Here is Question 4 in the 9 for 9 Project, along with my response.
NEA chairman Dana Gioia has recently implemented a writing program for U.S. troops to write about their wartime experiences in Iraq. Boeing (a leading defense contractor) has donated $250,000 to the program. Gioia is quoted as saying, "I have noticed a lot of similarities between the military world and the literary world. Both are highly specialized and highly professionalized. And when that happens, you tend not to see a lot of things outside of your immediate world. I'm hoping this program will make a difference." Keep in mind that this comes at a time when the NEA has slashed funding for organizations such as The Poetry Project at St. Marks, and Woodlawn Pattern in Milwaukee, as well as many others. Write Dana Gioia a letter responding to this new NEA program.
Dana, baby, you trickster! You
know as well as I
that pens & keyboards in
the hands of “’Murica’s finest”
is like giving camcorders to
the MPs of Abu Ghraib,
flash memory of the oppressed,
flesh pressed into service, all
these young vols, young Rimbaud,
young
young Timothy McVeigh, give him
a pen, what then? If,
as I live & breathe,
you understand this elaborate con
as one intervention for peace,
I’d be glad & shout
out laughter that big Boeing
was just who bought it,
Ron
