The Nation Magazine Apologizes For Publishing Widely-Criticized Poem

“The 14-line poem, by a young poet named Anders Carlson-Wee, was posted on the magazine’s website on July 5. Called ‘How-To,’ and seemingly written in the voice of a homeless person begging for handouts, it offered advice on how to play on the moral self-regard of passers-by by playing up, or even inventing, hardship. But after a firestorm of criticism on social media over a white poet’s attempt at black vernacular, … the magazine said it had made a ‘serious mistake’ in publishing it.”