Open Apology to Christopher Johnson
A few years ago, I sent a friend request on Facebook to the poet Christopher Johnson.
He responded, to the best of my memory "After what you said about me on Livejournal? You can't be serious. Let's just be polite to each other at poetry events and leave it at that."
He was referring to an entry I made in 2004.
The situation was this:
I had qualified for the Worcester poetry slam team and the Boston-Lizard Lounge team. Also qualified for the latter team was the poet Delisile Godeffroy-Taylor, for whose work I had great respect. Due to some situation in her personal life-- I don't remember the details, and may not have ever known them, she was unable to commit to the team, so Christopher would have replaced her.
I opted to be on the Worcester team instead. I made an entry describing this sequence of events in which I cited not wanting to be on a team with Christopher because I didn't respect his work or want to be on a team with him as a significant reason I was going on the Worcester team. I might've used profanity in my description of his work, or possibly of him. I'm too ashamed to look up the entry right now and quote directly, but whatever I said, I'm sure it was cruel, and mean-spirited. The truth is, I didn't even have an opinion of his poetry, particularly, it was just a convenient narrative to explain the decision, to myself as much as to anyone.
Tonight I wanted to send him a note on Facebook apologizing, but "Christopher Johnson" is a pretty common name, and I wasn't able to with confidence determine which one was him, so I'm making the apology public. Given that the initial injury was public, I guess that's appropriate. Christopher: I'm sorry I publicly disrespected you and your poetry.
He responded, to the best of my memory "After what you said about me on Livejournal? You can't be serious. Let's just be polite to each other at poetry events and leave it at that."
He was referring to an entry I made in 2004.
The situation was this:
I had qualified for the Worcester poetry slam team and the Boston-Lizard Lounge team. Also qualified for the latter team was the poet Delisile Godeffroy-Taylor, for whose work I had great respect. Due to some situation in her personal life-- I don't remember the details, and may not have ever known them, she was unable to commit to the team, so Christopher would have replaced her.
I opted to be on the Worcester team instead. I made an entry describing this sequence of events in which I cited not wanting to be on a team with Christopher because I didn't respect his work or want to be on a team with him as a significant reason I was going on the Worcester team. I might've used profanity in my description of his work, or possibly of him. I'm too ashamed to look up the entry right now and quote directly, but whatever I said, I'm sure it was cruel, and mean-spirited. The truth is, I didn't even have an opinion of his poetry, particularly, it was just a convenient narrative to explain the decision, to myself as much as to anyone.
Tonight I wanted to send him a note on Facebook apologizing, but "Christopher Johnson" is a pretty common name, and I wasn't able to with confidence determine which one was him, so I'm making the apology public. Given that the initial injury was public, I guess that's appropriate. Christopher: I'm sorry I publicly disrespected you and your poetry.