Invented Quote Attributed to Me in Houston Press, Oct. 24!

Another one of the reasons I started this blog is in order to defend myself. Nobody seems to actually talk to me, so they invent things. Here's a case in point, this one attacking my teaching. It claims I was quoted as running my creative writing classes by preparing them for issues of single motherhood and teaching that "racial and ethnic strife" was "warfare" "seen as genocide by minority groups". HUH!!! First of all, I was never interviewed. Second, and most importantly, I would NEVER HAVE SAID THAT in ANY INTERVIEW. I can't say something I don't believe in or say I do something I haven't done. Ever. I like to think I'm famous for training my students to stick to the words on the page. Or, at least, write them down and don't just invent things. Especially defamatory and inflammatory REMARKS I NEVER SAID. Or ever would have said. You can tell the shoddy journalism in that he says I won the National Book Award, I didn't. Cheese! No wonder there was a low turnout for the event. I chalked it up to the radio simulcast which I know a lot of people listened to, but no. Talk about being stuffed into a can of worms!

I'll have a blog up soon, long in the planning, and you can see for yourself what I teach. There isn't a welfare mom or a wifebeater in sight. Just good developing poets getting better. If I read them this quote I bet they would laugh. I'm not.

Read it yourself, click and scroll.

Just another non-poetic interlude in the life of the Rodney Dangerfield of poetry. I get no respect! ~ R.D.