WHY I AM NOT GOING TOTHE WISCONSIN BOOK FESTIVAL

You may remember I drove seven hours

to get to the South Dakota Festival of Books in Sioux Falls at the end of August, seven hours there and seven hours back. You may wonder why I am not driving the hour and ten minutes to attend the Wisconsin Book Festival, which opens today in Madison. I'll tell you why. I'm angry.

I'm angry that they declined an offer to appear coming from a poet and essayist who lives in Fairwater, Wisconsin; yet they invited authors from Pittsburgh and Los Angeles and Chicago and Chicago and Chicago, from Dorest, England, and London, England, from San Francisco and Woodside, California, from Minneapolis and Minneapolis and Minneapolis, from New York and New York and New York and Boise and Baltimore and Ann Arbor, from Montana, from Petoskey, Michigan, from the University of East Anglia and Southern Illinois University and Virginia Commonwealth and Stanford and Yale. But not from Fairwater, Wisconsin. It might be different if I had an entirely inflated sense of my own worth, but wasn't I one of the three finalists for the recent Wisconsin Poet Laureate appointment? In fact, even as I was interviewing in July for that position, this is the patronizing letter I received from the Book Festival staffers:

Dear Mr. Montag:

Thank you for giving us the chance to consider your work for inclusion in the 2004 Wisconsin Book Festival. Due to the limited size and budget of the Wisconsin Book Festival, the selection process was very competitive, but each submission received careful consideration from multiple readers. Unfortunately, we are not able to extend an invitation to you this year. We commend you for achieving the difficult task of nurturing a book from idea to publication, and we thank you for your interest in the Festival.

Best wishes,
Alison Jones Chaim
Wisconsin Book Festival Director
Soren Schoff
Wisconsin Book Fesitval Coordinator

Let me suggest there is something seriously wrong with a "selection process" that excludes Wisconsin writers who have made the kind of contribution to letters that I have. As I say, I don't think I have an inflated sense of my worth: I know I am a minor regional poet. Nonetheless, my work is admired and I've made a contribution. Didn't the editors of the America Zen approach me for poems for that anthology? Aren't I one of the two writers at this year's Great Lakes Writers Festival sponsored by Lakeland College? Haven't I been invited to make presentations at next year's Celebration of Rural Writing and Rural Writers in Marshall, Minnesota? Don't I have a poem incorporated into the design of the Midwest Express Convention Center in Milwaukee? Didn't my wife and I found the Wisconsin Poets Calendar and publish it in 1982, 1983, and 1984, and later hand it (gratis) to the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets? Aren't I listed as one of the original "founding contributing editors" of The Pushcart Prize?

Don't you think they could leave one of their mystery novelists or romance authors at home, to make room for me? Apparently not.

Should the Book Festival be embarrassed about such exclusions? Yes, they should. I suppose that they're not embarrassed, but they should be. The problem is they don't even know they have a problem.

And that's why I'm not going to the Wisconsin Book Festival.

Comments

[elck]

They are truly not worthy of you, Tom!

(And thanks for being honest about your displeasure).

[dave]

A prophet is truly without honor in his own country, apparently.

I have a quibble with the "minor regional" part. But I have an even bigger problem with the whole fucking poetry business, because it is so focused on trivial accomplishments and so pays so little attention to what a given poet may actually have to SAY. You can be writing elegant nonsense, but if you're being published in all the right places, reviewed by all the right people and winning all the right prizes, folks like the organizers of this so-called festival will stand in line to kiss your ass.

[dave]

("So-called" because to me, "festive" means "party," it means inclusion, joyousness and fucking in the streets.)

[Siona]

This is nauseating.

Even I'm embarrassed for those holding the festival. Are they so blind as to not realize how real and important your contributions are? You're of the land. You express the very language of the counties they're intending to value. What relevance do all these big city New Yorker types have to Wisconsin? What's the point of their attendence? It's almost sad - nae, it is sad - what's happened: it's like some pathetic child abandoning his true friends for a taste of a meaner popularity.

I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not - or not sorry for you, that is. I'm sorry for the small-minded ignorance of those behind the festival. And while I'm sure they have their reasons, and I'm sure the cachet of more regonizable names helps their small cause, it seems utterly ridiculous to sacrifice Wisconsin's own writers for this.

I'm glad you're angry. You ought to be.

[lekshe]

Well, it doesn't look like it really is a Wisconsin Book Festival, after all. It's some of the good folk out in Wisconsin making a festival about something else. They have a right to make festivals of all kinds--out here we have a Slug Festival, and a Condom Festival and a Drag Queen Festival--but they should consider changing the name. I submit, "The We Live in Wisconsin but We Prefer to Ignore Local Talent and Spend Way More Flying in People We Don't Otherwise Get to Meet" festival,

These things fix themselves in time. You'll see.

By the way, what's the address of that festival and the name of the Chair? I feel a letter coming on...

[susurra]

Obviously you should apply to the writer's festival in Portland instead. Lekshe and I will start our own letter writing campaign, but here, you will be a celebrity from an exotic locale, obviously the only criteria used by your local festival judges.

But in all seriousness I'm sorry you feel overlooked and underappreciated. It seems unfair.

[Tom Montag]

Hey, you guys! Thanks for the words of support. I appreciate it.

In defense of the Book Festival, they are trying for a diversity of offerings, so as to draw to books as wide a range of the citizenry as possible, which is something of a noble undertaking.

Elck--Maybe you noticed: expressing my displeasure is not one of my weak suits.

Dave--I agree that part of the problem is what we choose to chase after and sometimes we're chasing the wrong things. And the other part of the problem is me: I'm not very good at the kissy-kissy stuff. When Karl Elder was asked "If Tom Montag were a building, which building would he be?" he responded: "A barn, and proud of it." That about says it.

L--The Director of the Book Festival is Alison Jones Chaim, Wisconsin Book Festival, Wisconsin Humanities Council, 222 S. Bedford St., Suite F, Madison, WI 53703-3688.

Siona--You said: "I'm sure the cachet of more regonizable names helps their small cause, it seems utterly ridiculous to sacrifice Wisconsin's own writers for this." That's probably EXACTLY the two parts they're trying to balance. My contention is they've got the balance wrong.

Susurra--I'm not sure how much of a "celebrity" I'd want to be. If I got "famous," if I made "too much" money from my writing, surely it would ruin me. I want to be careful of that.

[dave]

"A barn, and proud of it."
As it happens, I've been a big fan of barn architecture since I was a kid. (Sometimes our family used to go on barn drives, believe it or not. That's "drives" as in "driving around looking at them." It's actually not very easy to herd barns, we discovered. They have a way of standing their ground.)

[Phil Hey]

You have every reason to be angry, Tom. Too often, the worst part of being in the Midwest is the notion that "experts come from somewhere else." I say that if people from somewhere else want to find out what is going on in Wisconsin literature, let them pay for their own travel.

[Marja-Leena]

Tom, this sounds similar to what often happens up here in Canada. Artists seem to have to become "famous" (whatever that means) outside the country before Canadians grant "fame" to their own. Rather like Dave said "A prophet is truly without honor in his own country, apparently."

[Tom Montag]

Yeah, Dave--those damn barns, they are what they are, and they are okay with that; they stand their ground and aren't too easily pushed around. And you don't want to piss them off: it's not pretty.

Phil--I think you're right; way too often we want someone else to authenticate our experience. We hand those "experts from somewhere else" the power to say whether our lives are meaningful, or not. It appears that the folks at the Wisconsin Book Festival have fallen into that trap, that what we do is not good enough, we've got to bring in the pre-ordained from somewhere else.

Marja-Leena--I think you're right. I think that middlewesterners exhibit the same kind of inferiority complex that Canadians sometimes show. But you know what - I don't think the Canadians nor the middle westerners have anything they need to apologize for, except for the narrowness of those arts and humanities administrators who are looking across the borders and boundaries for something else, something already blessed, rather than coming to terms with the work of value grown up around them.

Thanks, all of you, for your support and words of encouragement.

[Richard Steele]

THERE is nothing which more denotes a great Mind, than the Abhorrence of Envy and Detraction. This Passion reigns more among bad Poets, than among any other Set of Men.

As there are none more ambitious of Fame, than those who are conversant in Poetry, it is very natural for such as have not succeeded in it to depreciate the Works of those who have. For since they cannot raise themselves to the Reputation of their Fellow-Writers, they must endeavour to sink it to their own Pitch, if they would still keep themselves upon a Level with them.
- Joseph Addison (1711)

[Tom Montag]

Richard Steele, with a phony e-mail address of spectator@london.com, actually comes to us from Madison. The signature is cute but wins no cigar. "Mr. Steele" found us by Googling "angry Wisconsin Book Festival." ARIN Search results for "Mr. Steele's" IP address (69.11.141.205) finds he is from Madison:

OrgName: TDS TELECOM
OrgID: TDST
Address: 525 Junction Rd.
City: Madison
StateProv: WI
PostalCode: 53717
Country: US

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CIDR: 69.11.128.0/17
NetName: NETBLK-TDSNET-BLK
NetHandle: NET-69-11-128-0-1
Parent: NET-69-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Allocation
NameServer: NS.TDS.NET
NameServer: A.DNS.TDS.NET
NameServer: B.DNS.TDS.NET
NameServer: C.DNS.TDS.NET
NameServer: D.DNS.TDS.NET
NameServer: E.DNS.TDS.NET
Comment:
RegDate: 2002-12-23
Updated: 2003-03-19

TechHandle: ASI5-ARIN
TechName: Sielaff, Alex
TechPhone: +1-608-664-4056
TechEmail: alexander.sielaff@tdstelecom.com

OrgAbuseHandle: ABUSE163-ARIN
OrgAbuseName: abuse
OrgAbusePhone: +1-800-358-3648
OrgAbuseEmail: abuse@tds.net

OrgTechHandle: SERVI6-ARIN
OrgTechName: Service Activation
OrgTechPhone: +1-608-664-4699
OrgTechEmail: serviceactivation@tdstelecom.com

OrgTechHandle: KR181-ARIN
OrgTechName: Roberts, Kevin
OrgTechPhone: +1-608-664-4690
OrgTechEmail: kevin.roberts@tdstelecom.com

Worse than being a poet, I think, is being any anonymous attacker of poets. What is it you are afraid of?

[dave]

Blake: "The weak in courage is strong in cunning."

It occurs to me that the quote from Addison might well apply to the gatekeepers at the academy and their chummy exclusion of those who write about things that matter, using language from the heart and from the people.

But implicit in the quote is the very Anglo-Saxon assumption that poets can and should be ranked into an ordered hierarchy, and that those further down the pyramid should keep their traps shut.

In fact, I have not heard of many poets, regardless of reputation, who are not to some extent afflicted with this very human failing. I would be frankly a little suspicious of those who claim to be altogether free from such feelings. Blake again:
"I always take my judgment from a Fool
Because his judgment is so very Cool,
Not prejudic'd by feelings great or small.
Amiable state! he cannot feel at all."

[Tom Montag]

Dave--I do believe that writing is NOT a competitive sport, and by nature I am less given than some to ranking poets in order of their talent or achievement.

The notion that I might be pursuing "Fame" is more laughable. Ask my wife. She'll tell you that if something starts to succeed, I back away from it.

The real "ranking" of poets goes on in the minds of those who determine that someone from some other place (Chicago or Minneapolis or New York City or London or wherever) is better suited to appear at the Wisconsin Book Festival than a Wisconsin poet is. The unspoken assumption is that we must go outside our area for excellence, which is an unfortunate message to be sending to young, impressionable, potential writers in Wisconsin. It is the same as saying that you should be interested in what goes on in a New York brownstone, but what happens here is beneath us. And you KNOW how I feel about that!

[beth]

Tom, reading backwards now, I seem to have missed this entire thing. Sorry I didn't add my commiserations to the rest; the Festival letter was truly offensive and you're right to be pissed off - and say so.

[Tom Montag]

Hi, Beth. Don't feel bad that you didn't get your commiseration in earlier. I'm pretty much over my anger at this point; either that, or it has hardened into a philosophical principle: the decision to import talent to a region, instead of choosing talent from the region, sends the message that what is worthwhile lies out there and what is here is useless, and as far as I'm concerned that's the WRONG message to be sending. In my world, first you celebrate your own, then you celebrate others. I think the Wisconsin Book Festival line-up over-does the "celebrating others," at the expense of Wisconsin talent which could have and should have been there.

I don't know the people who are making the decisions, nor where they come from, but I wonder how many of them are "carpet-baggers." That is, they are climbing the career ladder, but don't have a vested interest in the community they are meant to serve. (It's not just arts & humanities administrators who are guilty of this, but college presidents, school superintendents, etc., who move from job to better job, investing in their career instead of in the community, and sometimes leaving disasters behind them.) But enough.