By Alyssa A. Lappen

AmericanThinker.com | March 4, 2005

Poetry is a window on the human soul. But the politics of American poetry, in recent years have veered into more and more radical territory, as an increasing number of poets openly declare their allegiance with ‘Palestine,’ and implicitly, with terror. Academics with one foot in Middle Eastern Studies and another in literature and poetry are the prime conduits of this degrading development. A few names that come to mind are Tom Paulin[1], a literature lecturer at Oxford University, former New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka[2], Marylin Hacker[3], and Alicia Ostriker[4] at Rutgers University.

A prime example is Ammiel Alcalay, a tenured professor and former chair of Classical, Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures at City University of New York’s Queens College[5]. The author, editor or translator of at least nine literary, essay and poetry volumes[6], Alcalay has established himself as a fixture on the college speaking and poetry circuits, both realms that he vigorously exploits to disseminate sharply anti—American, anti-Israel and pro-Palestine views[7].

Born and raised in Boston, Alcalay, 48, is the son of Sephardic Jews from Bosnia[8]. But his family background seems to have taught Alcalay nothing about the deficiencies of previous eras or the evils of communism. Not only does Alcalay seek a return to pre-democratic times[9], he wishes for a revolution such as outlined by French Marxist and anti-colonialist Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), author of Wretched of the Earth.[10]

Nominally literary in discipline, Alcalay is, like his idol Edward Said, better described as a political narcissist, preoccupied with his own role as arbiter of radical politics and the arts[11]. As such, he is the true interpreter and defender of ‘memory.’ ”Terrorists’ hijack planes but ‘ideologues,’ in the form of states and other acceptably licensed power structures, hijack a people’s collective memory, or at least make the attempt,’ Alcalay writes in a review of Said’s After the Last Sky, in his own vainglorious attempt to nullify Israel’s independence and statehood[12].

But the converse is actually true: intellectual hijacking is Alcalay’s specialty. In November 2002, for example, he discussed political poetry and the ‘politicization of studies’ at Cornell University–within the context of a shameless diatribe against ‘the normative narrative of Israel and Zionism,…remarkable, remarkable…[American] ignorance’ and ‘lack of any sense of empathy, solidarity, sympathy’ with the Arab Middle East[13]. For Alcalay, as it was for Said, the intellectual’s true role is opposing all forms of power and every status quo, unless those have to do with the favored ‘Other.’ Continue reading “Poetry, terror and political narcissism” →

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