sea nerd blog
open letter

To the editor of Stride magazine,

Thanks for posting a review of my collection, anticipating the metaverse, published by The Knives, Forks and Spoons Press.

Here is a quote from the OED: “Another fundamental mistake is to think of the ‘standard’ variety of a language as the language, with dialects relegated to substandard status.” Your reviewer of my book made a ‘fundamental mistake’. You published the review. I’m sorry that you want the reputation of opinionated ignorance, but so be it.

But there’s more. During WW2, here in Luxembourg, people died for using their dialect. I’m glad that, despite these times of revisiting old mistakes, all I’ve suffered is a bad review.

By coincidence, I run a small press, corrupt press, a press I created to celebrate diversity in the English languages. Those readers who, with me, hanker to counter poverty and snobbery in poetry, are invited to browse https://www.corruptpress.com/.