Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Princeton area poets to read at South Brunswick Library on Jan. 20

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The Princeton poet, who will be reading at the South Brunswick Library with Jean Hollander on Sunday, Jan. 20, says that “interacting with an audience” offers him an opportunity to see how well his poems work and to create a connection with an audience.

“When I can see my poetry affecting people, I gain energy and confidence,” he says. “When I see one of my poems boring an audience, I know that the poem needs more work.

“But most importantly, I’m writing for a listenership, as well as for the solitary reader. I think my poems are most enjoyable when they’re heard. So I’m glad to be out in the world, giving readings, putting my poems in front of people.”

Hollander has done quite a few readings over the years, but reads less frequently now that she has settled in Hopewell. New Jersey, she said, is “so spread out, it takes hours of driving to get to the various centers and book stores.” But, she adds, “I still enjoy giving them to see the reaction from the audience.”

Arthur’s book, Charms Against Lightning, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2012. Hollander’s most recent book, Counterpoint, was issued by Bright Hill Press in 2011.

The poets bring very different backgrounds to their work. Arthur is American born, but was raised in Toronto. He’s moved around quite a bit, he says, and has held an array of jobs — medical transcriptionist, timeshare salesman, and bookmark maker – that “were just ways of making rent.” He currently serves as the Hodder Fellow at the Lewis Center for the Arts in Princeton.

“In general, I don’t think of my own life as being very important to my poetry, because I’m not concerned with telling my story or testifying to my own experience,” he says. “Of course I can’t help being myself; when writing, I often draw from the materials of my life, because those are the materials that I know best. And there’s no question that my opinions and biases narrow my perspective. But I think that’s something to struggle against, not something to embrace. “

Hollander was born in Vienna and came to the United States at age 11. She learned English during her first summer in the states by reading an English translation of Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo and eventually went on to study literature at Columbia University’s graduate program. She has taught literature at Brooklyn College, Princeton University and The College of New Jersey, where she was director of its writers conference for 23 years.

Her earliest influences were Goethe and Schiller when she lived in Vienna, and she remains greatly affected by 15th– and 16th-century Dutch paintings.

“I always take a pad and pen when I go to a museum and will often get started on a poem,” she says.

Arthur also takes inspiration from other art, both high- and low-brow.

“I take my influences wherever I find them,” he says. “I’ve learned lessons about composition from Zen gardens and Jackson Pollock paintings, but I also picked up some ideas about assonance from an Eminem song. Whenever I need to remind myself of what a magnificent performance looks like, I go to YouTube and watch Sinead O’Connor singing ‘Troy’ at the Pinkpop Festival in 1988.

“I think it’s easy to fall into priding yourself on what you don’t like—on the music you don’t listen to, on the books that don’t interest you, on the kinds of food you would never eat—but in my opinion, that’s not a useful mindset for an artist. Look at everything, and listen to everything. Many pop songs are unsophisticated in their messages, but that doesn’t mean that pop songs aren’t well made, or that you can’t learn from them. Most songs that rise to the top of the charts are almost perfectly engineered.”

He takes inspiration from “whatever’s at hand,” he says.

“A worn-out coat, an avocado, an ergonomic bicycle. Whatever,” he says. “For me, the point of departure doesn’t matter so much. What is important is that the poem arrive somewhere interesting. Both as a writer and as a reader, I like poems that surprise me: poems that cause me to look more closely or think more deeply.”

He describes his work as “partly old-fashioned, partly not.”

“I like rhyme, and I pay close attention to syllable stress,” he says. “I enjoy creating rhythmical structures in my poems. But unlike Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,’ say, or John Keats’ ‘Bright Star’—two poems in which rhyme and meter create strict, identifiable symmetries—my poems are asymmetrical. I try to create rhythms that change from line to line, constantly reinventing themselves.

“Not that I don’t enjoy expressions of pattern. I do. But I think the deep patterns of nature, such as weather systems or the codes articulated by our DNA, are unimaginably complex. That complexity, which sometimes seems like randomness, is what I find beautiful and what I want to express. The originators of the sonnet believed in a very different world!”

James Arthur and Jean Hollander will read at the South Brunswick Public Library, 110 Kingston Lane, Monmouth Junction, at 2 p.m., Sunday, Jan. 20. An open reading will follow. The event, sponsored by the South Brunswick Arts Commission, is free, but a donation of a nonperishable food item for the South Brunswick Food Pantry would be appreciated. For more information, call the South Brunswick Arts Commission at 732-329-4000, ext. 7635 or email arts@sbtnj.net. Web: http://www.sbarts.org.


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Three new stories at NJ Spotlight

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Here are my three most recent stories on NJ Spotlight:

»The Politics of Gun Control: Christie Aims for the Center
Democrats, gun control advocates criticize Christie’s inaction compared to Obama, Cuomo
»NJ Democrats Back Obama, Propose Sweeping Gun-Control Reforms for State
Key provisions in series of bills include limits on ammo capacity and adding mental-health provision to background checks.
»Lawmakers Urged to Shore Up Image of Post-Sandy Jersey Shore
Marketing campaign sought to let tourists know that businesses are reopening, some towns had little damage.

A brief course in logic

Let’s engage in a thought experiment. Consider the following proposition:

Murder is illegal. People still commit murder. Therefore, we shouldn’t enforce laws against murder.

Silly right? No one in their right mind would argue that we should legalize murder because the laws against homicide are not perfect. But that is exactly the logic being used by many on the gun rights side of the gun debate. Consider this sentence from the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action: “Gun control has not worked because criminals, by definition, do not obey the law.”

Again, what if we were to apply the same logic to other things:

Traffic laws do not work, because drivers refuse to slow down.

How about this:

Laws against burglary do not work because burglars, criminals by definition, do not obey the law.

As I said, that would be absurd. But no one seems to blink when this kind of logic comes from the politically powerful NRA.

Let me say this: I am sympathetic to a second-amendment defense of gun rights — the founders viewed the right to bear arms not only as necessary to ensure the speedy formation of militias, but as a necessary bulwark against a tyrannical government. That defense, however, is limited in the same way that other rights stipulated in the Bill of Rights are limited. We can’t scream fire in a crowded theater, after all, and our speech rights in commercial situations are limited to matters of fact (knowably false claims can be adjudicated in civil and sometimes criminal court). And the vast military arsenal wielded by our government does leave the owner of the individual gun at a distinct disadvantage.

That said, gun rights do exist, but not without limits. The need to protect the general citizenry from gun violence demands that we look at every aspect of ownership — from what kinds of guns we should allow, to where and how we buy them.

It is easier, in most states, to buy a gun than to buy a car. It is easier to get a gun license than a driver’s license. And access to ammunition online and by mail order makes it virtually impossible to track.

This brings me, of course, to today’s announcement by President Barack Obama of his sweeping plan to reform the nation’s gun laws. As described by The New York Times, the mix of legislation will include
a ban on new assault weapons, limits on high-capacity magazines, expanded background checks for gun purchases and tougher gun trafficking laws to crack down on the spread of weapons across the country.
He also signed
nearly two-dozen executive actions designed to increase the enforcement of existing gun laws and improve the flow of information among federal agencies in order to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and others who shouldn’t have them.

The proposal does what is necessary, in my view, without infringing on the right of Americans to own guns. What it does, however, if enforce a level of responsibility and accountability on gun owners and sellers that has been lacking and that has existed in other areas for a long time.

The NRA issued an immediate press release, accusing the president of “Attacking firearms and ignoring children,” saying that it

is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation.  Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy.

What the NRA has proposed — and alludes to in its statement — is the notion that we can safeguard children by arming more adults. It is a notion, at once, demonstrably false and potentially laughable — only the stakes are too high. The proliferation of legal and illegal guns have turned too many of our cities into war zones and has left us with the highest rate of gun deaths in the civilized world. We need to change this reality.

* * *

Here is an interesting, three-part examination of gun culture comparing the United States to other nations. It is very worthwhile reading.

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Star-Ledger, sadly, is in decline

The Star-Ledger, which has for much of its existence served as the state’s paper of record, announced today its first official mass layoff. As the paper’s NJ.com site reports,

The jobs of 34 Star-Ledger employees — including nearly 10 percent of the newsroom — are being eliminated in the first large-scale layoffs in the history of the state’s largest daily newspaper, publisher Richard Vezza said this morning.

Eighteen part- and full-time staffers in The Star-Ledger’s newsroom of 195 employees are expected to be laid off today, along with 16 positions in other departments. The totals include 19 full-time employees and 15 part-time positions.

Vezza said the layoffs are “not a foreshadowing the demise of the paper,” but it is hard to view the continued erosion of the state’s largest news source as anything but part of a long-term decline that will have dramatic effects on the state’s democratic governance.

The Ledger — along with the other large dailies (The Record and The Asbury Park Press) — remains the primary source of state news for most New Jerseyans. The growth of sites like NJ Spotlight — for whom I write and without a doubt the best and most comprehensive — and smaller weekly online sources, including The Alternative Press, the Patch network and other independents, can help offset some of the damage, but we remain just a supplement to what the big boys can do.

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Obama likely to appoint Treasury nominee with troubling sense of history

Timothy Geithner’s tenure as treasury secretary is ending, which is good news. The likely identity of his replacement — Jack Lew, if Bloomberg News is correct — is not. Here’s why (from Business Insider):

9. He doesn’t believe deregulation of Wall Street led to the financial collapse.

During his 2010 confirmation hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Lew told the panel that he did not believe Wall Street deregulation played a major part in the financial crisis. He said he doesn’t “personally know the extent to which deregulation drove it, but I don’t believe that deregulation was the proximate cause.”

The comment — and the eventual follow-up “clarification” from the White House to the Huffington Post in 2010 (that “Mr. Lew gave a nuanced and thoughtful answer to a question on a matter on which he, admittedly, is not an expert”) — is troubling because Lew will be the face of the Obama administration’s relationship with Wall Street and the banking industry.

And his belief is dead wrong.

From the conclusion of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s final report:

Despite the expressed view of many on Wall Street and in Washington that the crisis could not have been foreseen or avoided, there were warning signs. The tragedy was that they were ignored or discounted. There was an explosion in risky subprime lending and securitization, an unsustainable rise in housing prices, widespread reports of egregious and predatory lending practices, dramatic increases in household mortgage debt, and exponential growth in financial firms’ trading activities, unregulated derivatives, and short-term “repo” lending markets, among many other red flags. Yet there was pervasive permissiveness; little meaningful action was taken to quell the threats in a timely manner

The prime example is the Federal Reserve’s pivotal failure to stem the flow of toxic mortgages, which it could have done by setting prudent mortgage-lending standards. The Federal Reserve was the one entity empowered to do so and it did not. The record of our examination is replete with evidence of other failures: financial institutions made, bought, and sold mortgage securities they never examined, did not care to examine, or knew to be defective; firms depended on tens of billions of dollars of borrowing that had to be renewed each and every night, secured by subprime mortgage securities; and major firms and investors blindly relied on credit rating agencies as their arbiters of risk. What else could one expect on a highway where there were neither speed limits nor neatly painted lines?

As the commission states, this was a man-made crisis precipitated and made dramatically worse by the lack of regulation and by regulatory negligence. There were “widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision” that”proved devastating to the stability of the nation’s financial markets,” the report states.

The sentries were not at their posts, in no small part due to the widely accepted faith in the self-correcting nature of the markets and the ability of financial institutions to effectively police themselves. More than 30 years of deregulation and reliance on self-regulation by financial institutions, championed by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and others, supported by successive administrations and Congresses, and actively pushed by the powerful financial industry at every turn, had stripped away key safeguards, which could have helped avoid catastrophe. This approach had opened up gaps in oversight of critical areas with trillions of dollars at risk, such as the shadow banking system and over-the-counter derivatives markets. In addition, the government permitted financial firms to pick their preferred regulators in what became a race to the weakest supervisor

Yet we do not accept the view that regulators lacked the power to protect the financial system. They had ample power in many arenas and they chose not to use it. To give just three examples: the Securities and Exchange Commission could have required more capital and halted risky practices at the big investment banks. It did not. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York and other regulators could have clamped down on Citigroup’s excesses in the run-up to the crisis. They did not. Policy makers and regulators could have stopped the runaway mortgage securitization train. They did not. In case after case after case, regulators continued to rate the institutions they oversaw as safe and sound even in the face of mounting troubles, often downgrading them just before their collapse. And where regulators lacked authority, they could have sought it. Too often, they lacked the political will—in a political and ideological environment that constrained it—as well as the fortitude to critically challenge the institutions and the entire system they were entrusted to oversee.

Changes in the regulatory system occurred in many instances as financial markets evolved. But as the report will show, the financial industry itself played a key role in weakening regulatory constraints on institutions, markets, and products. It did not surprise the Commission that an industry of such wealth and power would exert pressure on policy makers and regulators. From 1999 to 2008, the financial sector expended $2.7 billion in reported federal lobbying expenses; individuals and political action committees in the sector made more than $1 billion in campaign contributions. What troubled us was the extent to which the nation was deprived of the necessary strength and independence of the oversight necessary to safeguard financial stability.

There were other causes, to be sure, but the mix of weakened financial regulations and a compromised regulatory apparatus were toxic. Lew’s appointment will mean that we have failed to learn from our mistakes, increasing the likelihood that we will repeat them.

 

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