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Rumsfeld, The Southeast Review, and the Politics of Self-Promotion
a report from the field by Kurtis Davidson
How do we explain the chain of events that led to our posing
for a photograph with Donald Rumsfeld in the name of The
Southeast Review?
Well, we could begin our story in 1959 and 1967, the years
in which the two heads of Kurtis Davidson first appeared on
this planet, but our journey does not properly begin until
the fall of 1996 when, courtesy of the Fates and a dismal
job market, we were both English professors at the Virginia
Military Institute (as we still are today). Neither of us
had ever been in the military, though one of our fathers had
been in the Air Force while the other father had published
an essay titled “The Permissibility of Ending Life.”
We were, however, both life-long fiction writers, each with
a few modest successes.
Writers rarely collaborate as we do. We’ve met other
writing teams who claim to collaborate, but in reality one
is ghostwriting or the two are just compiling alternating
chapters. Our collaboration is real collaboration: word by
word, sentence by sentence, idea by idea. It started as a
lark. For the fun of it—and maybe so that we would be
partners rather than competitors in our small department—we
tried writing a story titled “I’m Not Sniffing
Your Children.” For reasons that remain controversial—at
least between the two of us—we quit after 850 words.
(For the curious, those words have been preserved here.)
Our next try, a screenplay, was more successful. “Flagrant
Fouls” is the distantly autobiographical tale of basketball-obsessed
English professors who rig a job search to hire a ringer for
their intramural team. “Flagrant Fouls” was ultimately
optioned by a deluded movie producer wannbe, which was good
for $1000 in cash and $10,000 in aggravation. (To see the
movie producer’s final descent into insanity, go here.)
Our next project is perhaps the weirdest thing we have done,
a whole lot of work for no easy pay-off, but it demonstrates
that our partnership is driven, above all else, by the joy
of shared creation. Our mission was to write 1,001 provocative
opening sentences for stories or novels that we would probably
never get around to writing ourselves. It was a glorious game
of one-upmanship as we wrote bushels of sentences in the wee
hours of the morning and flung them back and forth via email.
We tried to market the project as a book of one-sentence stories,
or maybe as cure for writer’s block, but the literary
agent who tried to sell it got not even a nibble. (These sentences
are now free for public consumption here.)
By the time 2001 rolled around, we had been collaborating
off and on for three years without actually having published
anything together. Two additional screenplays were prominent
wastes of time along the way. Then, as if struck by good sense,
we decided to write a few things that people might actually
want to read. First up, a novel, What the Shadow Told
Me, a literary satire that riffs affectionately on the
career of Ralph Ellison. (Buy it here!)
The novel helped us get a new agent, then won a major award,
and eventually found a home with a good literary publisher.
As we awaited its publication, we reeled off a dozen short
stories. The two-headed Kurtis Davidson mojo was in full effect.
Then, in early 2003, we experienced a kind of success unprecedented
in our collective writing careers: Our story “Man with
a Gun” was simultaneously accepted by The North
American Review and The Southeast Review. Okay,
the acceptances weren’t exactly simultaneous—the
story was first accepted by The North American Review,
and, before we had a chance to send any withdrawals, The
Southeast Review accepted it, too. When we emailed our
regrets to The Southeast Review, we got a surprising
reply. Well, the editor said, if we can’t have this
story, might we publish the other story that you sent us?
We sent them two stories? We checked our records, and, sure
enough, we had. We had sent them “Man with a Gun”
in November, and then another story in January. Fortunately,
sometimes the left head doesn’t know what the right
head is doing.
That other story was “The Anxiety of Dick and Rummy:
Nixon, Rumsfeld, and the Politics of Poetry,” a piece
of faux literary criticism with (we think) a clever premise.
In 1974, Jack S. Margolis published a small book titled The
Poetry of Richard Milhous Nixon, which took bits of The
Watergate Transcripts and laid them out on the page as if
they were poems. In 2003, Hart Seely published a similar book,
Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald
H. Rumsfeld. Our piece—which we tried to write
with our faces as straight as possible—studied the poetry
of Nixon and Rumsfeld in light of Harold Bloom’s idea
of “the anxiety of influence.” Simply put, when
we examined the poetry of Rumsfeld, would we find him peering
uneasily over his shoulder at his poetic godfather? (If you
don’t know the answer, then you have a thing or two
to learn about faux literary criticism!)
“The Anxiety of Dick and Rummy” was ultimately
published in the Winter 2004-2005 issue of The Southeast
Review, and the story would end here were it not for
the convergence of two seemingly unrelated events: Kurtis
Davidson’s trip to the 2006 AWP Conference in Austin,
Texas, and the questionable taste of VMI cadets in commencement
speakers.
At VMI, graduating seniors have the unusual privilege of
choosing their own commencement speaker. Yes, VMI is a state
military college; and, yes, many graduates go on to careers
in the military; and, yes, all cadets and full-time faculty
wear uniforms. But did this mean that VMI’s Class of
2006 had no choice but to invite as their commencement speaker
the most polarizing figure of the military/defense establishment
since Robert McNamara? The answer, of course, is a resounding
YES! Donald Henry Rumsfeld, our poetically-inclined Secretary
of Defense, would be invited to deliver his wit and wisdom
to the Class of 2006 and their families, friends, and faculty.
By the time that Kurtis Davidson journeyed to Austin, Rumsfeld
had accepted the invitation. Thus, when we happened upon The
Southeast Review table at the AWP Bookfair, we had an
amusing story to tell. We introduced ourselves to editor Sara
Pennington, and, after a long-winded set-up, asked, “So
guess who our commencement speaker is this year?” Sara
immediately told us of the magazine’s new blog and asked
if we could get a photo taken of our two heads with the large
head of Mr. Rumsfeld? To sweeten the pot, she gave us iron-on
t-shirt transfers advertising the magazine so that we could
be properly attired for our photo-op. Naturally, we loved
the idea. We would do our best, and, if nothing else, our
efforts would lead to a humorous account of a failed quest.
Our first task was to look deep inside ourselves to see whether
we had the chutzpah that the stunt demanded. Kurt looked inside
David’s soul and saw a flashing neon sign that said,
FREE PUBLICITY! David, in his meanderings through Kurt’s
metaphysicality, saw a huge inflatable THUMBS UP! Kurtis Davidson
is, if nothing else, the kind of writer who will do (almost)
anything for a little publicity. Kurtis Davidson is the kind
of writer who, if asked to contribute to someone’s blog,
will mention the name Kurtis Davidson as often as possible
(Kurtis Davidson) while never missing a chance to include
a link to The
Official Kurtis Davidson Website. In short, Kurtis
Davidson, author of the award-winning comedic novel What
the Shadow Told Me, was custom-made for the job.
So how to gain access to Rumsfeld? VMI is a small school
with a clear military-driven chain of command, so we knew
right where to take our request. We emailed the Chief of Staff,
a retired Army colonel, and told him forthrightly what we
wanted to do: We had published a non-political satirical analysis
of Donald Rumsfeld’s poetry, and we wanted to present
him with a copy and, if we might, have our picture taken with
him. Was this possible? The colonel said that he would check
with the Department of Defense, which must clear all such
requests. He said, however, that he was “not optimistic”
about our chances for approval.
So we waited. And waited. And, in the hopes that we were
improving our chances, we emailed our request to VMI’s
Public Information Office. The colonel in charge of that office
agreed to see what he could find out and to keep us in the
loop.
Finally, about a week before the event, we got the news.
At first we were told that we would be admitted to the reception
room where Rumsfeld would be hobnobbing with folks before
the ceremony began. But then, a day or two before graduation,
we received an email warning that our chance would be much
more fleeting. As soon as graduation was over, we had to hurry
to a special area near the stage where Rumsfeld would be posing
for a select few photographs. If we missed this “critical
window,” we were warned, our chance would be lost.
Success! We were in! We spread the news among our colleagues
and friends, many of whom reacted as though we had agreed
to throw the switch at an execution. Some suggested various
things we could say or do to Mr. Rumsfeld. Naturally, we declined.
We were in this for publicity, not politics. Certainly, assaulting
the Secretary of Defense would have gotten us more free publicity
than we had ever imagined possible, but it would have also
gotten us a free trip to prison. In weighing the negatives
of life in prison versus the positives of priceless publicity,
we attempted to compute how many extra copies of our
novel we would sell as a direct result of delivering a
karate chop to the bridge of Rummy’s nose. After crunching
the numbers, we decided that neither of us was willing to
take this particular hit for the team.
Then, two days before graduation, the bad news came via voicemail:
the SOD (Secretary of Defense) would be returning to Washington
immediately following the ceremony for a hastily arranged
meeting with President Bush. Our first thought was, “Damn!”
Our second thought was, “Does this mean we’re
going to war with Iran?” Crestfallen, we resigned ourselves
to the failure of our mission.
In the days prior to the event, emails had been zipping around
VMI about security for the SOD’s visit. All faculty
and staff were required to obtain new photo IDs at the Personnel
Office. We were told that we could enter the graduation venue
through only one particular door, and that our IDs would be
inspected and, possibly, our bodies searched. We arrived at
the appointed hour—in uniform and with our new IDs prominently
displayed—and were granted entrance by an associate
dean who casually waved us through. As we do every year at
graduation, we then lined up in a hallway with the other faculty
according to academic rank and last name, and we waited for
the signal to process onto the floor and take our seats. And
then . . .
There he was, standing fifteen feet away, idly clasping his
hands together, flanked by VMI’s administrative pantheon,
and looking, well, bored. The Poet of the Pentagon. The Honorable
Donald H. Rumsfeld. We still had a chance. So Kurt, ever the
bold half of Kurtis Davidson, leapt cautiously into action.
He approached the SOD’s official personal photographer,
a Navy ensign, and explained our mission. Could Kurt approach
the SOD? Certainly, the ensign said, and how could he say
otherwise? After all, as a make-believe lieutenant colonel,
Kurt outranked him!
So Kurt marched up to Mr. Rumsfeld and explained what we
wanted. David, ever the optimistic half of Kurtis Davidson,
had brought a copy of The Southeast Review, and Kurt
took it and showed Rumsfeld the story. Rumsfeld actually read
the title out loud: “‘The Anxiety of Dick: Nixon,
Rumsfeld, and the Politics of Poetry.’” He seemed
bemused. Kurt asked if Rumsfeld would mind having his picture
taken with us while Rumsfeld held the magazine. Rumsfeld agreed
to a picture but explained that he couldn’t pose with
the magazine because it was “against the rules”
for him to endorse any products. So let us make this clear:
DONALD RUMSFELD DOES NOT ENDORSE THE SOUTHEAST REVIEW!
He does, however, endorse Kurtis Davidson, which is technically
not a product.
And so The Southeast Review is not in the picture.
And we certainly weren’t able to pull on our Southeast
Review t-shirts. But we crowded in next to the SOD for
our photo-op. We beamed, as did he.
And the rest is free publicity.
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Copyright © 2008 The Southeast Review
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