In the introductory note to a pamphlet entitled The Library of Congress Censored Interview: CAConrad interviewed by Jasmine Platt, out now from Bloof Books, poet CAConrad claims someone from the Library of Congress wrote to him and asked if he'd like to participate in their interview series. He accepted. Platt interviewed him. He wrote his answers to the interview. The interview was submitted to the library people. Time went by. Conrad checked in with the LoC to see if all was going okay. Someone from the LoC asked if they could contact him by phone. Conrad said no, he only wanted to communicate via e-mail. Eventually, Conrad received a notice that included part of "a formal outline of what is too political and incendiary for publication," along with the message that the LoC would be declining to publish the interview. The interview they solicited.
CAConrad is a funny, politically engaged poet who often writes powerfully about injustices related to race, gender, class, and the environment in his poems and elsewhere. (Pick up The Book of Frank, then pick up ECODEVIANCE [both out from Seattle's own Wave Books], if you haven't already.) He's been a vocal critic of US foreign policy and war for a while, as anyone who has read this, or this, or this, or any of his books might tell you.
In the interview the LoC solicited, Conrad criticizes the US military and the police for killing people, "sometimes children," with guns, bombs, and drones. In a lyrical passage, he calls himself complicit in this violence, and questions the ability of poetry to address the systems that perpetuate it in any meaningful way:
No matter how many poems I write I cannot undo my complicity, I cannot reverse the sea of gravestones, and my poems will never be an apology worth a single life taken by our collective national ignorance, greed and irrational fear.
I asked a spokesperson at the Library why they asked for and then rejected the interview with Conrad, and I also asked why Conrad's answers didn't fall within the guidelines for publishable materials. The LoC's response, emphasis mine:
The Library of Congress on occasion invites non-Library authors to contribute to web features either as a guest author or as the subject of a Q&A format to enrich the perspectives and voices offered by the Library to the public. All contributors—inside and outside the Library—must follow guidelines prohibiting content ranging from vulgar language to lobbying congress and appearance of bias on matters of public policy. Unfortunately the individual who reached out to Mr. Conrad did not make him aware of these guidelines in advance. We have apologized to Mr. Conrad and given him permission to publish the interview elsewhere.
On one level, it seems this whole episode is less a matter of censorship and more a matter of miscommunication. The LoC solicited Conrad to submit to their literary blog, but they declined the submission they received because their solicitor failed to mention the guidelines that restrict "biased" political speech, "vulgar language," and calls for the congress to act in a certain way.
No harm no foul—Conrad can publish the material wherever he wants. From this perspective, the library wasn't censoring Conrad, they were censoring themselves. The fact that they released the interview back to Conrad means that they're really not censoring him, unless you consider operating under prior restraints censorship.
But this complex exchange does raise a number of questions. Why is the library censoring themselves in this way? Which "perspectives and voices" are they trying to gather? For this interview series, are they only looking for poets who will remain essentially neutral on matters of US policy, and this in a literary moment when if there is anything like a "movement" happening in contemporary poetry, it's the one that Cathy Park Hong points out in the New Republic, the one that values and embraces social engagement?
There's a reason why Beyoncé tapped Warsan Shire to contribute to "Lemonade." There's a reason why Macklemore invited Danez Smith, Nikkita Oliver, and Jamila Woods onstage with him for his performance of "White Privilege II" on the Late Show. There's a reason why Claudia Rankine's incredible book, Citizen, made an appearance as tool of protest at a Trump rally. And there's a reason the LoC is "reaching out" to writers to enrich their "perspective." Readers are interested in the poetry of social critique. The LoC seems interested in writers who write about social critique, just not in any way that directly implicates the government.
Answers from other writers the Library interviewed for the series—Dawn Lundy Martin, Cynthia Levinson, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez—might suggest a bias on matters of public policy in one way or another. In their interviews, those writers don't specifically call out the US military or the police as institutions that perpetuate war and violence, but Martin is critical of "racist interventions" conducted by "intellectual, political, and popular" groups alike, and Vásquez suggests that "literature is subversive," in that it allows us to challenge official narratives.
It's obviously in the Library's government's interest not to critique themselves directly, but publishing general critiques of "governments" and "political groups" that happen to be acting in the US seems like the Library trying to have it both ways. To what extent does publication amount to an endorsement, anyway? And why is the Library of Congress in the literary publishing blog world in the first place?
Anyhow, CAConrad's poems might not be able to "reverse the sea of gravestones" crashing down on faraway shores and right here in the US, but speaking truth to power, as he does in that interview, is a strong political gesture, one that reminds us of the stories of children reportedly killed in airstrikes, and of the troublingly regular instances of police brutality here at home.
You can read the interview for free online, but if you buy the pretty little chapbook from Bloof, the publisher says $1 from each printed copy sold will be donated to Lambda Legal, who could use the money in their fight against that bullshit bathroom bill over in North Carolina. The other $2 covers materials and postage.
Also, CAConrad happens to have a few readings around town this week. Catch him tomorrow at Evergreen and Sunday at the Rendezvous Jewelbox Theater.
