[news] New Jersey Assembly Votes to Cut Embattled Poet's Job

[Ytzhak]

New Jersey Assembly Votes to Cut Embattled Poet's Job
By LAURA MANSNERUS



RENTON, July 1 — The New Jersey General Assembly  approved a measure
today to eliminate the post of state poet laureate. The legislation
would effectively remove the poet, Amiri Baraka, who had caused a furor
with his poem referring to the 9/11 attacks.

 The 69-to-2 vote sends the bill to Gov. James E. McGreevey, who  has
vigorously denounced Mr. Baraka for the poem, which suggests that
Israelis knew  about the terrorist plot in advance.

 In the uproar that followed Mr. Baraka's public reading of the poem
last fall, Mr. McGreevey asked him to resign. When he refused, and the
governor learned that he had no authority to dismiss the poet laureate,
legislators gathered dozens of sponsors for the bill abolishing the
post.

 The State Senate approved the measure in January with 21 votes, the
minimum needed for passage, after a debate in which some expressed
concerns about censorship. The other 19 senators abstained.

 The two dissenting votes today were cast by Assemblymen William D.
Payne and Donald Tucker, both of Newark. Mr. Baraka is a longtime
resident of Newark, and while he was under attack in Trenton, he was
named poet laureate of the Newark public school system.

 Under the name LeRoi Jones, Mr. Baraka, who is black, wrote an
autobiography, in addition to poems and essays growing out of his
experience during Newark's racial turmoil in the 1960's.

 Shai Goldstein, the regional director of the New Jersey office of the
Anti-Defamation League, said today that Mr. Baraka did not have strong
support among blacks. Mr. Goldstein said that 4 of the original 16
sponsors of the bill were African-American, and that the Black
Ministers' Council of New Jersey was one of the first groups to support
it.  "It's all part of the ongoing process of confronting those who
engage in bigoted behavior," he said.

 Mr. Baraka did not return a telephone call today asking for comment. In
February, he told The New York Times in an interview,  "Everything that
was flowing into my mind at the time flowed into the poem.

 "I can understand people being excited and outraged, but the point is
that you have to investigate."

 Governor McGreevey froze the $10,000 stipend for the two-year
appointment, which expires in August 2004. But Mr. Baraka has demanded
payment of the money.





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