The Nation offered a lengthy apology on Friday for a poem offering advice to panhandlers which the magazine’s poetry editors later conceded was “ableist” and “caused harm to members of several communities.”
“As poetry editors, we hold ourselves responsible for the ways in which the work we select is received. We made a serious mistake by choosing to publish the poem ‘How-To,'” said the magazine’s poetry editors Stephanie Burt and Carmen Giménez Smith. “We are sorry for the pain we have caused to the many communities affected by this poem. We recognize that we must now earn your trust back.”
In their lengthy statement — longer than the poem for which they were apologizing — the editors said they would substantially revise how they looked at future submissions.
“We are currently revising our process for solicited and unsolicited submissions. But more importantly, we are listening, and we are working,” they said. “We are grateful for the insightful critiques we have heard, but we know that the onus of change is on us, and we take that responsibility seriously.”
After originally posting ecstatically about being published in the iconic liberal magazine, poet Anders Carlson-Wee (pictured above) also offered an apology, saying that his original intention had been to address the “invisibility of homelessness.”
“To all who have voiced questions and concerns about my poem in The Nation: I am listening closely and I am reflecting deeply,” he said. “I am sorry for the pain I have cause, and I take responsibility for that,” he said.
The poem offers advice to presumably homeless panhandlers on the best way to pry cash from passersby, including this line: “If you’re crippled don’t /
flaunt it. Let em think they’re good enough / Christians to notice.”
Throughout the poem, the narrator also adopts an ungrammatical vernacular that many readers found equally troubling: “Don’t say homeless, they know / you is.”
Carlson-Wee did not immediately respond to request for comment from TheWrap.
9 Times New York Times Editorial Made Everyone Freak Out
Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now
The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts
MSNBC
David Brooks: 'Girl I Want Your Body'
New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks offered his spin on the MeToo movement in November. But his attempt to speak the language of sex and passion led him to write some lines like "girl I want your body" and "sex is a gold nugget" and the Internet went nuts.
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Bret Stephens' "A Defense, of Sorts, for Harvey Weinstein"
The October, 2017 piece was actually titled "Weinstein and Our Culture of Enablers," but Stephens couldn't resist throwing in the trollish alternative headline see above into a tweeted description of the article -- which promptly precipitated an Internet meltdown
YouTube
David Brooks Urges "Respect to Gun Owners" After Parkland, Florida Massacre
David Brooks set passions aflame after urging "respect" for gun owners after 17 children were killed at a school shooting in Parkland, Florida. "So if you want to stop school shootings it's not enough just to vent and march. It's necessary to let people from Red America lead the way, and to show respect to gun owners at all points," he wrote.
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Quinn "Been Friends with Various Neo-Nazis" Norton
The New York Times got more than they bargained for when they hired tech writer Quinn Norton. Almost immediately after the news was announced old tweets began to emerge including where Norton said she had "been friends with various neo-nazis" and used the N word. The Times cut her loose just hours after she was hired.
YouTube
Bari Weiss Attacks Aziz Ansari Accuser: 'I'll Get Crushed for This'
Weiss risked more wrath on the set of "Morning Joe" in January after blasting a woman who accused comedian Aziz Ansari of sexual misconduct. "It's called bad sex," she told Joe and Mika. "I'll get crushed for saying this."
TheWrap
Bari Weiss Quotes Hamilton: 'Immigrants: We Get the Job Done"
Anti-Weiss Internet mobs were set ablaze after she tweeted out "Immigrants: we get the job done," in response to Olympian Mirai Nagasu's triple axel. Nagasu was born in California to immigrant parents and Twitter furiously dragged her for not paying sufficient deference to the decision.
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James Bennet Diversifies the Times Opinion Pages
Editorial Page Editor James Bennet has said his mission is to broaden editorial diversity on the Times newsroom. The initiative has often been rocky and the paper has been beset by online criticism of hiring choices, and targeted leaks by Times employees unhappy with his changes.
YouTube
David Brooks Sandwich-Shames Less Educated Friend
Perhaps most egregious of all in the mind of Internet warriors was Brooks' confession in a July, 2017 column that he once took a friend "with only a high school degree" into a gourmet sandwich shop but decided to pull a quick switch for Mexican food after, so he said, she appeared overwhelmed by words like Soppressata and Capicollo.
Creative Commons
1 of 9
Most of the recent fire and fury comes from the paper’s editorial pages
Bari Weiss: We're All Fascists Now
The New York Times opinion editor set the Internet ablaze after going after college students who she said were trying to shut down free speech. Critics pointed to Weiss mistakenly linking two fake ANTIFA Twitter accounts