt (as contrasted to the neo-cons' own preferred model of "democracy promotion" through military intervention) becomes even clearer in the admiring take on Hirsi Ali's article posted on the blog of the National Review by Nina Shea. Concurring with Hirsi Ali's thesis regarding the rise of Christophobia in the region, Shea adds, "Unfortunately, Arab democracy in Iraq and Egypt, the ancient homelands of two of the three largest Middle Eastern Christian communities, seems to be exacerbating the religious persecution." ("Arab democracy," we are thus invited to conclude, must be quite different from, say, "Western-style democracy.")
As Shea notes, Hirsi Ali also uses the example of violence against Christians in Iraq, which is again awarded a full paragraph of attention. "Egypt is not the only Arab country that seems bent on wiping out its Christian minority," she writes, continuing her "fair-minded assessment." She goes on to note the rise in violence against Iraqi Christians since 2003, and the fact that thousands of Iraqi Christians have fled the country—"as the result of violence directed specifically against them"—leading to what she calls "an incipient genocide or ethnic cleansing of Assyrians in Iraq."
And then, she moves on. The fact that 2003 is hardly an arbitrary date is not so much as acknowledged. Here we find yet another example of the almost unbelievable gall exhibited by neo-cons, as part of the larger forgetting of the war on Iraq in the United States. That Hirsi Ali—who was, like her neo-con colleagues, a vocal supporter of the war—can avoid not only accepting responsibility for the shattering of Iraqi society, but can actually use this shattering to advance her own hideous Islamophobic arguments, is simply obscene. Just as she fails to acknowledge that the attacks on pro-Coptic protesters in Egypt need to be understood within the larger framework of SCAF's systematic attacks on all protesters, so she refuses to acknowledge that the thousands of Christians who have fled from Iraq are part of the one and a half million Iraqis who have been made refugees by the war she supported.
This forgetting of the carnage unleashed by the criminal war against Iraq is especially important today, as some of the same neo-con forces have not ceased to bang the drums for a new war against Iran. Hirsi Ali, not surprisingly, whole-heartedly endorses an attack on Iran. This is one of the clear dangers presented by her article in the current moment. I had decided not to mention another, more intimate connection between Hirsi Ali and neo-con ideology, represented by her marriage to the dean of neo-imperialists, Niall Ferguson. But it becomes impossible not to mention this connection when, in the very same issue of Newsweek—in fact, only four pages away from her article—we find an article by Ferguson, arguing vigorously for supporting an Israeli attack on Iran, using logic that could have been lifted straight out of the pro-war op-eds of 2002 ("Sometimes a preventive war can be a lesser evil than a policy of appeasement.") Hirsi Ali only manages to work Iran into her argument regarding "Christophobia" in an indirect way, but given her long-standing views—she has, for example, argued that the Bush administration should have attacked Iraq and Iran after 9/11—her larger framework is clearly intended to support this march towards a new war.
But this is still not the most insidious aspect of Hirsi Ali's argument. This becomes apparent only as she reaches her conclusion, which begins with a reiteration of her two theses: "It should be clear from this catalog of atrocities that anti-Christian violence is a major and underreported problem." Helpfully, she goes on to offer an explanation for both aspects of the problem. This "global war on Christians" is not, she suggests, the result of coordination by "some international Islamist agency." "In that sense," she goes on, "the global war on Christians isn't a traditional war at all. It is, rather, a spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities."
In a word: Muslims are killing Christians because Muslims hate Christians. And if this global war remains "underreported," Muslims are to blame for this as well: part of the reason for "the media's reticence on the subject," she suggests, "may be the fear of provoking additional violence," but the "most likely" explanation is "the influence of lobbying groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Council on American-Islamic Relations." Such groups, she concludes, "have been remarkably successful in persuading leading public figures and journalists in the West to think of each and every example of perceived anti-Muslim discrimination as an expression of a systematic and sinister derangement called 'Islamophobia'—a term that is meant to elicit the same moral disapproval as xenophobia or homophobia."
We discover a few important things here. The first is that the seeming disconnectedness of Hirsi Ali's argument is in fact intentional. There is no need to draw logical or factual connections between the various incidents she raises because the logic can be found in the very structure of her thesis: what she cites are simply examples of Muslims attacking Christians, and Muslims attack Christians because Muslims hate Christians. When Egyptian security forces attack Coptic protesters, it is not the army attacking protesters; it is Muslims attacking Christians. When Iraqi Christians flee the violence of a country destroyed by a US-led war and occupation, it is not Iraqis fleeing from carnage; it is Christians fleeing from Muslims. Hirsi Ali has developed the perfect machine for circulating and defending Islamophobia, since it directly implicates every individual Muslim in the actions of every other individual Muslim—not to mention the actions of any government of any Muslim-majority state. And, as an added bonus, it even manages to implicate the imputing of Islamophobia itself as part of the problem, since she sees this as part of the sinister "conspiracy of silence" that allows this global Christophobia to flourish.
Hirsi Ali's "war," in other words, guarantees the continuing stigmatization of Muslims in North America and Europe. This is what allows her to speak of a "global war on Christians in the Muslim world." In addition to resonating with the US's "global war on terror," what this phrase signifies is that the Islamic "threat" is a global one. So what might appear to be a minority community under siege in the United States, Hirsi Ali suggests, is in fact part of a threatening wave of genocide; the "spontaneous expression of anti-Christian animus by Muslims that transcends cultures, regions, and ethnicities" exists, in inchoate form, everywhere. No one (Christian) is safe.
Allow me to state the obvious, which is that Hirsi Ali's argument has an immediately recognizable pedigree. The attempt to justify the oppression of minority groups by producing them as threats to "our way of life"—including the assertion that the same groups have the mysterious power to bewitch, dupe, and silence the unwary through conspiratorial means and shadowy organizations—has been a standard practice of racism and fascism, those precursors of Islamophobia; Hirsi Ali is a connoisseur of all three. Her supposed defense of an embattled minority is a thinly disguised attempt to extend and expand the ongoing repression of Muslim minority communities. The logic of her argument is precisely the same as that which has underwritten the violent policing of Muslim communities in the name of fighting "homegrown terrorism," which has had such horrific consequences for these communities (not to mention for civil liberties more generally).
Hirsi Ali, like Ferguson and the rest of the neo-con forces, is eager to wrap herself in the mantle of "Western" virtues such as skepticism and secularism, against the forces of sectarianism and fundamentalism that they see as constitutive of the "Muslim world." But what could possibly be more sectarian and fundamentalist than Hirsi Ali's vision of the world, with its terrifying simplifications and generalizations, and its reduction of genuine situations of violence and suffering to data whose only purpose is to power her relentless Islamophobia machine?
21 comments for "Ayaan Hirsi Ali's War"
We know Ayaan here in Holland very well. She is indeed a sick women scarred by personal trauma's and driven by a deep grudge against anything islamic. She left Holland because in the light of the "propoganda war on Islam", the neo-cons find her a usefull asset.
It is a known fact that Hirsi Ali is a lying stooge. If her life was under such threat, why on Earth is her place so publicly known? Often when victims of rape, loan sharks et al want to make their story public, they at least have a pseudonym and not go on national television.
Also, since when was Christianity the issue? Why does she fail to mention the treatment of Christians from some of the Jews in Israel?
It would take a book to respond to Ms Ali. Here's that book http://www.twf.org/Library/WaronIslam.html — the ebook is FREE, and it' available in English, Arabic, Chinese.
Just to put Anthony Alessandrini's own alarmist hysterics into perspective regarding anti-muslim hatecrimes, I've pulled the data from the FBI web page.
Of the 1,575 victims of an anti-religious hate crime: 71.9 percent were victims because of an offender's anti-Jewish bias. 8.4 percent were victims because of an anti-Islamic bias. 3.7 percent were victims because of an anti-Catholic bias. 2.7 percent were victims because of an anti-Protestant bias. 0.7 percent were victims because of an anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias. 8.3 percent were victims because of a bias against other religions (anti-other religion). 4.3 percent were victims because of a bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).
Of the 1,552 victims of an anti-religion hate crime: 67.0 percent were victims of an offender's anti-Jewish bias. 12.7 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias. 4.2 percent were victims of an anti-Catholic bias. 3.0 percent were victims of an anti-Protestant bias. 0.5 percent were victims of an anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias. 9.1 percent were victims of a bias against other religions (anti-other religion). 3.5 percent were victims of a bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).
So we go from 132ish anti Muslim hatecrimes to.... wait for it.... all hell is really breaking loose out there- Muslims aren't even safe on the streets .... wait for it.....
to 197ish. Wow, in a nation of hundreds of millions you have less than 200 anti-muslim hate crimes a year. Alessandrini really had to massage the data to come up with something alarmist there - and in doing so really impeaches his credibility.
And there are still over 5 times the number of anti-jewish hate crimes.
I bristle everytime I see the expression "Arab Spring". The Arab Spring was in 1919 when the British and Arab forces defeated the Turks in Western Arabia and then went all the way through Palestine to Damascus. England promised an independent Palestinian state which would include Western Arabia, Palestine, Syria and Iraq for the Arab participation in the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The vision was for the Arab people to re-establish an independent state free of Turkish occupation. The Hashamites were the long established legitimate authority of the area. France and Britain had other ideas. Well the Soviets refused to take part in a three nation secret agreement to carve up the liberated Arab territories among the nations of France, England and the newly established USSR. The Brits allowed the Zionists into Palestine after a thousand years of the Diaspora, and the Jews living there occupied only 5% of the territory.The French invaded Syria and immediately banned the new democratic and legitimate Parliament of Syria, carved out a Christian majority state from Syria, Lebanon, gave away a port city to Turkey and made Syria a department of France governed from the French parliament in Paris. After WWII the French tried to re-enter Syria bombing Damascus but the Brits persauded them that colonialism in the Middle East was too costly. Nevertheless history shows that the Brits cleverly carved out a tiny oil rich delta called Kuwait independent of Iraq to serve as a supply depot for the British Navy. The desert dynasty of the Saudis from Eastern Arabia eventually took over the holy cities of Western Arabia from the Hashamites. But the Western Powers have been happy with supporting all of these oil kingdoms as well as military juntas. Anti communism was a lame excuse for making deals quite favorable to capitalists and the expansion of the Western military power.
What about Hindu violence against Christians? This is also an under-reported area. Many Hindus living under Christian liberal values in UK and USA support and send money to rabid Hindus organisations like RSS that commit violence against Christians in india. I have also lived in Persian Gulf states and can attest personally to what Hirsi Ali says. To grant Muslims the same rights as others in western societies is the equivalent of western society committing harakiri. Alessandrini is just a clever parlayer of words who simply questions Hirsi Ali without giving any figures and statistics of his own.
Anthony, thank you for your cogent analysis of Ms. Ali's essay.I posted a link to your reply on The Daily Beast web site, where her essay appears.Coming at this from this at a more oblique angle, Tina Brown, Harvey Weinstein and Barry Diller are in a bit a financial bind trying to boost the circulation of Newsweek, after their purchase of it from the Washington Post group. So the appearance of Ms. Ali's essay should not surprise, as a tool to boost the circulation of a old print warhorse. Ms. Brown is an adept in the specialized necromancy associated with journalistic revivals of the corpses of the print age. Not to speak of Mr. Ferguson's association with that project and his marriage to Ms. Ali. All very cozy and politically destructive, when your money is riding on the success of a gamble: all very suggestive of a particular kind arrogance. Increasing the circulation of Newsweek is of utmost concern and if yellow journalism is your chosen methodology, so be it. The Free Market is morally vacuous, as is the troika of Brown,Diller and Weinstein. Best regards
Ali wraps herself in the mantle of "Western" virtues such as skepticism and secularism. Yes, they are virtues. If only the backward Islamic world could "get it" the world would be a far better place.
What a bizarre debunking article! You offer abstract, vague generalizations to avoid confronting an awkward, painful, and difficult reality: a particularly violent, intolerant, and imperialist version of jihadist Islam has contributed to the murders of thousands in the last decade. For whatever reason, the same holy texts seem to be widely "misunderstood" by bigoted zealots from Nigeria to Egypt to Iraq to Pakistan to Indonesia to Thailand. Brutal bombings have occurred in Bali, Madrid, London, Tel Aviv, New York, and Moscow. It behooves leftist intellectuals - who would love to dismiss this growing fanatical faith - to confront a simple question. What if they are wrong that economic conditions alone explain these brutal crimes, and radical Islamic terrorists really do want to spread Sharia around the globe? What then?
@Eric, what of the of the numerous bombings and wars waged by the West against its fellow Christians in the past century alone, from Nazi criminality to the US'role in Latin America!?! no one is looking for deep rooted explanations that could boil down to an unpalatable reality which is maybe that Westerners are simply a very racist lot. I agree with the author who speaks of complexities such as in Nigeria where the latest bomb in the North of the country caused the death of Muslims only. In fact the majority of the victims of Islamist campaigns are Muslim, but lets not let facts come in the way of some good groundless Muslim bashing...the new antisemitism in other words...As for Chrisitians victims they are victims of the situations in their own countries just as their Muslim counterparts...and in some cases like Iraq simply the victims of once again Western policy since it as a well known fact that Christians leaved in peace in pre-US invaded Iraq..get ure facts right and then bring a valid argument to the debate
Ooff, nice to see a few comments for a change. Yes, to Eric and Nancy. Personally, when I see 'neo con', and 'imperialist' in a text, I usually turn off.
What I would like to see is more articles on precisely the subjects that are evoked, apostasy, sharia law etc. Latest about the Saudi tweeter guy arrested in Malaysia just goes to show how much the muslim world operates on double standards. Using western technology to repress and kill is really disgusting. Either ban the technology or REFORM !
What is Newsweek's agenda in carrying this story? I have lost respect for this magazine.
I am mildly amused by the number of times I've seen the term "it is a well known fact" on this page. Just like it is a well known fact that this is a pro-islamic publication and it is a well known fact that the most hateful, violent, death obsessed religion is often mistakenly referred to as the religion of peace.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is well respected for her work.
God bless her.
Please let us make dua for Ayaan, only Allah swt can remove all diseases :)
No surprise the fascist liberals and Muslims are smearing a woman for daring to defend Christians.
In fact the majority of the victims of Islamist campaigns are Muslim, but lets not let facts come in the way of some good groundless Muslim bashing...
Wow, Hania, that's a great point.
I seem to believe the biggest victims in the United States from Christian fundamentalists are not Muslims but non-Muslims (abortion providers) and most likely Christian.
I'm sure you'll be the first to point this out on any Mad Watch thread/article/website that discusses anti-Muslim hate crimes in the United States.
After all, Hania, you wouldn't want facts to get in the way of your absurd logic.
9000 mainly Muslims died in Syria, 300 Muslims died in Egypt, 1000 in Libya, 1 Million sunni muslim refugee in Iraq are figures that we cant ignore. We cant generalize the revolutions as war on Christians when more Muslims died through out the revolutions.
600,000 reported death in Iraq by UN of Muslims but we over emphasize on the small number of Christians that got prosecuted.
Muslims, Christians and Jews all lived in Middle East for thousands of years but some ignorant people attack other faith does not represent the majority. Why do we always exaggerate and generalize MUSLIMS from the acts of the few.
I wish the non Muslims who praise Ayyan Hersi knew how ignorant she actually is on her subject. She speaks topically and uses theatrics as a tactic to add the illusion of depth. The people who praise her do not know she gets paid to act the fool and to make fools out of the ignorant.
Ayan is one of those people who will be a thorn in the side of truth, like the rest of the neocons. She is very ignorant of Islam, but she has an adopted agenda. She's an opportunist who enjoys the $ and the spotlight by serving someone else's agenda. There are many alarmist Islamophobes who are hypocritically hypercritical of all things Islam, but what gets to me is the perceived credibility she has because she is a former nominal Muslim. Why should that not potentially be a detractor to her credibility, if her obvious lack of real knowledge about Islam isn't enough?
Any real Muslim knows that persecution of religious minorities (particularly Christians and Jews) is strictly prohibited, and that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is on record saying that he will stand against any such persecutors on the Day of Judgement. If Ayan is truly concerned about Christian minorities, she need only reach out to the community of practicing Muslims, rather than allying herself with neocons who have been calling for drops being dropped from thousands of feet onto the heads of Muslims and Christians alike.
Ayan is one of those people who will be a thorn in the side of truth, like the rest of the neocons. She is very ignorant of Islam, but she has an adopted agenda. She's an opportunist who enjoys the $ and the spotlight by serving someone else's agenda. There are many alarmist Islamophobes who are hypocritically hypercritical of all things Islam, but what gets to me is the perceived credibility she has because she is a former nominal Muslim. Why should that not potentially be a detractor to her credibility, if her obvious lack of real knowledge about Islam isn't enough?
Any real Muslim knows that persecution of religious minorities (particularly Christians and Jews) is strictly prohibited, and that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) is on record saying that he will stand against any such persecutors on the Day of Judgement. If Ayan is truly concerned about Christian minorities, she need only reach out to the community of practicing Muslims, rather than allying herself with neocons who have been calling for drops being dropped from thousands of feet onto the heads of Muslims and Christians alike.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a brave woman, I should tell everyone here. I praise her for the fearless journalism that is meant to open the eyes of the oblivious and hurt the haters. I myself live in a Christian community here in the Philippines that is constantly persecuted by Islamists and I can relate to her every word she said in her article. Christophobia is real, it is happening. Haters can say what they want but it is understandably normal for the offended to speak out. Again, it's a good thing that someone finally brought Christophobia to world's attention.
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What One Can Learn About Poets from Their Acknowledgements: Some Rickety Conclusions
They appear every few years, when poets put out new collections, which is to say: they appear infrequently. Indeed, they often resemble afterthoughts, slipped into the backs of books or shrunk down and very nearly dissolved in the tiny type of copyright pages. And the events they record and acknowledge – the securing of grants, the input of peers, the debuts of poems in magazines – are less meteorological than geological. Acknowledgements summarize the occasional moments of friction and achievement in the otherwise tectonically slow grind of poets' lives.
But they also reveal to us, acknowledgements do, something about the personality behind those lives. As poet and editor John Barton suggests, "An acknowledgements page acts as an alternate to the contents page, a skeleton key to the literary world in which a poet aspires, even succeeds, to function. As I read any collection…I find myself checking where each poem first saw light; I muse about what more this might tell me about the poem, the magazine, and the poet. My reading pleasure is thus increased."
Mine, too. So what rickety conclusions can we draw about poets, based on the evidence of their acknowledgements?
The example of the poet who lists the various magazines in which her poems first appeared but then singles out one magazine for special mention is an interesting phenomenon. Perhaps you're familiar with it. This is a poet who seems to be proud of her successes, of what she perceives to be her 'hits.' And her acknowledgements often look something like this:
"Variations of these poems first appeared in Avant Gardening, New England Review, PN Review, Quietude Quarterly, and Shenandoah.
The poems 'Bird Song' and 'Drowning' first appeared in the New Yorker."
There's nothing wrong with singling out the New Yorker; like other NY institutions – e.g. The Yankees, Woody Allen, etc. – it puts out a pretty good product and is too easily hated (especially by those who secretly burn to be embraced by it). Still, it would be a nicely subversive gesture if, every now and then, our proud poet singled out, for special mention, one of the magazines we haven't heard of.
This poet is also, as demonstrated by her use of the telling word "Variations," a perfectionist. She is at pains, though she may not realize it, to alert future scholars and archaeologists (those who may one day browse through the brittle remains of her books) that earlier and slightly different versions of her poems do exist and might be worth digging for. Some poets, however, will insist that "Variations of these poems first appeared, often in very different form, in the following magazines" (italics mine; anxiety theirs). These poets are embarrassed, if not mortified, about past indiscretions. They are inadvertently telling us that the earlier versions of poems, launched in literary journals, were inferior prototypes, but the new versions, the 2.0s, are the correct ones, the definitive master takes. The bugs have been worked out, so just ignore the earlier versions (which you probably never read anyway).
Some poets, John Barton observes, like to indicate which poems appeared in which magazines. If these poets have an unconscious, sinister agenda it may be to remind us of just how many poems they published in the New Yorker or Poetry or wherever. But I think they're just proud and meticulous, like the versifiers who take care to note, with a farmer's pride, the snaggle-toothed poem that snagged the second prize ribbon in some regional contest.
Cool poets will bury their magazine credits in the tiny type of the copyright page; they don't need to flaunt their success or make great shows of gratitude. Annoying poets, who are a little too cool, will obscure their acknowledgements with private allusions: "Thanks, D.L., for the industrial-strength corkscrew and those Paris nights!" Poets who haven't had a lot of success and thus maybe feel that they have less to be cool about – these poets will draw attention to magazine credits, prizes, and fellowships by isolating the acknowledgements on its own page. Of course, these may also just be conscientious people who care about giving the deserving their due. Some will even go on for two or three pages, thanking their editors, publishers, professors, first readers, first sexual partners – anyone who ever shared, like, a ZIP code with the poems. Such poets are generous, thoughtful citizens. Good members of their community or support network. They will sometimes insist that their community or support network dramatically improved their poems, and that the lingering weaknesses are all theirs. They may be right. Still, I can't help but wonder about the quality of poems that were raised by a village, poems that seem to have needed so much help from so many hands. Gratitude is good, but a poet who did her job in the first place probably wouldn't – probably shouldn't – need to be too grateful to anyone, let alone a vast, pandemic syndicate of friends, relatives, and editors.
Still, I enjoy them, acknowledgements. They expose pride, modesty, arrogance, graciousness – brief moments of good old humanity. Even the most gratuitous displays of gratitude – those long lists that mark the seismic influences of various spouses, sponsors, and deities, unspooled like tape – can be nice to observe when the person at the podium is the sort of dark horse who rarely makes it to anything as elevated as a podium. A surprise winner at the Oscars, say. A longshot. A poet.
Comments (84)
Dude, is this all you can come up with today?
You're an idiot.
This is an interesting study in perspectives. I suppose a trusting soul could read a list of, say, credited mentors and see gratitude. A cynic might look at the same list and think of name-dropping or boasting. Given this disparity, I wonder if the views don't say more about the viewer than the viewed.
I wonder how cynically readers greeted Baudelaire's claim at the time: "The first time I opened one of his books I saw, to my amazement and delight, not simply certain subjects which I had dreamed of, but sentences which I had thought out, written by him [Poe] twenty years before."
Just to chime in on something I learned the easy way: The New Yorker requires you (it's in the contract) to acknowledge that a given poem initially appeared in its pages.
I like Garrick Davis's acknowledgments to his New Critics anthology: "No gratitude should be expressed to Harcourt Brace, which required fees for the reprinting of R. P. Blackmur that were so exorbitant I briefly considered excluding him altogether. … Oddly, Harcourt Brace does not seem interested in keeping Blackmur's books in print."
99% of acknowledgment page info is house style–the publisher decides–if Guriel had spent 5 seconds doing actual research, instead of his usual shadow hit job–he'd know this. I'm so tired of Guriel and Annie Finch, in particular, who write these generalized, whiny smackdowns and refuse to name the names. Guriel, what poet singles out their NYer hits? Did he/she ask his/her publisher to do this? Plus, I've NEVER seen this done. Ever? Who did it, Guriel? No one, of course.
PS: ALL magazines require (or politely ask you) that you to acknowledge that a given poem initially appeared in its pages. The NYer isn't unique! But we get it, Robbins, you were in the NYer. Gee–maybe Guriel was right. Sorry.
I went to school with a poet who got so mad at all the magazines who were rejecting him that he started listing them in his submission cover letter as places where he'd published. Pretty soon, his poems were being taken by magazines left and right. He's now a well-known poet, won a major prize two or three years back, and has a tenured position. As far as I know, he has never been caught for this. When his last book came out, the acknowledgments page listed and thanked all the journals who'd rejected him– thanked them for having first published his poems, that is.
I wonder if this practice is actually more widespread than people realize.
It's so easy to be a moronic jackass when you're too cowardly to sign yr name.
For the record, Maxipad is quite wrong. All journals ask you to acknowledge them. Only the NYer requires you to actually cite which poems appeared there. This is why so many acknowledgments pages say things like "Some of these poems originally appeared in the following journals …", simply listing the titles, then say "'Dr. Maxi Ate a Sour Grape' originally appeared in The New Yorker."
So eat it!
Also, what about the difference between "require" & "politely ask" don't you get, Maxipad? That difference was the entire point of my post. And if you haven't seen poets singling out their NYer hits, then you don't read many poetry collections by people published in the NYer. 'Cause it's standard. If you're going to come in her & insult a bunch of folks you don't know just because you're filled with ressentiment, you should sign yr name. It would at least give you a pathetic veneer of dignity.
Slight correction: Not really accurate to say I "went to school with him." He'd already gotten his MFA from a prestigious school and hung out with the poetry gang at the local watering hole…
Not to pick a fight with anyone–wow, people are hot–but in Tate's GHOST SOLDIERS (it's on my desk) his NYer acknowledgment is just with all the rest–Tin House, Hollins Critic, Hunger Mountain, Crazyhorse–no special notice, no poems cited. Maybe this is a new policy?
Yeah, uh, I may have lost my temper a wee bit there. Apologies.
I've been trying to find my NYer contract to make sure I'm remembering correctly — but I don't know where it is just now. Looking through some books, I noticed that some poets don't separately list their NYer poems, as you say, Jason. So I could be misremembering. But it does seem a prevalent practice.
Anyway, I thought this post was innocuous enough, & don't understand Maxi's animosity toward Jason, Annie, & me. Completely disproportionate. Why go out of yr way to accuse people of whining (Jason & Annie) & bragging (me)? Why not grant folks the benefit of the doubt? I'm sure we've all whined & bragged a time or two, especially on the internets, but I don't believe that such accusations were called for or substantiated in this case. But I promise not to bring up a certain publication in this forum again, so as not to offend delicate sensibilities.
I think Colin Ward is right (above), but… I wrote an acknowledgements page just a couple of days ago, and Jason Guriel's piece is revealing, not to say chastening.
Wow, the belligerence and bullying are out in full force this Orthodox Easter Sunday. I might be generalising, but don't many readers turn to the acknowledgments pages to see where poems have appeared when flipping through a new book? Isn't the knowledge of which magazine editors appreciate a poet's work–or don't–telling? And doesn't an appearance in a certain journal raise or answer questions about what kind of poems a book contains? I think these are the nubs of Jason's post, which is interesting if not earth-shattering, sure, but that's the nature of the blog post, as opposed to the PhD thesis, Dr. Maxi.
I am back to Celebrity Apprentice. Turns out knowing who Sandra Bullock is married to tells me a lot about her.
This article is a waste of time.
Wow, lotsa comments about what was a fairly innocuous post. I mean, Jason did acknowledge the conclusions were "rickety". And a couple of posters seemed to have missed taking their Sunday meds. Let's read those pill bottles a little more closely folks.
Much heat, little light. . . .
Acknowledgments are simply gratitudes. Since when was gratitude ever to be so questioned or so mocked? It's simple courtesy, it's polite form, even if some journals require them. Are you really saying that journals don't need to be acknowledged, or thanked, for being a part of the publication process? Are you saying that poets are so above the masses that they don't need to be polite, or be grateful? Very Ayn Rand of you, if so. Evan Jones' questions above are also good questions.
"Cool" poets? What are those? Do you mean disdainful, ironic, hipster poets who pretend that they don't owe anybody anything?
I agree: this says a lot more about the viewer than viewed. Rickety conclusions, indeed. Very rickety.
Rickety indeed, the poet who listed journals where he'd been rejected, as publishing creds!
I'm almost inclined to praise such behavior, given the fact that it led to success, and probably says less about the individual and more about the whole rickety po-biz industry which scans creds more assiduously than it does poems.
Ladies & gentlemen,
It's no longer Orthodox Easter Sunday.
It's Boston Marathon Monday.
We can be as petty and competitive as we want to be today.
I think people study acknowledgements pretty intensely when the BAP comes out. I recall the first guess editor, Mr. Ashbery, choosing his poems from like three or four eclectic little magazines. It was a statement of sorts.
Just realized I said the "acknowledgments" listed by that old acquaintance had come out in his "last book." I meant "first book"– back in the 90s, a chapbook, which is no doubt why no one noticed, or cared.
Arthur, I'm not saying any of those things.
"Believe it or not," writes Jason, "…the cupboard wasn't bare; I actually thought this might be an interesting post. I'll try to do better."
What I don't understand, Jason, is that there are hundreds of books out there that could use a little TLC (or negative critique, if you prefer) from a fine writer like you. Why engage in this business-end, status-conscious game-playing pursuit of the habitus? Some PhD down the road will write a little paper on it to present at MLA and notch it on her resume. But whatever…
Dear michael robbins,
Wait, are you saying you got published in the New Yorker? Well, congrats!
Acknowledgements seem to serve a dual purpose. Obviously, with books of poetry, they, at the very least, reaffirm that somebody else actually liked your work enough to publish it. It goes without saying, I presume (I perhaps presume too much.) that regardless of one's feelings about the overall process, there is a hierarchy to listing acknowledgements, the same as there is listing publications in an author's bio. The New Yorker, Poetry and a handful of others go to the head of the class. Followed by anthologies, which at the very least indicates not only did one publication find the poet's work worth publishing, but that an editor of an anthology deemed it worthy of reprinting. Does it mean anything to everyone? Not hardly, But it means something to the poet and to most, not all readers of poetry. I seldom list my publication in "Bardic Echoes," (right next to the Fannie Goodales's favorite recipe for Butter Batter Cookies) since the readership for "Bardic Echoes," (sorry Fannie) is not as vast or widely accepted as Poetry. (Yes, God forgive me list it!) This acknowledgement pecking order does exist and rightfully so.
Acknowledgements also seem to play a role in helping the poet through the door of the next publication they submit to. Whether it is right or wrong is neither here nor there, but a list of acknowledgements including widely read and accepted publications appears to go a long way toward getting new work read.
Someone has to say it, so it might as well be me: listing Billy Bob's Poetry Extravaganza just doesn't carry the weight of a New Yorker or Poetry credit. That's life.
I've been fortunate enough to have eight books published. Good for me! I only list the books published by a major publisher (William Morrow and Globe Pequot) since the more obscure publishers don't seem to have an impact on my current or future publishers. Once again, at the every least acknowledging major publishers indicates that the author knows the ropes of a major publishing operation and his work has been vetted in some way within the parameters established by the major houses.
It is not the credits themselves that are examined. It is what they represent. They represent the fact that the author has been accepted within the realm of certain established publishing parameters.
Well, I couldn't disagree more strongly with that. Seems to me listing Billy Bob's Poetry Extravaganza is an obvious courtesy, to be eschewed only out of churlishness or narcissism. Why submit to the journal in the first place if you're going to sniff at it? Whether it's Shampoo or American Poetry Review, an editor took the time to evaluate yr work & present it to a public.
Not to mention that some of the best poets now working do not, as a rule, publish in the major journals, out of a sense of solidarity with small publishers & a belief that the most exciting stuff is taking place on the margins. I know plenty of wonderful poets who have never & wouldn't submit to The New Yorker. Jennifer Moxley's last book's acknowledgments page lists The Canary, Wherever We Put Our Hats, The Modern Review, & Octopus, among other places, none more prestigious than Denver Quarterly. She cares about poetry, as the editors of these journals do, not prestige.
OK, she also cares about prestige — I don't mean to romanticize a position I do not myself care to occupy — but it's a different kind of cultural capital that accrues to someone like Moxley, & more power to her.
I remember once being at a bookstore where I spied several Michener Center MFA students comparing acknowledgments in poetry books, and looking for the tags displaying the names of prizes authors earned. Which one had a Pulitzer? Who had been a Stegner Fellow? Who studied with Longfellow? Where is the McDowell Colony anyway? Acknowledgments do say a lot. Apologies if I sounded a uncivil Jason. It's interesting how important the legitimizing institutions of American poetry are for writers working in and out of their domain. It would be interesting also to have a specific book in mind to compare the legitimizing contextual elements with the actual work. It might tell us something. Otherwise, I agree with Michael Robbins: "I thought this post was innocuous enough…."
"Not to mention that some of the best poets now working do not, as a rule, publish in the major journals, out of a sense of solidarity with small publishers & a belief that the most exciting stuff is taking place on the margins. I know plenty of wonderful poets who have never & wouldn't submit to The New Yorker.
"…it's a different kind of cultural capital that accrues…"
– Michael Robbins.
Thank you, Mr. Robbins! One free beer for you.
One can discover all sorts of social implications about the "weather page" in your local newspaper (if you still have one). Where, eactly, is it located in the paper? WHO writes it? WHAT, exactly, regions of weather activity are repotted? WHAT kind of language is used to describe them? Is a spring shower described as a torrential downpour? Is a buffeting breeze termed a mild tornado? Is an approaching "weather front" described in more detail, or is the scary and ambiguous word "front" just left dangling there, full of foreboding, like a Nazi invasion?
These are just a small sample of the complex questions involved with this area. But remember, the main motivation for offering a "weather report" is just this : the paper feels an OBLIGATION to report that information. This might usefully be described as THE 1ST LAW OF WEATHER REPORTING THERMODYNAMICS. Something similar could be said about acknowledgements notes in books of poetry, and I am sure glad this topic has been raised. Just look at the gathering STORM of analysis and commentary which it has generated! This says something, doesn't it?
"Why submit to the journal in the first place if you're going to sniff at it?"
Take it easy Mike. I'm sure Billy Bob was happy to have you in it.
You submit where you want. I'll submit where I want. And toward that end I will, have and will continue to list my acknowledgements according to the way I see fit and that benefits me and my writing career and not as Mike Robbins sees fit.
Your opinion of MY process is not relevant.
You know Mike, you're a bit of a bully. Why don't you clam up for a time and stop with all this constant beligerent rhetoric. It's boring and childish.
By comment number 7, this thread descends into the usual meta-threat (that's a nice parapraxis: I meant "thread")…it descends into the usual meta-thread shenanigans (all of them off the cuff and delivered up in real time). Of course these are interspersed with isolated voices trying to get back on line, but those are hard pressed and in the minority. I would say Jason's post was not written in real time. In other words he took the time to show us in a pithy and delicately ironic look at the phenomenon of "the acknowledgment page" something about how the poetry world functions and (using the techniques of typology – which is not intended to name names) how individual poets grow, prosper and accrue indebtedness in a tiny domain of the book industry that has, for the last half century at least, only grudgingly catered to its poets. Jason's post bears rereading, and his threaders should dispense with their pet peeves and pay more attention.
Besides the wonderful sleights of hand sprinkled throughout ("Avant Gardening" turns up all the right worms), there is a generous and true thesis to the post right at the beginning – and it is only because of Jason's modesty and sense of decorum that none of the comments took in the fact that this was both a plea and a prayer for all of us. "Acknowledgements summarize the occasional moments of friction and achievement in the otherwise tectonically slow grind of poets' lives."
If you think about the acknowledgement page you will soon realize that beneath every mention of a single magazine, prominent or obscure, a bundle of rejections lies submerged. This is what is meant by the "tectonically slow grind of poet's lives" – a phrase that we should, all of us, appreciate and thank Jason for. He is indicating true arduousness, and without any trace of whining.
His post goes on to query this maladjustment in the literary world and praise the "long shot" voice of the poet.
Since I have become know as the humorless one, I think I have earned the right, in all seriousness, to ask some of our more agitated commentators to grow up.
Nonsense, Jack. Insofar as I can make out what you're saying through the froth around yr mouth (& the mangling of my name: who is "Mike"?), you hold that my reasonably-toned response to yr utterly self-interested practice of believing that only "major" publishers "count" constitutes "bullying." May I direct you to any of the threads you have barged into with a tone of superiority & a completely unwarranted opinion of yrself? You're the worst kind of pest on the internet: a know-nothing who's convinced that because he can't fathom anything more important than himself, not much of greater importance can exist. Blinders, Jack — or is it Johnny? or Jackie Boy? I can make up nicknames for you, too, if you like — you're wearing blinders, particularly where the creepy menacing quality of yr own posts are concerned.
And you can read up-thread to see just where I've been published, pal. That don't mean I'm going to neglect the small journals that gave me a shot when no one else had heard of me. If all that matters to you is yr "writing career," I can promise you it'll be a short one.
Jack Conway, ladies & germs:
"You know Mike [sic], you're a bit of a bully. Why don't you clam up for a time and stop with all this constant beligerent rhetoric. It's boring and childish."
& here are some of his choicest posts from the Plath thread. I invite anyone to render his or opinion on which of us is a bully:
"Enough already. You are beginning to sound like a spoiled child who has just been told it's time for bed. You keep wailing that it isn't but it is."
"I am certainly losing my patience in regard to this constant ill-advised harping."
"You should learn when to back away from an argument that is based of faulty logic, conjecture and has no merit. I'm sorry but once again you are wrong about this and no matter how much you continue to post irrelevant things it won't change. Do you really think if you say it often enough it will become true?"
"What rankles me is your inability to comprehend the obvious and admit you are so far off base. It's completely childlike."
"Have you gone to college? No offense meant. I'm just trying to understand your militant inability to comprehend how college and university controls poetry."
"Enough with the poor victim routine. I hear that enough with my students. You're not my student so I really don't give a hoot what you want to believe or how victimized you pretend to be. Poor you."
I could go on & on, but here is one that actually crosses the line:
"Lookit, I've been teaching for 21 years. Trust me. If I attacked or insulted you I promise you, you'd know it.
Saying someone is being childish is not an attack. In this case, it's a FACT.
Even when told by just about everyone that his notion is wrong-headed he persists in harping on it. Even when told he can believe whatever wrong-headed idea he wants, he continues to harp on it. And when warned that such a wrong-headed notion will be laughed at by anyone remotely educated, he continues to harp on it.
Personally, I see no reason to consider engaging in any discussion about poetry with John, given his militant stance against the obvious. It would be like arguing with someone about the weather who militantly refuses to believe the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. How do you discuss anything with someone who will not accept the most basic premise? You can't."
So … you were saying about bullying, Jackie?
Gabriel Gudding, in his acknowledgements page to RHODE ISLAND NOTEBOOK, turned it into a kind of introduction to the poem.
Annie, I agree: that's what I meant by "cultural capital." In some quarters, to have published in the NYer is to lose prestige. It is all a matter of positionings.
I might just have my acknowledgments pages consist entirely of this thread.
I would be glad to write a **blurp** for Mikey's new book, but I don't blurp coloring books.
I still have the saddlestitched, construction paper covered copy of "Bardic Echoes." And indeed my poem was next door to a recipe for butter cookies. It was hard to tell the difference between my poem and the recipe I suppose.
Of course acknowledgments carry a varying degree of weight depending upon the audience. It is simply bene my experience that certain credits go further than others — especially in my book publishing career. Having "American Literacy" published by William Morrow has gone a long way toward opening publishing opportunities for me than other less known publishing houses.Maybe this isn't the case withwith other folks — but it is with me. It's all very subjective.
I found that certain credits always still seem to catch people's attention, like being in the Norton Book of Light Verse, for me. It always seems to catch people's attention both in publishing and in academic circles.
Oh, and what I was saying, Mikey, is that you are way over due for at attitude adjustment, pal. When you stop drooling and dragging your knuckles on the ground Mikey, try and get over yourself. God knows almost everyone else has.
Mikey, My writing cvareer is longer than yours so please once again will you please clam up.
Not my spelling, however "career"
>"Acknowledgements summarize the occasional moments of friction and achievement in the otherwise tectonically slow grind of poets' lives."
Martin and Jason,
I love issues of paratext, myself. Too often things like acknowledgments, blurbs, prefaces, dedications, footnotes, stamps of provenance, etc., are shunted aside (by mainstream and avant alike) as so much "non-poetic" stuff, mere appendages to the "real work." I think these things, rather, are akin to hidden dimensions, from which faint voices are crying out to be enfolded into poetry.
That's one funny way of looking at the matter, anyway, but who said funny can't be serious?
Anyway, and metaphysical notions aside… When you think about it, if acknowledgments are to make for this "summarizing" function, are to help us better understand the "arduousness" behind the poems' histories, reveal the frictions and negations that subtend a book's making, and so on, well, then why shouldn't the "acknowledgments" include, too, always, the naming of all those *rejections* that have also informed (maybe more than the acceptances!) the arduous journey? Matters of honesty and honor aside, such practice, at the very least, would proffer a small, but never ending gift to literary historians and bibliographers; constitute a perhaps salutary exercise in humility for the acknowledging poet; even help provide, over time, for a kind of leveling of the field, a little unsettling of author function and position.
Why not? Why couldn't this become the practice, one enforced by book publishers and demanded by magazines whose editors have (after all) taken precious time to read, consider, and reject the poem? One might protest: "Well, this couldn't become the practice because poets would lie." But then, the question begged, one must ask in reply: What keeps poets from lying (at least usually) about the magazines where they have published? The answer immediately comes forth: *The fear that they would be found out as liars.* So, if a poet were to fail mention that a poem in a book had been rejected by so and so magazine(s), then the magazine(s) would simply point out, in comment box at Harriet, say, or in a letter to Avant Gardening journal, for example, that its computer data bases show a record of the poet having submitted it there, and on such and such a date. No difference, really, in principle from the hard record of acceptance. Potential embarrassment would keep poets honest… For in this day of "brand" and professional decorum, what poet wants to be called a liar?
Yes, as Pliny asks, rhapsodically, in a weird aside within the section on "Birds," in his incomparable Natural History:
"O! Where are the Poets who will begin? Who will be the Poets who refuse to sweep their failings under the faux Persian rug of accomplishment? Where are the Poets untainted by false propriety who shall decline to submerge [as Martin himself has it, KJ] sorrow and defeat under the mirage of protocol's obsidian waters?
Actually, though that comes in the midst of a strange bestiary, there may be a reasonable question or two in there that is relevant to our topic…
Rejections without delay into the Acknowledgments, I say! After all, and please excuse, if we're trying to graph the deep tectonics of suffering, and stuff, why be half-assed about it?
Just FYI, Mr. Conway is well known on various internet poetry sites for his antics. His capacity for typos is unsurpassed and his aggressive and belligerent approach is legendary. He is, however, endlessly entertaining (for various reasons). In fact, he can be quite erudite and intelligent when he's in his right mind.
I want to see rejection info in the acknowledgements.
How else can we get the big picture? How else can we feel the pain of the poet? Feel his sorrow? Know his struggles?
My poem, "Acknowledge Me, Please" was rejected by 43 magazines before it was published in ____. I met the editor of ____ on a shuttle to Cedar Rapids, during a driving rainstorm in which the shuttle nearly crashed, killing us all. My subsequent love affair with the editor was a disaster, especially our trip to Paris, but I want to thank my Muse, anyway. "Acknowledge Me, Please" was hammered by critic Stu Stiminson (then an undergraduate) in the _____ Review; Stu called it "the worst poem I have ever read."
Speaking of acknowledgements, it might be of interest to note that E.E. Cummings dedicated his poetry collection 'No Thanks' to the fourteen publishers who had rejected his manuscript, to wit:
Farrar & Rinehart
Simon & Schuster
Limited Editions
Harcourt, Brace
Random House
Equinox Press
Smith & Haas
Viking Press
Covici, Friede
Acknowledgements can serve many purposes.
No doubt Jack Conway is right that Mikey is due for at attitude adjustment. After all, the other kiddies were being pushed around just a bit too much until Jack, whose writing cvareer is longer by far, said not on my watch, boy. Coloring books! What pwnage.
That is a fact, not an attack, Michael. Don't make me raise my voice. I said don't make me raise my voice.
Listen here, Boyd. Have you gone to college? No offense meant. My writing cvareer is longer by far than yours, but not my spelling. My spelling is shorter than yours, I admit that. What rankles me, though, is your complete inability to comprehend the obvious when it is staring you right in the face. Like the sun rises in the East. That is a fact. You can go look in the west like a little child and wait for it to rise. It won't. That is because you are based of faulty logic. Like my students, who are like children. They are childish, like a spoiled child, who is childlike. Like you, who are a child, and who are childish and spoiled, and who, like children everywhere, have not gone to college.
Mr. Brady:
Pursuant to your question on an earlier thread (and a little off-topic, as if there even was a topic here anymore)…no, I didn't win the Pulitzer today. I, along with a couple of hundred other poets, am feeling a little dejected tonight.
Of course, a couple of million other people buried their children today. I guess we should all keep things in perspective, shouldn't we?
What I don't like about acknowledgements wiht poetry books is you can't (at least I haven't seen it) have a SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE acknowledgement splashed across the cover.
After thinking a bit more about this topic, I posted a piece of my own on Acknowledgments at http://possumego.blogspot.com.
Jack reminds me of E. Hamish Plumbrick. His death waddle is clearly pledged to the cause of poetry. Reading all that Thomas Hardy, E. A. Robinson, and Acrhibald MacLiesh has got count for something. Right? Right?
(please note, no dead white guys were harmed in the making of this post)
Maybe this will help you with your obsession Roberto.
Then again, it hasn't so far.
Should students cite their publications in university publications or otherwise? And is it beneficial?
And what about blogs? Should poets cite their poems posted on blogs?
And what about poetry forums? Are they legitimate sources to acknowledge?
And what about if I start my own magazine and publish myself? Should I acknowledge that?
I highly recommend that folks check out Dale's blog post, which is quite interesting.
Hmm…I thought that a little humor added to a decidedly unserious topic would be welcome. Though I suppose 21 years of teaching does tend to make one quite humorless.
Really, all of this over acknowledgements!?! Just goes to show, poets better serve the world/work when they limit their bloviations. Odd that what I'm sure Gurial intended as a diversion turned so serious. I blame unchecked pretention, myself.
Kent Johnson's comments above about including rejections in acknowledgment pages is a provocative idea, too. Thanks for bringing this up. From a somewhat different direction, I recall how Exquisite Corpse used to have a Body Bag section in their print magazine that included the names of rejected poets whose work had been read for a particular issue. There were also longer rejection comments to certain writers whose work showed promise but failed to achieve the standards of the Corpse. I used to read through the long list of rejected names when the print issue would come out in the early 90s, scanning the print block in that elongated, vertical format until, lo and behold, I found my name among the dead. Anyway, the power of the negative, as Kent observes, might make a valuable contribution to this way of looking at the social apparatus–the poem's cocoon.
How has no one mentioned Bill Knott, whose acknowledgments to The Quicken Tree read in their entirety: "Earlier versions of a few of these poems appeared in 2 or 3 ephemera, but Truth-in-Packaging laws require the author to admit that almost all the poems in this book were rejected by every magazine they were sent to."
Michael, I guess we were hoping that Bill would mention himself! He also used rejection slips as cover art for some of his terrific hand-made books, pre-Lulu.
I, too, remember the Body Bag & have often thought it had a salutary effect on would-be contributors. And it sure made you look forward to a new issue. EC thrives online these days, but I loved their beguiling old print format.
My own fave ack. is from, natch, Basil Bunting, ca. 1935:
are due to T. Lucretius Carus, Muhammad Shamsuddin Shirazi Hafiz, Maslhuddin Shirazi Sadi, Q. Horatius Flaccus, Charles Baudelaire, François Villon, Niccolo Machiavelli, Kamo-no-Chomei, Jenghis Khan, G. Valerius Catullus, Clement Marot, Jesus Christ, Dante Alighieri and anonymous peasants for loans;
as well as to Jonathan Swift, François de Malherbe, Ernest Fenellosa, Louis Zukofsky and Ezra Pound for advice and guidance;
besides all the poets who ever were before me, particularly those I have read:
but the editors who bought some of these poems at inadequate prices or printed others without paying anything I need not thank. On the contrary, they should thank me."
& later:
"Many were first printed in Poetry, of Chicago, whose editors so many poets have had cause to thank."
Thanks for those examples Don! All great except for that last one, lol.
As someone who has never had to be burdened with such a hardship as a publication all of this matters very little to me. But this has been one of the most entertaining threads in a while. Though perhaps all those fancy rejection slips I tape on my wall are a form of acknowledgement, which I think has already been proposed in slightly different forms.
>I highly recommend that folks check out Dale's blog post, which is quite interesting.
Do we view liner notes in albums the same way? I know the analogy of credits on a film was made, but it feels forced. Do we as readers need to contextualize to enjoy. Were Wimsatt and Beardsley entirely wrong–do we need to legitimize a work through the biographical contextualization an acknowledgement page offers (esp. a cheeky one)? Or is this all simply an issue for the "afficionado?" Shouldn't the poems themselves be thanks enough for anyone who deserves thanks?
Yes, it would be something to see, "soon to be a major motion picture," on a book of poems. What a hoot! Very funny. As usual…
At long last, a kindred spirit. Ah, the seriousness of poetry. Thanks.
So nice to find you here. I read "Syllabus 101" in TEMPER.
Very clever and on point. I'm going to use it in one of my units on light poetry. Thanks again.
Enuff already. Go write a poem!
Poe on acknowledgements:
You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer. He is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit of the world. I say established; for it is with literature as with law or empire — an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession. Besides, one might suppose that books, like their authors, improve by travel — their having crossed the sea is, with us, so great a distinction. Our antiquaries abandon time for distance; our very fops glance from the binding to the bottom of the title-page, where the mystic characters which spell London, Paris, or Genoa, are precisely so many letters of recommendation.
I enjoyed your blog piece on Wordsworth's 'Lyrical Ballads' and his next edition with preface.
Have you ever seen the following?
You might enjoy this:
As to Wordsworth, I have no faith in him. That he had, in youth, the feelings of a poet I believe — for there are glimpses of extreme delicacy in his writings — (and delicacy is the poet's own kingdom — his El Dorado) — but they have the appearance of a better day recollected; and glimpses, at best, are little evidence of present poetic fire — we know that a few straggling flowers spring up daily in the crevices of the glacier.
He was to blame in wearing away his youth in contemplation with the end of poetizing in his manhood. With the increase of his judgment the light which should make it apparent has faded away. His judgment consequently is too correct. This may not be understood, — but the old Goths of Germany would have understood it, who used to debate matters of importance to their State twice, once when drunk, and once when sober — sober that they might not be deficient in formality — drunk lest they should be destitute of vigor.
The long wordy discussions by which he tries to reason us into admiration of his poetry, speak very little in his favor: they are full of such assertions as this — (I have opened one of his volumes at random) "Of genius the only proof is the act of doing well what is worthy to be done, and what was never done before" — indeed! then it follows that in doing what is unworthy to be done, or what has been done before, no genius can be evinced: yet the picking of pockets is an unworthy act, pockets have been picked time immemorial, and Barrington, the pick-pocket, in point of genius, would have thought hard of a comparison with William Wordsworth, the poet.
Again — in estimating the merit of certain poems, whether they be Ossian's or M'Pherson's, can surely be of little consequence, yet, in order to prove their worthlessness, Mr. W. has expended many pages in the controversy. Tantæne animis? Can great minds descend to such absurdity? But worse still: that he may bear down every argument in favor of these poems, he triumphantly drags forward a passage, in his abomination of which he expects the reader to sympathize. It is the beginning of the epic poem "Temora." "The blue waves of Ullin roll in light; the green hills are covered with day; trees shake their dusky heads in the breeze." And this — this gorgeous, yet simple imagery — where all is alive and panting with immortality — this — William Wordsworth, the author of Peter Bell, has selected for his contempt. We shall see what better he, in his own person, has to offer. Imprimis:
"And now she's at the pony's head,
And now she's at the pony's tail,
On that side now, and now on this,
And almost stifled her with bliss —
A few sad tears does Betty shed,
She pats the pony where or when
She knows not: happy Betty Foy!
O Johnny! never mind the Doctor!"
"The dew was falling fast, the — stars began to blink,
I heard a voice, it said —— drink, pretty creature, drink;
And looking o'er the hedge, be — fore me I espied
A snow-white mountain lamb with a — maiden at its side,
No other sheep were near, the lamb was all alone,
And by a slender cord was — tether 'd to a stone."
Now we have no doubt this is all true; we will believe it, indeed we will, Mr. W. Is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite? I love a sheep from the bottom of my heart.
But there are occasions when even Wordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end, and the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an extract from his preface —
"Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modern writers, if they persist in reading this book to a conclusion (impossible!) will, no doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha! ha! ha!) they will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!) and will be induced to inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts have been permitted to assume that title." Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
Yet let not Mr. W. despair; he has given immortality to a wagon, and the bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe, and dignified a tragedy with a chorus of turkeys.
Thomas, thanks for sharing the Poe "Letter." It's a marvelous bit of candor. He goes on to say good things about Coleridge, with some resistance of course:
"He has imprisoned his own conceptions by the barrier he has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its perfume upon the night alone. In reading his poetry I tremble like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious, from the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below."
For anyone interested, Poe's "Letter to B-" can be found here: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/POE/letter2b.html. It's a fun read….
(Apologies to Erich Segal)
Being gay,
in America,
never having to say,
I do.
Acknoledgement: I'd like to thank Erich Segal
JC, I'm sending this to the California alliance!
Despite some notable exceptions and the doggedly persistent but historically inaccurate myth of poetic genius/solitude, I really do believe that a poem is raised by a village / community. That's why, I think, Irish poetry is, on the whole, so good.
Are you referring only to geographic communities or others?
One does have to worry however if it is the village idiot writing the poems or the town bully. That makesa big difference.
"He has imprisoned his own conceptions by the barrier he has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its perfume upon the night alone. In reading his poetry I tremble like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious, from the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below."
Is this a magical description of Coleridge, or a veiled insult?
Probably the latter. Some of the mystery of Poe is solved when we realize he was pro-U.S. at a time when Great Britain was not exactly a friend. Poe championed American Letters not with jingoism, (he may have been 'a jingle man,' but he was no jingo man) directly (by being a very good writer) and indirectly by teasing the Brits whenever he got a chance.
I would like to thank mad Ireland for hurting me into poetry.
I seldom read sources unless they are cited MLA or Chicago style.
Posted in Uncategorized on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 by Jason Guriel.


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Engaging Students Panel SessionWednesday, September 18, 2:50-3:45pm - Presentation
As a component of Track 1, the "Engaging Students" session features a panel discussion on encouraging undergraduate student participation in cybersecurity awareness efforts. Join guest panelists from leading cyber and technology universities as they talk about promoting cybersecurity on campus and trends related to students pursuing careers in cybersecurity. Learn about the programs and initiatives that have been most effective at helping students understand the risks of the Internet and what attracts students to careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.


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The city's Taiwanese food scene continues to improve with the arrival of OK Ryan in Flushing. Like Liang's Kitchen, another Chowhound favorite, it's the New York outpost of a California restaurant. Good bets include stinky tofu (pictured), onion pancakes, and—for those on the go—combo box lunches.
Photo from OK Ryan / Facebook


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Jon Nguyen:
Jon Nguyen: 在家中环游太阳系
买不起价值连城的宇宙飞船也想遨游太阳系之中?Jon Nguyen展示了美国航空航天局喷气推进实验室的"太阳系之眼(Eyes on the Solar System)"。这是一个免费的软件,能够让你实时地探索太阳系之中的各大行星、卫星、小行星以及航天飞行器。(摄于TED圣迭戈)
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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxSanDiego, an independent event. TED editors featured it among our selections on the home page.
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Download our audited accounts for the year 1 May 2014 to 31 June 2015 here.
A summary of The Haven's income and expenditure, 1 June 2013 to 31 May 2014.Read more
Some of the highlights from our last financial year June 2014 to May 2015Read more
Here are a few of our many fundraising highlights for our last financial year.Read more
...everyone who supported The Haven. Here are some that deserve a special mention...Read more


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The underlying principle is that we are proud of what we design, make and sell. All areas of design, design integrity, is incredibly important to us. For our radiator products that means of course that we want you to look at Eskimo ranges and be blown away by their beautiful form, elegance, clean lines and stunning finishes. We want you to get excited about owning a piece of Eskimo product design. But it has to be so much more than that. Technical intelligence and reliability, so that all of our customers feel a huge sense of trust.
Experience is everything too and the Eskimo way is listening and understanding you and what you want. So the people on the phone will always be helpful, listen and solve things for you. Our delivery teams are as flexible as possible and always happy to lend a hand. Our sales team never too 'salesy', always offering the best solution for your scheme and your budget. Aftercare caring and Accounts great communicators.
We want your installer (or you if you're a handy sort) to find the job straightforward and well explained. We want you to be warmed by your radiators throughout the coldest of winters, and smile about this well designed interior piece during the warmer parts of the year. We would like to think that if you sell your house and move on, whoever moves in will feel the same about the radiators they inherit. For that, we believe, is the measure of good product design. It's not fashion (and we're not knocking fashion), it's not art, but it is something that can be appreciated by anybody at any time. Design longevity because it quite simply works and looks great.
Eskimo are excited by what we do. The radiator designers that created Hinge & Bracket and launched CLIFF, natural stone radiators at 100% Design. Beautiful, efficient electric or hydronic radiators. A trusted brand for bespoke, inspiring designs with technical reliability and intelligence. Clean lines, stunning finishes, perfect attention to detail.
We are inspired by all of the Best Of British suppliers and skilled craftspeople that we have the pleasure of working with. Who are as excited as us about our radiators. Leading technology, speciality finishing, ground breaking materials and manufacturing processes.
Our forms and finishes are inspired by such simple, yet such pleasurable discoveries or experiences. Our natural stone finishes inspired by the dramatic coast of the UK. Our patinated copper, brass finishes and aged steel, inspired by the industrial parts of the UK. We manufacture in Birmingham. Our more reflective metal finishes and good use of colour being inspired by snowy lakes and seasonal countrysides. Distressed powder finishes inspired by the boat yards of the South West. All translated into forms and finishes that blend beautifully within YOUR scheme.


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August 12, 2008 by 13 Comments
There seem to be two trends in publishing at the moment. On the one hand, larger presses are making cutbacks. On the other hand, there is a proliferation of self-published books and the process of publishing your own book is becoming cheaper and more convenient.
Does anyone have thoughts on self-publishing? Has anyone done it and can recommend it (or recommend not to do it)? I have a very short book that I might try to publish that way if I can't secure a traditional publisher for it soon. Would you be less likely to buy a book that looked interesting if it were from a self-publishing source rather than a traditional press that has shown itself to be a publisher of reliable books? If you've used a particular service, which did you choose, and how did it go? If you've bought a self-published book, were you satisfied or disappointed with the product you received?
I'm also thinking about doing something like this when I have something I want to use in an adult Sunday school class, or perhaps even in classes at Butler.
I look forward to your input!
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Originally Posted by Kase-1
From profootballfocus.com
11. New York Giants (31)
PB – 20th, RB – 4th, PEN – 12th
Stud: Though he gets next to no praise, Will Beatty (+22.4) had a year that warranted Pro Bowl consideration. The penalties aren't ideal, but there are not many left tackles who can keep their quarterback upright and generate movement in the run game. Beatty also ranked as the 11th best OT in the NFL last season
So this actually shows he's better at run block than pass block? Interesting. What's PEN mean?
Buddy333 who said he isn't that good?
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"I have lived long enough to see Vanderbilt win a bowl game."
Mark this date. As the books were being closed on the cataclysmic year of 2008, Bobby Johnson's Commodores were closing the book on a 25-year string of losing seasons. Their 16-14, come-from-behind win over Boston College in the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl Wednesday provided the school's long-suffering football fans with what amounts to one of the most significant wins in school history.
Ironically, the year 2008 is roundly being dismissed by pundits as one of the least memorable in this country's history. Yet Vanderbilt closed 2008 out in style, providing its downtrodden fans with a season they are going to want to frame, mount above the mantle, and remember forever.
This one was for all those sidewalk fans and alumni who suffered resolutely through the Doc Kreis scandal... the Watson Brown years... the ignominy of the departure of Gerry DiNardo... the futile ineptitude of the Dowhower/Widenhofer era... etc. It's for those who remained faithful as Vandy bumbled through 2-9 season after 2-9 season, losing football games in every conceivable way.
An entire generation had grown into adulthood not having seen Vanderbilt experience a winning season or a bowl invitation-- neither had happened since 1982. And heck, I'm now old enough to be a grandpa, and I'd never seen Vanderbilt actually WIN a bowl game-- for the record, it hadn't happened since 1955.
Now it has. A hideous era of futility has officially come to a close.
Now it can be said, and said officially: Vanderbilt has a winning football program! 7-6, baybee. Music City Bowl Champions.
Not that any of it came easily. Nothing ever has, and it probably never will for Vanderbilt football. For starters, LP Field felt more like Lambeau Field Wednesday, after a frigid cold front moved across the state the night before. My toes are still numb.
Yet bowl-starved Commodore fans showed up in surprising numbers, pushing the attendance to a respectable 54,250. I don't know that I've ever seen a larger number of fans assembled in one place bedecked proudly in licensed Vanderbilt apparel. Chilled to the bone, they consumed mass quantities of hot chocolate, and steadfastly encouraged their padded gladiators.
And disappoint the team didn't. Demonstrating right off the bat that Vandy was ready to "Do Whatever It Takes", Bobby Johnson gave inexperienced redshirt freshman Larry Smith the start at quarterback. Yes, you read right. The staff dispensed with more experienced hands Chris Nickson and Mackenzi Adams, and gave Smith the first start of his career-- in a bowl game.
Undeterred by the circumstances or the glacial conditions, Smith was able to move the offense on a pair of early drives, and the Commodores jumped to a 6-0 lead on a pair of Bryant Hahnfeldt field goals. The Eagles from BC answered with a long drive to take a 7-6 halftime lead, but Vanderbilt was playing with confidence. It was hanging tough.
Then came the strangest play of the game. Brett Upson's rugby punt glanced (evidently) off an Eagle player and rolled into the end zone, where a host of alert Commodores pounced on the ball for a touchdown. In all fairness, I watched the replay six times on the Tennessee Titans' giant replay board, and I'm still not entirely convinced the ball touched an Eagle-- but replay officials evidently were. 'Dores led, 13-7.
The lead seesawed back to Boston College with 6:38 left in the game when Dominique Davis found Colin Larmond on a 55-yard bomb. Larmond had beaten his man, Vanderbilt cornerback Myron Lewis, to get open by three steps. But don't fret for Lewis-- he would later go from goat to hero.
With a bowl game hanging in the balance, Vanderbilt's much-maligned offense had one last drive left in it. Who knew? With Bobby Johnson now shuffling quarterbacks in and out in Spurrier-esque fashion, the Commodores drove to the Eagle 28, setting up Hahnfeldt for one last field goal attempt. With the wind gusting at his back, he nailed it.
The Eagles would have not one, but two more possessions to try to salvage a win. Not until the aforementioned Lewis jumped in front of a BC receiver to intercept Davis' final pass was the hardware in hand.
Giddy, frostbitten Commodore fans poured into the streets shouting, high-fiving, and heading for the establishments that line Second Avenue. Their New Year's Eve celebration, doubtless, went on well into the night.
Back in August, few of those same fans would have guessed that this team would have been the one to break the long bowl-less streak. Now, the image of the Commodores hoisting the Music City Bowl trophy aloft as fireworks popped in the background will be fixed in fans' minds through a long offseason.
This 2008 team will be long remembered as a team that played with great heart. After losing six of its last seven games, very few national pundits thought Vanderbilt would be able to compete with the Atlantic Coast Conference runners-up. Yet this resilient bunch of Commodores beat the odds, earning their place in Vandy's athletic lore and gaining a measure of SEC pride in doing so.
Lucky? Maybe-- but Vanderbilt would probably prefer the term "opportunistic." Yes, the team's only touchdown came on a crazy play by the punt team, and the winning drive was aided by a pair of silly BC penalties. But as this team has done all season, it took advantage when opportunities presented themselves.
And what of Bobby Johnson, who received a well-earned postgame Gatorade shower? He's now the only coach in school history besides Art Guepe capable of boasting a bowl win. In seven seasons at Vanderbilt, he's beaten Tennessee, he's taken Vandy bowling, and he's delivered a winning season. (Gasp) What's left for him to accomplish?
OK, maybe next year he can get us to a bowl where it's actually warm.


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The extra-long all-opening-credits round of the Filmbrain Screen Capture Quiz is finally over!
Regular contestant Max G. was the lone voice in the wind this week as he (somehow!) recognized the blue curtain and moon behind it from the opening of Francis Ford Coppola's One From the Heart, a desert-island movie if ever there was one.
This is the film that drove Coppola into bankruptcy, and forced him to take on studio fare such as the truly awful Jack. But you know what? It was worth it. Rebuilding Vegas on a soundstage allowed DP Vittorio Storaro to do unbelievable things with lights. And then of course there are the songs by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle....sheer bliss.
Congratulations to Max for getting a perfect score -- I'm thoroughly impressed. I'd also like to thank everybody else who participated in what turned out to be the most successful round yet!
Check back next week (or maybe in two...three...) for an all new round!


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|Call Number
|Item Status
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Edition: 1st ed
Description: xxviii, 409 p. : ill. ; 23 cm
ISBN/ISSN: 9780470615164 (pbk.), 0470615168 (pbk.), 9780470615164,
Language: English
"How to get past the myths, tap into the creativity of the ADHD mind, and thrive. ADHD affects millions of people-some 3 to 5% of the general population. Written by a neuroscientist who has studied ADHD, a clinician who has diagnosed and treated it for 30 years, and a special educator who sees it daily, The Energetic Brain provides the latest information from neuroscience on how the ADHD brain works and shows how to harness its potential for success. It distills the latest research findings to give readers the most up-to-date information available and provides practical strategies for managing ADHD-and thriving-at school, at work, and at home, from childhood through adulthood. Debunks popular (and destructive) myths about ADHD Covers how to manage ADHD with medication or without, what parents can do to help, and how to thrive with ADHD throughout the lifespan Offers effective academic and behavioral interventions for school, and helpful accommodations for the workplace The Energetic Brain provides a truly thorough view of ADHD, making it an invaluable guide for parents, teachers, and those living with ADHD"--
What is ADHD? -- What ADHD looks like: common behaviors and related disorders -- How ADHD affects family and friends -- Is it really ADHD? Getting the right diagnosis -- How medication affects the ADHD brain -- Nonmedical interventions that work -- Interventions that strengthen family relationships: strategies for parents -- Helping students with ADHD succeed at school: Strategies for teachers -- A crash course in special education and Section 504 -- Practical strategies for college and the workplaceRelated Searches:
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text: 16 Jul 2013 Sign Language: week 265 Previous slide Next slide 1 of 22 View All Skip Ad Another helping of amusing and confusing signs sent in by readers on their travels. This week's funniest sign Grey area Location: Doha Spotted by: Chris Prus Chris wins a copy of the "Sign Language 2" book! Read on to see more of this week's best entries... Send us your signs! Can you do better? Send your strange signs to email@example.com . The sender of the best entry will win a copy of the Sign Language 2 book. Please read our terms and conditions Back to image


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This attractive and reusable Browning Game Tin features the Buckmark logo and classic Browning black and gold, but what it contains is just as thrilling. Inside you will find two decks of custom Browning playing cards as well as five custom Buckmark dice. Perfect for those evening with the guys after a long day of hunting.
Browning Buckmark Game Tin Features:
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