Goldman Suchs

Kudos to Greg Smith, who resigned from Wall Street giant and Great Recession architects Goldman Sachs today and left with a parting cannon shot in the form of a New York Times Op-Ed piece.  You can read Smith's rare, bold take-down here.

I would say this is unrelated to poetry, except that it touches on a conversation Baron Wormser and I had a few nights ago after his reading at VSC. We were discussing social responsibility in poetry and its difficulty, given American poetry's long-time obsession with the self and what a fine, mature, responsible poet we did have in William Matthews. At one point, Baron suggested we need more naming of names, especially when they are our own, an outing of the forces of evil (or at least life-crushing interests) in our poetry. Look at the Polish and Russian poets who took on the regimes of the 20th century head-on. Where does such poetry exist in the United States? Could it?

So kudos again to Mr. Smith, who is stepping down as executive director of Godman Sachs and laying that company's wastrel and corrupt culture at the feet of that smirking schmuck Lloyd Blankfein and his crony, Gary Cohn.