#janey smith

Polli passed away and Abby was very upset :(

Poli is a father again. Jenny actually had twins, but looks like I only got a pic of Janey. The family also wanted a pet, so they got a dog named Abby.

Nine months ago I wrote a review of peterbd’s book We’re Fucked for HTMLGiant. I now regret writing that review and want to apologise for it.

When I first read Janey Smith/Steven Trull’s ‘Fuck List’ (which inspired the book) I perceived it as humorous due to the number of people included in it. At that time it seemed to me that Smith/Trull was using ‘I want to fuck this person’ as a metaphor for ‘I admire this person’s art’. I was happy to see my name on the list because I perceived my inclusion as recognition for my writing. I thought that the length of the list was a positive because it showed Smith/Trull was being inclusive in his support of writers.

My reading of the list was entrenched in privilege. Even if it was a metaphor that did not stop it from being harmful. Sure, the list was inclusive but I didn’t consider that what it was including people in was something that they wouldn’t/didn’t want to be included in. I was unaware of Smith/Trull’s history as a sexual abuser and rapist. That knowledge changes my perspective on the list, and the book inspired by it. What’s more, even if Smith/Trull was not an abuser people would be completely justified in not wanting to be included in these documents.

I believe that everyone should have been asked for consent and shown proofs before being included in this book. I was aware that I was being included. I didn’t realise that many of the subjects were not aware of their inclusion. If I had been more vigilant I would have realised. I should have been more vigilant and I should have realised.

In my review I wrote the phrase “Everybody cums” as a way of praising Smith/Trull’s inclusiveness. I am now disgusted by that sentence. I also wrote the sentence “This book is good.” I was wrong. This book is not good. I regret that I promoted it. I am glad that it has been pulled by Plain Wrap. I apologise to the people that my review was insensitive towards and I stand behind the victims of Smith/Trull and others’ abuse.

How Are Things On The West Coast?

I am back home after spending the past four days in the Bay Area where I did five events in three days (a workshop visit to Mills College, a reading at 851, featuring at the Berkeley Poetry Slam, a reading and a Q & A at two different campuses of City College of San Francisco) and the experience has been a needed recharge of the creative batteries. Here are some of the highlights:

I’ve never read…

He composed this remarkably raunchy poem and a cute book, which, alas, Baby Idi once had but now he probably lost forever.

There's considerable controversy circling Janey lately, and lots of questions are being asked.

"I invoke the writers and artists of the alt lit movement, a movement that has come signify everything that’s right and wrong about everything that’s fast, cheap, and out-of-control in the arts today. Perhaps the time has come to break the mirrors that bind us to our own little personal victories (i.e. ‘I’m internet famous’) and begin the more fun and difficult work of smashing those fucking mirrors so that we–and the big, bad world–may see ourselves again, as something else, something more, something seemingly uglier and thus, perhaps, more beautiful."

@janeysmithkills