Clockwise Cat Issue 40

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harbor bigoted biases if we are ill-conditioned. Language is weaponized for good or bad, dependent on who is wielding that armament. The further problem is, these noble intentions become muddled in a morass of rigid linguistic patrolling, where even the most nuanced articulation can be grotesquely magnified. When we inadvertently offend someone or a group of people, a dialogue premised in logic and sensitivity can ensue in order to help remedy the perceived offense. But when people suppress dialogue for fear of offending someone or invoking the ire of the PC police, this quashes fruitful exchange, and diminishes our faculty for reasoned thinking. Fear begins to reign in conversations and interactions. Those who adhere to political correctness ideology exhaustively parse language to its most minute expression. This is repulsive to most conservatives, because it is perceived as leftist fascism. And, I am loathe to admit, they are right. Take, for example, the explosive outrage when Calvin Trillin published a poem in The New Yorker mocking our foodie culture that just happened to use the baffling varieties of Chinese food as the vehicle driving the parody. Trillin, who has written similar parodies using Italian and French food, and who has written a book about food from all over the world, hardly seems to be a poisonously prejudiced person. And yet, the response to his poem by some language authoritarians was disproportionately denigrating, as though he were really that tone deaf. To the contrary, his poem can be read as a paen to the diversity of Chinese food, and people's eagerness to "try it all." Sure, one can read into it a cultural appropriation element - that is, if you distort it enough to satisfy your own petty agendas. But how about reading it in the obvious voice it was intended - a supercillious foodie fanboy anxious to triumph over ever-evolving culinary trends? While you're here, reading my rants and absorbing my rage, I have a confession to make: I have written several poems using fragments of black vernacular. I listen to a lot of hip hop, and I also live in Atlanta, and have taught at heavily black schools. I am enamored of the language. The use of it in my poetry comes very naturally to the point where I don't notice I am
using it. It has subliminally wormed its way into the portion of my brain that scripts poetry, because a lot of my poetry is lyrical, with hip hop cadence. Does that mean that I, a white person, am a shameless cultural appropriator? If you are a card-carrying member of the PC Police Force, you'd likely say yes. Or, you could choose to see me as someone who celebrates exuberant innovations in language and fervently revels in all cultures, heedless to labels because labels are dastardly, and they suffocate. What, am I only supposed to write in the persona of a Celtic bard? PC creates cages, where language languishes like a hapless zoo animal. Burn down the zoo, and liberate the lexicon so that it can return to its primal state, free to flourish in the wilderness of society. Oh, and by the way, do not EVER call me a Liberal White Ally. Fuck that PC bullshit terminology. How dare anyone label me so stiflingly. I am a human being who voraciously and vociferously advocates for human rights. If that makes me politically incorrect, then I gleefully gulp from those waters.
Page 1 and 2: CLOCKWISE CAT ISSUE 40 DEDICATED TO
Page 3 and 4: EDITOR’S SCRATCHING POST A wonder
Page 5 and 6: Felino Soriano Mini-Tribute In the
Page 7 and 8: so I stepped back " possibly compar
Page 9 and 10: Artist bio: Gregory Autry Wallace i
Page 11 and 12: ! Artist bio: AK is a personal frie
Page 13 and 14: ! MEMORY 3 Artist bio: “My name i
Page 15 and 16: Artist bio: Dominick Damo’s poems
Page 17 and 18: Photography by SEIGAr Artist bio: S
Page 19 and 20: EVALUATORS
Page 21 and 22: funky fretwork. The band sounds rei
Page 23 and 24: Making a MOCKERY Of Domestic Violen
Page 25 and 26: Book Bites Mini-reviews of Small Pr
Page 27 and 28: "Doors without borders." "The war o
Page 29 and 30: Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fasc
Page 31 and 32: own dash of Bukowski—-into a real
Page 33 and 34: Trump’s Inferno: The Donald’s V
Page 35 and 36: A Humble Suggestion By Jessica Hylt
Page 37: I can think of not one objection, t
Page 40 and 41: But that’s way better than in mos
Page 42 and 43: Trump was endorsed by David Duke (a
Page 44 and 45: RANTS By Lisa Verdekal A bit of a r
Page 46 and 47: Countries are diversity of language
Page 48 and 49: objectify fellow citizens and proje
Page 52 and 53: Weather as Pleasantry By Heller Lev
Page 54 and 55: So if students thought their teache
Page 56 and 57: Statement by Georgia Gubernatorial
Page 58 and 59: site, and right to the fire-break w
Page 60 and 61: will be carts all over the parking
Page 62 and 63: Gay Rights in … Russia By Paul Ki
Page 64 and 65: VERSIFIERS
Page 66 and 67: drowning in a puddle nearly 5 centi
Page 68 and 69: and Power Puff Girls, Marguerite Du
Page 70 and 71: the darkest art By Megan Denese Mea
Page 72 and 73: feasts on obliteration/annihilation
Page 74 and 75: I taste a honeycomb of haunting vis
Page 76 and 77: said the play must go on Noel Cowar
Page 78 and 79: The Utternuts By Darrell Petska Oh
Page 80 and 81: The man got sucked up a fireplace,
Page 82 and 83: ii. Nitroglycerin Terminology “Wh
Page 84: Author bio: Chris LaMay-West believ
Page 87 and 88: CAN’T COUNT ON IT By Chani Zwibel
Page 89 and 90: the ground offers me its soft warm
Page 91 and 92: In order for it to be soiled And in
Page 93 and 94: yeehaw into the setting sun, trying
Page 95 and 96: in the pith of loam By Heller Levin
Page 97: J to audience: Come to think of it,
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Country Western Fest Gravity was sh
Page 102 and 103:
Blog-Free Sonnetry If I like you I
Page 104 and 105:
Untitled Pixels are my lean-to in t
Page 106 and 107:
incest wed to freedom it is all ris
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For suicides, the penultimate chapt
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So you’d rather be with the one a
Page 112:
The work crew has arrived In their
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America your slaveships became ideo
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One Poem By Simon Perchik It has no
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chickens--home--roost by Wanda Morr
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Millions of sonic Pisces Diving in
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In this way, I as landscape transmu
Page 127 and 128:
“CaN” Poems By Lorna Wood make
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On !e Beach By Stephen Mead Hello e
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Clockwise Cat Issue 40

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