Tony Hoagland's "The Change"

I am not sure I have anything of value to say about the recent online activity/controversy surrounding Tony Hoagland's poem "The Change," following Claudia Rankine's talk on the matter at the latest AWP (for Rankine's text, visit her website and click on "AWP"). For an interesting analysis, read Seth Abramson's take on the matter.

I remember the unease expressed by a friend at the University of Houston the year Tony was hired at "The change" and "Dear John" (also in What Narcissism Means to Me) and talking with Tony about those two poems in specific in conference and I don't remember much of his response, except it didn't make me feel uncomfortable with Tony and it had something to do with "liberal feel-good and good intentions." But I've started noticing many Google searches including the terms "tony hoagland racist," which have already led here.

It has been a very long time since I have read the aforementioned poem. I did try to reread What Narcissism at some point, but put it down rather quickly. Not out of disgust, but because I moved on in terms of poetics. This was before Tony started reading George Oppen and Lyn Hejinian. I am not sure why I am mentioning this last detail. There was a point when I was actually dismayed at Tony, but this was because of his poem "The Galleria" (which later appeared in Unincorporated Persons of the Late Honda Dynasty), because he seemed to embrace this liberal anger at commercialism, full of good intentions, but ultimately empty in consequences.

As a Frenchman (no hyphen, please. I've never felt particularly Asian and my former interest in Japanese literature was never an attempt to reclaim some form of roots), I've always been intrigued this continuous discussion around identity politics in the United States (and Canada). I remember discussing this with Ray Hsu the second time we met, in St. Louis. The discussion didn't go very far, degenerating into a rant against the use of Walter Benjamin's biographical details in poems and Scottish clan politics. Perhaps this amazement stems from cultural insensitivity on my part. Even though I have been living in the United States, I am still navigating through the various socio-economical cleavages of this country. The events of the Civil Rights Movement are as old as the events of May 68, events that are still resonant to French politics to this day.

I am not going to call "The Change" a bad poem (or a good one for that matter). And it seems disingenuous to finally talk about this poem almost 10 years after it was first written, but more disingenuous are some of the responses I've seen (such as here). The discussion about race has not stopped because you have elected an African-American as President. Yes, there is all that birtherist tea party inanity, but you patting yourselves in the back for doing so makes it even more obvious (speaking of empty liberal good intentions). Good intentions are not going to repair centuries of inequity. And much like Tony, I do think that racism is deeply ingrained within our collective consciousness (yes, that includes the French too).

But I am not going to use this as a call for political activism to poets, like Seth does, or Juliana Spahr. Poets don't have enough presence to make their political poems matter. I have lived long enough in the San Francisco Bay Area to see that any political action undertaken by poets is only self-serving. And a discussion on race among poets matters only to the AWP (that is, it doesn't matter at all, because even though it is full of good intentions, no one but poets are listening). The problem about political activism in the United States is that there isn't enough of it in the general population in the first place. If you want political activism, join the Tides Foundation, or ACORN (back when it was still around), or the Communist Party. You know, like George Oppen.

UPDATE 21:19: I think Juliana Spahr, when she creates a causal link between the decrease of political activism in poets and the MFA institutionalization, is referencing Jacques Rancière. I'm not sure, having not read the essay in question (if anyone has a link, feel free to post it). I don't think Rancière is appropriate in this context, as he wrote in a very French context (that is to say, the radicalism of the May 68 protesters and the more conservative slant of protesters in subsequent generations (including mine)). The history of the United States since the 1960s is vastly opposite to France's in that they have witnessed an eroding of institutions (see for example, the fact that the United States is now lagging behind other countries in scientific education). The decrease of political activism in the general US population (and therefore in the poet population) shouldn't be blamed on any form of institution, but elsewhere. Where? I don't know. That would be a question for a sociologist.