Thanks for writing about me and Foetry.com. If I may use your comments section as foetry is being pulled today . . . I do hope that people will understand why I felt the need to be anonymous. As I’ve demonstrated this week and as the “foetry” persona, I can be quite outspoken. I repeatedly saw an incredible injustice, what I view as criminal activity, taking place in poetry publishing. I felt there needed to be a centralized place to address that, but as I’ve been a tangential part of po-biz for fifteen years, I knew that dragging my wife’s name into this would likely hurt her career. (Note, she is not a player, and hardly a part of po-biz, though she’s had a few strong advocates of her work and won some fine prizes without resorting to sliminess.)
I was once a stringer for a public radio station and, as you know, currently a librarian. My research skills are strong, and to this day, I stand by the main pages of the site. I think where things got out of control were in the Forum. Allowing anyone to post anything in that section without filters was problematic in some cases. I have records of people who appeared anonymously to start rumors and then reappeared as another character to correct them – for what purpose? I’m guessing it was an effort to discredit Foetry.com as a whole. I myself did enjoy the sleuthing – who was visiting the site – who was stabbing whom in the back. And I became addicted to the site. More than a month ago, I sent emails to about ten individuals asking them to take over the site.
I have never asked anyone to pay for the domain; in fact it is financed through March 2006. The money mentioned is monthly hosting costs that the new admin would either have to pay or raise. Cost has not been an issue for me; it was a sense of justice that compelled me. Time has been the main issue, along with the emotional damage I was doing to the person who knew about this and wanted me to stop.
Janet Holmes has infringed upon my copyright; apparently Jim Behrle has too. I appreciate your call for the whoisfoetry person to decloak, but that’s not necessary – it’s Janet Holme’s writing style to the letter. Each time “whoisfoetry” (falsely) identified the admin of foetry or a forum member, Janet reproduced the sudden news on her own weblog, often with terrible, terrible comments about people, including the winner of the contest she administers. There is nothing respectable about what Janet has done at Ahsahta Press or in her quest for revenge. The use of my wife’s name to post on websites is illegal at the very least and a sign of someone who is mentally ill and mean-spirited. I expect to be under attack – you may call me a coward, but pursuit of my wife is wrong. But then we’re dealing with people who think that cheating and stealing is acceptable, so I should not expect a sudden epiphany from them.
To fill in the blanks for you, Jim Behrle called out Hoerman because Janet Holmes, through innuendo, implicated him as the admin of Foetry. There is a long story about this, at which I’m not at liberty to talk about, but it was yet another reckless crusade by Janet Holmes as retaliation for getting caught. She did it to another innocent man before him too, and I do hope each will pursue legal avenues against her and Boise State. Jim Behrle had two opportunities to be a part of Foetry, but couldn’t even follow the very loosest of rules. He was unable to post anything of substance and engaged members in attacks and Bush-like smart remarks. Jim Behrle, as members said publicly and privately to me, was there to play and draw attention to himself. He may have somehow given you the idea that he’s anti-publicity, but most of us saw him as nothing but a self-promoter.
As for yours and others’ perceptions of things about which you have no knowledge, like my marriage and my financial situation, that speculation seems irresponsible to me in the same way you accuse me of being off-base. When foetry.com was trying to rally a class-action suit, it was not with my own money; it was in the hope of getting services pro-bono through a support agency. My legal action against Holmes has come from my own pocket. She can resolve our difference over copyright by removing my material. I ask for nothing else from her, and want nothing to do with her.
Thank you Chad for your mention that the issues that Foetry.com got people talking about need to continue to be addressed. Perhaps I didn't go about it the right way every time, but I am glad the news is out there.
Forgive me any spelling, grammatical errors. I've written quickly.
Signed sincerely and with my real name, Alan Cordle
Thanks for a civil post, Alan. Some will probably expect me to try and brew up a flame war here, but I said my piece in the above post (where you intended to place your first comment, but oh well, close enough). To try and pick things apart further in a comments box would just remind me of everything I hate about message board debates.
All I'll write here is that even though(as Jim points out) anonymity can have it's uses, I feel it doesn't really work well in most cases of modern journalism (obvious exceptions in countries where truth=execution and jailtime, which was clearly not the case here).
I will still maintain that had you kept your identity open and your tone more akin to what you've written here, then Foetry would have been a very different site with a much more honorable ending.
I had no interest in foetry.com until my name got bandied around as some powerful force in poetry. I came to set the record straight and posters like Monday Love and Wilson were all over me from day one. And our beloved Mallie. Jealous I guess. I guess the main rule was "Attack Jimmy." Because when I fought back all I got was whimpy whining and weeping from the anonymous foetry crowd. I guess Monday Love lives in Cambridge, MA (usually parked at the Grafton St. Pub *wink*!) And maybe Wilson's from San Francisco. If someone sends me a Polaroid of them I'll let them ride my cartoon unicorn. And then Alan's been playing with this naked photo of me, but you'll have to ask him his altruistic intentions for doing that.
Alan's back in business, so this all is moot. I'm sure the courts will figure it all out.
4 comments:
Hello Chad,
Thanks for writing about me and Foetry.com. If I may use your comments section as foetry is being pulled today . . . I do hope that people will understand why I felt the need to be anonymous. As I’ve demonstrated this week and as the “foetry” persona, I can be quite outspoken. I repeatedly saw an incredible injustice, what I view as criminal activity, taking place in poetry publishing. I felt there needed to be a centralized place to address that, but as I’ve been a tangential part of po-biz for fifteen years, I knew that dragging my wife’s name into this would likely hurt her career. (Note, she is not a player, and hardly a part of po-biz, though she’s had a few strong advocates of her work and won some fine prizes without resorting to sliminess.)
I was once a stringer for a public radio station and, as you know, currently a librarian. My research skills are strong, and to this day, I stand by the main pages of the site. I think where things got out of control were in the Forum. Allowing anyone to post anything in that section without filters was problematic in some cases. I have records of people who appeared anonymously to start rumors and then reappeared as another character to correct them – for what purpose? I’m guessing it was an effort to discredit Foetry.com as a whole. I myself did enjoy the sleuthing – who was visiting the site – who was stabbing whom in the back. And I became addicted to the site. More than a month ago, I sent emails to about ten individuals asking them to take over the site.
I have never asked anyone to pay for the domain; in fact it is financed through March 2006. The money mentioned is monthly hosting costs that the new admin would either have to pay or raise. Cost has not been an issue for me; it was a sense of justice that compelled me. Time has been the main issue, along with the emotional damage I was doing to the person who knew about this and wanted me to stop.
Janet Holmes has infringed upon my copyright; apparently Jim Behrle has too. I appreciate your call for the whoisfoetry person to decloak, but that’s not necessary – it’s Janet Holme’s writing style to the letter. Each time “whoisfoetry” (falsely) identified the admin of foetry or a forum member, Janet reproduced the sudden news on her own weblog, often with terrible, terrible comments about people, including the winner of the contest she administers. There is nothing respectable about what Janet has done at Ahsahta Press or in her quest for revenge. The use of my wife’s name to post on websites is illegal at the very least and a sign of someone who is mentally ill and mean-spirited. I expect to be under attack – you may call me a coward, but pursuit of my wife is wrong. But then we’re dealing with people who think that cheating and stealing is acceptable, so I should not expect a sudden epiphany from them.
To fill in the blanks for you, Jim Behrle called out Hoerman because Janet Holmes, through innuendo, implicated him as the admin of Foetry. There is a long story about this, at which I’m not at liberty to talk about, but it was yet another reckless crusade by Janet Holmes as retaliation for getting caught. She did it to another innocent man before him too, and I do hope each will pursue legal avenues against her and Boise State.
Jim Behrle had two opportunities to be a part of Foetry, but couldn’t even follow the very loosest of rules. He was unable to post anything of substance and engaged members in attacks and Bush-like smart remarks. Jim Behrle, as members said publicly and privately to me, was there to play and draw attention to himself. He may have somehow given you the idea that he’s anti-publicity, but most of us saw him as nothing but a self-promoter.
As for yours and others’ perceptions of things about which you have no knowledge, like my marriage and my financial situation, that speculation seems irresponsible to me in the same way you accuse me of being off-base. When foetry.com was trying to rally a class-action suit, it was not with my own money; it was in the hope of getting services pro-bono through a support agency. My legal action against Holmes has come from my own pocket. She can resolve our difference over copyright by removing my material. I ask for nothing else from her, and want nothing to do with her.
Thank you Chad for your mention that the issues that Foetry.com got people talking about need to continue to be addressed. Perhaps I didn't go about it the right way every time, but I am glad the news is out there.
Forgive me any spelling, grammatical errors. I've written quickly.
Signed sincerely and with my real name,
Alan Cordle
And that comment was to go with the newer post. Oh well.
Thanks for a civil post, Alan. Some will probably expect me to try and brew up a flame war here, but I said my piece in the above post (where you intended to place your first comment, but oh well, close enough). To try and pick things apart further in a comments box would just remind me of everything I hate about message board debates.
All I'll write here is that even though(as Jim points out) anonymity can have it's uses, I feel it doesn't really work well in most cases of modern journalism (obvious exceptions in countries where truth=execution and jailtime, which was clearly not the case here).
I will still maintain that had you kept your identity open and your tone more akin to what you've written here, then Foetry would have been a very different site with a much more honorable ending.
Hey guys.
I had no interest in foetry.com until my name got bandied around as some powerful force in poetry. I came to set the record straight and posters like Monday Love and Wilson were all over me from day one. And our beloved Mallie. Jealous I guess. I guess the main rule was "Attack Jimmy." Because when I fought back all I got was whimpy whining and weeping from the anonymous foetry crowd. I guess Monday Love lives in Cambridge, MA (usually parked at the Grafton St. Pub *wink*!) And maybe Wilson's from San Francisco. If someone sends me a Polaroid of them I'll let them ride my cartoon unicorn. And then Alan's been playing with this naked photo of me, but you'll have to ask him his altruistic intentions for doing that.
Alan's back in business, so this all is moot. I'm sure the courts will figure it all out.
Good luck.
Jimmy Behrle
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