Benjamin Hollander Responds to Guillermo Parra

1) According to some Facebook posts I have been sent (I'm not on social media), I am, according to Guillermo Parra:  "A privileged white North American (Benjamin Hollander) threatening a Mexican intellectual for critiquing Olson and for deciding to retire from writing. Very avant-garde of Hollander."

Well, yeah, I guess I look white (see the lovely poem by my friend,   Semezdhin Mehmedinovic, called "Open Dialogue," about how deceptive looking "white" means for a  Bosnian  Muslim):

Open Dialogue

“What are you reading?”

“Poems by Jallaludin Rumi, a
Poet born in Afghanistan.”

“Where are you from?”

“Bosnia.”

“Serbs and Croats, right? Is anyone else there?”

“There are others.”

“What color are your eyes?”

“Green till Colorado
But since we passed Apache Canyon
They’re blue in the
New Mexico light.”

“So then what kind of Muslim are you?”

“White.””

Semezdin Mehmedinović, “Open Dialogue”

trans. Ammiel Alcalay, From Nine Alexandrias

But, even “Looking white, ” I’m as un-American as they come, and I  have even written a book with that title, In The House Un-American, which partly emerges out of my history-- I was born and partly raised in the middle east (Israel). I once wrote a book called Rituals of Truce and the Other Israeli, probably the only book by an Israeli Jewish poet which calls out the self-righteousness of his so-called people in their occupation of Palestinian land and people. 

(and so I wonder: how many of the people posting on Facebook about my  “north americanness”  are themselves born and raised in the good ole U.S. of A. and thus much more "North American" than I?).

So, for all that biography and writing history, in one post  I get labeled by Guillermo Parra the "privileged [oh-besides being an immigrant, I grew up in lower working class, Jamaica, Queens--] "White North American.” So a non-American working class Hollander figure has been morphed by Guillermo Parra into someone “so avant-garde,” and Parra somehow has me pegged as Carlos b. Carlos Suares? Huh? This is absurd. Well, o.k.—I guess I have to take the brunt of the attack—it’s to be expected, since I’m a messenger writing on behalf of Il Gruppo (which does exist—see point 2)

But here’s the real point: if Carlos Suarès was really allowed to be read on his own terms, if rather than being personally vilified as my “ludicrous pseudonym” who is “threatening” Yepez, people would actually see that Carlos has had nothing but a lot of history of love for and attention to Yepez’s oeuvre (he even says this in the excerpt posted about “the Heriberto I loved” whose image Carlos tried to save before he had to abandon his hero because of his scholarly follies.

In the Letters for Olson, Carlos Suarès goes into great depth about his love and admiration and critique of Yepez. Well, these letters will now not be seen because the Chicago Review—perhaps out of fear, of what I don’t know—has silenced the Suarès letters. And in response to this end-game by the Chicago Review, Jack Hirschman, the former SF poet laureate, has now also said “no” to that magazine, and has written me to ask them to not let the magazine publish his Letter for Olson, which also addresses Yepez’s book.

2) in their Facebook and Twitter posts, Guillermo Parra (and others?) do not believe these other writers Amiri Baraka, Diane di Prima, Jack Hirschman, Ammiel Alcalay, Benjamin Hollander, Ricardo Cázares, and Carlos b. Carlos Suarès) are a part of Il Gruppo, that's it's me, alone:

Guillermo Parra @venepoetics · 17h17 hours ago

“There is no Il Gruppo. It's Benjamin Hollander's excuse to personally attack Heriberto Yépez for daring to critique Charles Olson.”

Does he want to see my emails from Baraka, or Ammiel Alcalay's email from Diane di Prima, or the letter on Olson and Yepez from Jack Hirschman --"the  legendary American communist poet and activist," whom I see almost every week--all of whom support and are a part of  Il Gruppo—

Well, no need to open up the email box, let's give Guillermo and friends objective, visual proof:

Just let them  look at Alcalay introducing Baraka at Gloucester, Oct. 2013:

first at appx 8 minutes  and 40 seconds in this video, before Baraka comes on stage, Alcalay mentions Baraka’s support of Il Gruppo, and the ridiculousness of Yepez’s claims (Yepez has written: “From various perspectives, then, the “projective” has much less to do with a poetics of “energy” and “breathing” than it does with a poetics of military movements and information gathering transformed into a poetic sublime”)

Alcalay  says: “well, since Amiri published Projective Verse, [which Yepez suggests is a military —metaphor] ”well, if Olson is the big imperialist, then, by association, Amiri [as his publisher], must be a small imperialist”) What a thought!

then,  Baraka himself talking about Yepez, briefly, dismissively, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWx6Sp6YSm4, saying

at appx. 24:50--25:25 

"That dude who wrote that  book in Mexico, whatever his name is, saying that Olson was an imperialist all he has to do is read this passage" in Olson—Olson’s poem  (Baraka emphasizing that this dude--Yepez--is clueless, just read this passage, please!)

Out of Song 3—from “Songs of Maximus”

 In the midst of plenty, walk
                as close to
                bare
                          In the face of sweetness,
                piss
                            In the time of goodness,
                go side, go
                smashing, beat them, go as
                (as near as you can

                tear

                In the land of plenty, have
                nothing to do with it
                                                          take the way of
                the lowest,
                including
                your legs, go
                contrary, go

                sing

—

and, in an email to me, Baraka wondering who the fuck is this cat linking Olson to empire, when he, Baraka, wrote me that he was trying to crush empire right there on the ground, in Jersey, not in avant-garde theory.

At some point, Il Gruppo will have a further response. For the record, this is 1) a response to the attack on me

And 2) to the claim that I Gruppo does not exist.