Questions about the new Poet Populist, faxed-in ballots
Harris Gardner, founder of "Tapestry of Voices," quits in protest
Populist nominee Molly Lynn Watt calls for Arts Council to release vote tally for 2nd, 3rd place
Download "Punk Birds" by Peter Payack.pdf
In a City of over 300,000 people less than one percent actually voted in its first Poet Populist election – approximately 1,000 ballots were cast and the majority of those for Peter Payack.
To the poetry community this figure seemed rather substantial at first, but on second glance, rather pitiful. If this is a City where the likes of E. E. Cummings started writing (my father moved through dooms of love/through sames of am through haves of give/singing each morning out of each night/my father moved through depths of height) and Bob Dylan lied to say he’d played what Club Passim was back then, Club 47, (okay so he wasn’t purely a poet but he’s America’s premier poet songwriter) where have all the poetry lovers gone?
Are they hiding under rocks by the Charles or did the Arts Council and City Councillor Brian Murphy just not up the ante enough on this first Poet Populist contest so that more people were drawn into what might have been a more significant and engaging race?
Lo Galluccio
The fact is that poetry is raging across the nation in many forms; among independent presses and journals, in MFA programs, at Slam competitions and at open mics.
One has to wonder something else: is Cambridge too polarized between those who attend or teach at its Universities and those who live and work here? Where’s the bridge in Cambridge? When you have the likes of Seamus Heaney and Lucy Brock Broido teaching at Harvard, and then wonderful slam poets from the Cantab competing on a national level, you have to wonder why this contest didn’t reach into the guts of the City in both arenas? And that would have been a very tall order, I grant you.
This is also a problem in City Council elections where the turn out to elect local government is notoriously low. It’s hard to interest the so-called, New York Times reading crowd in local politics. And so it goes. Our butterfly-shaped city is divided and many choose to opt out of public contests because they have rich private and career lives. And well, woe to them when their car gets towed or local officials do make decisions that impact their lives, which is quite often.
Jason Weeks, the executive director of the Arts Council, told me they had tried to come up with an electronic ballot system in concert with the IT Department but could not do it in time.
So, instead of people being allowed to go to the Web site and evaluate the bios of the candidates and vote, people had to download an application and either drop it off at the Annex or mail it in. In addition, there wasn’t the manpower to publicize the election at clubs, libraries and other public places. That may be why many people were unaware of the election and why they didn’t bother to vote. 
Next year, Weeks said they can probably institute the changes.
The main controversy surrounding the election of Payack is that he was not one of the original nominees chosen by the Advisory Committee, a committee set up to screen the applications for their merit and decide the finalists to be put on the ballot. [I served on the committee.]
I called Murphy and asked him if the rumor was true that Payack called him and convinced Murphy to put him on the ballot.
Murphy adamantly denied that Payack had appealed to him or that he had put the poet on the ballot. Rather, he said, Weeks called him after Payack had called the executive director and Weeks then asked if Murphy objected to putting Payack on the ballot based on Payack's complaint that he had been overlooked. Murphy gave Weeks his assent.
Weeks told me Payack had presented him, “a special case.”
Payack emphasized that he had done a lot of community work in Cambridge and that his resume was good enough to pass the bar, Weeks said.
Instead of in turn asking the Advisory Committee to review Peter’s request, Weeks said he then called Murphy, who figured that more than less candidates were better for the election.
Payack was added to the ballot around the time Diana der Hovanessian, who was a Fullbright Professsor of American Poetry in 1996 and 1999, pulled out due to an unexpected trip to China. The interesting twist is that Payack wound up winning the election.
Some of the other candidates winnowed out by the committee were strong poetic voices also: Jacques Fleury, Brenda Walcott and Rozann Kraus, to name a few. However, there are also some impressive candidates who spoke eloquently at the Nov. 1 read-off, with a track record of community service and activism who did not get elected, in particular, Richard Cambridge and Deborah Priestly.
There is also another electoral issue, yet to be resolved, the matter of faxed-in ballots.
Weeks, due to extenuating circumstances and an illness in the family, said has not determined whether ballots faxed in were counted or how many of those came from Payack’s camp.
As part of the aftermath of all this, Harris Gardner has resigned from the Advisory Committee in protest and poet nominee Molly Lynn Watt has called for a tabulation of the votes to determine the 2nd and 3rd place finishers. Many poet finalists, it seems, were under the impression faxed ballots were not allowed.
Payack is a longtime Cambridge resident and assistant professor at Berklee College of Music, UMass Lowell and UMass Online. He seems to have a bent for Science Fiction poetry, which is uncharacteristic of any of the other contenders: He won the Rhysling Award for Best Poem in Science Fiction Poetry in 1980 and has been published in the Amazing Science Fiction Stories.
Most recently, he created Star Poems—poems written on an illuminated message board on the underside of airplanes. Maybe he represents a wave of the future? Maybe his use of whimsical objects caught the public eye?
One of his biggest hits project, “Phone-A-Poem” still runs with support from Emerson College. In addition, his poem “No Free Will in Tomatoes” was sandblasted into the floor of the Davis Square T station as part of the award-winning Arts on the Line arts-in-transit project.
So, we are left with a rather brazen, intriguing, maverick poet who obviously charmed the audience and will probably look good in that leather jacket Brian Murphy has teased out of the Garment District for the new Populist to wear. The issue now is whether Payack can deliver unique and compelling verse in non-traditional (his forte) and traditional forms to the public at large –and give poetry workshops to young and old-- to all tribes in the City.
There is an important accessibility and outreach side built in to this position. One would hope, despite his slightly sketchy entry onto the battlefield, our Poet Superhero will be able to fulfill his charge.
I am still trying to get ahold of Payack and when I do I will post my write-up of our conversation.
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