Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Boyer has resigned from The New York Times, criticizing its coverage of the Israeli attacks on Gaza.
Twenty of the 25 writers who were finalists for the National Book Awards, one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards, which were held in New York last night, took to the stage and criticized the Israeli bombing of Gaza and called for a ceasefire.
News of Boyer’s resignation came this morning. Boyer was the poetry editor of the Sunday New York Times Magazine.
Boyer said that the war waged by Israel with the support of the United States will not benefit anyone. “Those who seek to accustom us to unreasonable pain.” ‘reasonable’ You cannot write about poetry between its tones” He said.
Boyer’s letter, in which he takes direct aim at the language used by The New York Times in its stories about the war in Gaza, is summed up as follows:
“This war is not about the security of Israel, the United States, or Europe, but specifically about the security of the Jewish people. This war only serves the deadly profits of oil and arms producers. The world, our future, and our hearts are shrinking and hardening because of this war. It is a war against the Palestinian people who have resisted occupation, forced displacement, deprivation, control, siege, imprisonment and torture for decades.
Sometimes artists just have to protest. I also object. I will not write about poetry in a “reasonable” tone that aims to accustom us to irrational pain. No more nauseating literary flourishes. There is no longer a hellish world purified by words. No more warmongering lies.
“If this resignation creates a hair-sized vacuum in the world of news, then this is the true shape of the moment.”
