#rich smith

Word on the street is that Rich is not that shy in the bedroom, surprised?

[A] "Republican" belief is whatever the guy at the top says it is. Democrats elect Presidents; Republicans crown kings. These numbers provide some support for what may seem obvious to even casual observers of the news: The people who purport to be the guardians of morality are actually mindless lemmings with daddy issues who are leashed and led by the rich.

Is this Twitter feed racist? Is it racist but good art? Is it racist but bad art? Under what circumstances can a white writer use racist language and imagery to denounce racism? Who gets to decide? Why? These are the questions that have been banging around in the heads of writers around the world for the past week. (These are also questions Place has provoked before.) In case you haven't been paying attention: For several years, conceptual poet and defense attorney Vanessa Place has been retyping, word for word, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. She uses as her Twitter profile pic a photo of Academy Award-winner Hattie McDaniel, who played “Mammy” in Victor Fleming’s film adaptation of the novel. For Place’s background image, she uses a cropped illustration of a black woman from the cover of a piece of sheet music called “Jemima’s Wedding Day”—an image widely regarded as offensive. Even Place would agree that it's offensive.

Till Residency at Smoke Farm, an annual four-day stay in Arlington, serves as the organization's centerpiece. Then there's the Till chapbook, which is a collection of work from each year's resident writers. And every month, they host Till Tonight, a gathering open to writers of all genres, which like the residency, accepts everyone from slam poets to fiction writers, people just starting out to established folks. The residency at Smoke Farm is situated on a 365-acre piece of land abutting the Stillaguamish River. There are five buildings on the premises and a small print studio called the Abdactors' Hideout, where artist Kate Fernandez designs the chapbooks each year. For $140, writers get dinner in the evenings, leftovers for lunch, rustic accommodations, four workshops led by good local writers such as Karen Finneyfrock and Anastacia Tolbert, miles of river beach, bonfires at night, and an amazing sounding semi-outdoor shower.

It’s one of those things / language allows you to say, and math allows you to prove, / but the brain prevents you from picturing / because it’s not related to food.