Smith Had No Place in Sanders

Would any responsible publication allow a columnist to print "...that gay people have bastardized everything they have come in contact with?"

Would any national newspaper permit a writer to indulge themselves with an epithet "...that Jewish musicians have ruined jazz?"

Of course not, you say to yourself. But that is exactly what Patricia Smith of the Boston Globe wrote--except for the fact that instead of gay and Jewish people, Ms. Smith singled out whites and white men in particular for her unique brand of racial arson.

So what do you think should be Ms. Smith's punishment for these and other egregious ramblings? Why of course--a solo presentation at Harvard's Sanders Theatre.

For you see Ms. Smith is a sort of poet--a "slam" poet to be exact. Smith has parlayed her form of reviewing, self-promotion and a reliance on politically correct poetic pap into a career of artistic merit, at least according to the Globe's reviewers. And according to the usual litany of minorities that she writes about and uses in her over-blown theatrical "poetic" readings, there's really not that much talent there. But when you espouse sycophantic pieces dealing with Blacks, gays and society's downtrodden, it's not talent that matters--only political and sociological content.

Ms. Smith does have her supporters, some with impressive titles and awards to their credit. Unfortunately they are of the `third-world-in-your-face' school of writing which says that everything is permitted without ability as long as you are outraged and oppressed. It is the warped notion that supposed diversity of viewpoint, place, ethnic origin and balance of genders will produce great art.

Ms. Smith is not along in exemplifying the new Gestapo-guidelines of artistic academia. Pick up any poetry journal or writers' anthology; what you'll get everywhere is warmed-over histrionics and clamor.

Would Sanders Theatre fund and present someone who had written "...Black people have bastardized everything they have come in contact with"? I think not. An artist is not different from his or her art. Unfortunately, Harvard University and Sanders Theatre have surrendered to the false philosophical dimension, now in vogue, of representation without worthiness. Lewis Hammond Stone   Mattapoisett, MA