Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and The New York Times Magazine’s poetry editor Anne Boyer resigned, expressing her dissatisfaction with the newspaper’s coverage of Israel’s attacks on Gaza, stating, “No more warmongering lies.”
Anne Boyer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and poetry editor for The New York Times Magazine’s Sunday edition, has announced her resignation.
Stating her conviction that the U.S.-backed war in Israel will yield no benefits, Boyer mentioned her inability to write about poetry amidst the “reasonable” tones of those attempting to acclimate us to senseless pain.
In her letter, directly critiquing the language used in The New York Times’ coverage of the war in Gaza, Boyer conveyed the following:
“No more verbally sanitized hellscapes”
“I have resigned as poetry editor of The New York Times Magazine. The Israeli state’s U.S-backed war against the people of Gaza is not a war for anyone. There is no safety in it or from it, not for Israel, not for the United States or Europe, and especially not for the many Jewish people slandered by those who claim falsely to fight in their names. Its only profit is the deadly profit of oil interests and weapon manufacturers.
The world, the future, our hearts—everything grows smaller and harder from this war. It is not only a war of missiles and land invasions. It is an ongoing war against the people of Palestine, people who have resisted through decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture.
Because our status quo is self-expression, sometimes the most effective mode of protest for artists is to refuse.
I can’t write about poetry amidst the ‘reasonable’ tones of those who aim to acclimatize us to this unreasonable suffering. No more ghoulish euphemisms. No more verbally sanitized hellscapes. No more warmongering lies.
If this resignation leaves a hole in the news the size of poetry, then that is the true shape of the present.”
Jazmine Hughes, an award-winning writer for The New York Times Magazine, resigned under the pretext of violating editorial policies after signing a statement expressing support for Palestinians and protesting the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
Source: Literary Hub