MAYBE it’s all Christie Whitman’s fault. After all, it was under her stewardship as governor of New Jersey that the idea of a state poet laureate was first hatched. But how could she have known in April 2000 that the innocuous role of poet laureate would fall under intense scrutiny? Back then, the distinction of New Jersey’s first poet laureate was bestowed upon Gerald Stern, whose works include “This Time: New and Selected Poems,” winner of the National Book Award. And the poet laureate gig is a pretty good deal: It involves a two-year term and a $10,000 stipend–Stern used the money to travel around the state, reading poems.
New Jersey is no stranger to poetry–native sons include Walt Whitman (Camden), William Carlos Williams (Rutherford), Robert Pinsky (Long Branch), and Allen Ginsberg (Newark). Also born in Newark was Everett LeRoi Jones, a 1960s black radical who changed his name to Amiri Baraka, who last July became New Jersey’s second poet laureate, and is now at the center of a political firestorm.
It all started on September 19 at a poetry festival in Stanhope, New Jersey, when Baraka read aloud “Somebody Blew Up America.” The stanza receiving the most attention reads as follows:Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers To stay home that day Why did Sharon stay away?
Jewish groups like the Anti-Defamation League accused the poet laureate of anti-Semitism and Democratic governor James McGreevey demanded Baraka resign his post. But last week at the Newark Public Library, Baraka held his ground, “I will not apologize, I will not resign.” About 200 of his supporters, who were on hand, applauded. He went on, “This trashy propaganda is characteristic of right-wing zealots who are interested only in slander and character assassination of those whose views or philosophies differ from or are in contradiction to theirs.”
As the law currently stands, not even the governor can fire Baraka. But this week, legislation was drafted to amend the law and allow Governor McGreevey (not exactly a right-wing zealot) to force him out. The governor’s spokeswoman, Ellen Mellody, tells me that the legislation is “widely supported by both Republicans and Democrats” and that they are trying to expedite its passage. She also reminds me that McGreevey has already frozen the $10,000 stipend.
“We’ll fight this,” Baraka recently told the Star-Ledger. “We’ll go to the Supreme Court. The only thing they’ll do is put me in a position to defend the rights of poets and the First Amendment.” Regarding the charges of anti-Semitism, Baraka is quick to point out other stanzas in “Somebody Blew Up America” that ask, “Who put the Jews in ovens” and later, “Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt” and “Who murdered the Rosenbergs.” (In his subsequent statement defending his position, he continues to misspell Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht’s names.) Baraka insists that he does not accuse the Israeli government of plotting the attacks of September 11, but he says on his website:
“I WAS NOT SAYING ISRAEL WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ATTACK, BUT THAT THEY KNEW AND OUR OWN COUNTERFEIT PRESIDENT DID TOO!” [All-caps in the original.]
Tell that to Liat Levinhar, whose husband, Shai, a 29-year-old assistant vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald, was killed in the World Trade Center. Did Shai, an Israeli, somehow miss Ariel Sharon’s call to skip work that day?
Reading Somebody Blew Up America, it’s obvious that, charges of anti-Semitism aside, the poem itself is a rambling rant. It features a series of “who” questions: “Who the fake president” and “Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion / And crackling they sides at the notion” and “Who put a price on Lenin’s head.” All of which begs the question: Who made this guy poet laureate of New Jersey?
That would be a four-person panel convened by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, in consultation with the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. One of those panelists, ironically, was former poet laureate Stern: “I don’t like what Baraka did, and I’ve called his poem stupid,” he told the New York Times last Tuesday. But Stern says the effort to remove Baraka “smacks of state control.” The NJCH, meanwhile, has reversed its recommendation of Baraka. In a letter to New Jersey Senate president Richard Codey, NJCH executive director Jane Rutkoff said the council “deeply deplores the comments made by Amiri Baraka, comments which the Council believes have compromised his ability to fulfill the duties of his position.” She then calls for the remedy of a statute to provide for the direct removal of the poet laureate.
Still, one wonders how the panel could have picked Baraka in the first place. After all, he wrote “Somebody Blew Up America” last October–nine months before he was named to the post in July 2002.
Last week on “Connie Chung Tonight,” Baraka said, “My intention was to show that not only did Israel know, . . . but the United States knew. . . . And Germany and France and England. And this is confirmed.” Chung was aghast and called the claim preposterous. Baraka goes on, “One of the reasons that . . . Cynthia McKinney, the congresswoman from Georgia, got put out is because she said the same thing. I have a press release of hers in my bag that says the same thing.” When asked about evidence, he began by saying “There is any number of articles on the Internet.” (As Clarence Page points out, Baraka “is one of those people who disbelieves what he hears in the major ‘media’ but believes everything he sees on the Internet.”)
The sooner McGreevey and the state assembly can agree on a resolution and get rid of Baraka, the better. Then the ex-poet laureate can write as many poems as he wants, whether it be about the Zionist conspiracy that ousted him, or about those terribly racist remarks made by Tommy Hilfiger. Or maybe he will extol that great Kurt Vonnegut commencement speech about wearing sunblock, or how, if you send out an e-mail to all your friends, Microsoft and Disney will send you a check for $500. Even better, maybe he and that Nigerian businessman will be able to collect the frozen $48,000,000,000 USD.
Victorino Matus is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
