On Thursday, Anne Boyer, the poetry editor at the news media, resigned, stating that she is stepping down because of what she perceives as the Times’ promotion of “warmongering lies.”
In a Substack post, Boyer wrote, “Because our status quo is self-expression, sometimes all artists have left is to refuse. So I refuse. I won’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 sanitized hell-words. No more warmongering lies.”
On November 3, Jazmine Hughes faced consequences for signing an open letter against the Israel-Gaza war with Writers Against the War on Gaza. The Times deemed this action a violation of newsroom policies.
Below is the complete letter in which Boyer resigns:
“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 it. This is not only a war of missiles and land invasions. It is the ongoing devastation of the people of Palestine, people who have resisted throughout decades of occupation, forced dislocation, deprivation, surveillance, siege, imprisonment, and torture.”
“Because our status quo is self-expression, sometimes all artists have left is to refuse. So I refuse. I won’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 sanitized hell-words. 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.”
—Anne Boyer
