Purity-Policing Is Poison to Poetry

My fourth book of poetry, Magenta, was recently set to go to press with a small publisher of experimental writing. Shortly after the book was listed for sale on the publisher’s website, I received an email from an editor informing me that my associations with people and entities, including this magazine, he deemed “alt-right” or “fascist-adjacent” had put the press “in a really bad spot.” He asked me to explain myself. I respectfully declined to do so. The next morning, I awoke to an email from another editor, someone I considered a friend, stating that the publisher could no longer publish Magenta.