Category: Corroboration

Account from a current grad student in the Wayne State English department

I am writing to corroborate other collected statements detailing Barrett Watten’s behavior both in and outside the classroom. I was enrolled in his seminar classes Winter 2018 and Fall 2018. Winter semester was my first experience with Watten and many of the other students. As it was early in my grad school experience, the actions … Continue reading Account from a current grad student in the Wayne State English department →

Account from Michael Cross, publisher, poet, and professor

As a Ph.D. candidate at SUNY Buffalo, I had the displeasure of interacting with Barrett Watten many times during his interview visit for the David Gray Chair. His toxicity was immediately apparent, and his behavior towards graduate students immediately set off warning signals. He was especially aggressive toward female graduate students, going so far as … Continue reading Account from Michael Cross, publisher, poet, and professor →

Account from Lynn Crawford, writer and critic

I, a Detroit based fiction writer and art critic, was thrilled when Barrett Watten came to town because I was intrigued by his writings. Sadly, I had a terrible experience with him. Around 2006, a group of Detroit based writers/artists/thinkers worked together to launch a journal. He was in the group. It was the worst … Continue reading Account from Lynn Crawford, writer and critic →

Account from a poet and professor at an institution other than Wayne State

This first email that Watten ever sent me was “Fuck you, you little twit.” I hadn't even met him yet. This was back in the late 90s. I was still in my 20s, he was quite established then. He was upset about something I had written on the {Buffalo} poetics listserv, which was really quite … Continue reading Account from a poet and professor at an institution other than Wayne State →

Account from Marjorie Perloff, poetry scholar and Humanities Professor at Stanford University

I first met Barret Watten in 1985 or so when I wrote my piece called "Language Poetry in the 80s." Shortly thereafter I met Watten and Ron Silliman; we had coffee in Berkeley. At that point Watten was not yet belligerent. Soon, however, I witnessed his abusiveness first hand, namely at one of the conferences … Continue reading Account from Marjorie Perloff, poetry scholar and Humanities Professor at Stanford University →

Account by Craig Dworkin, Professor, English, University of Utah

Like many in the sub-sub-field of contemporary poetry and poetics, I have encountered Barrett Watten’s unprofessional, infantile, petulant, and surprisingly rage-filled behavior first hand. Fortunately, I have always had the luxury of ignoring him for what he is, but want to add my account to corroborate the testimony of those who have been unable to avoid him. [Click heading to read more]

An account from Tracy Neumann, associate professor of history at Wayne State

In January 2017, Barrett and I had an email exchange that I now recognize reflects patterns described in other testimonies on this site: he tried to use a graduate student to mediate between us, he took no responsibility for his violent outburst and instead acted as though it was a mishap for which no one was at fault, and he entreated me to tell others that I bore no ill will toward him.
[Click heading to read more]

Clay Walker, current faculty at Wayne State University (and graduate of the PhD program in Composition and Rhetoric at WSU)

As a first year graduate student, I had no idea how to respond to someone of Barrett's stature and position; I felt intimidated by him every time I saw him around the department and I worked to evade walking by his office as much as possible.
[Click heading to read more]

Account from Bryan McCann, former assistant professor at Wayne State, current associate professor, LSU Dept. of Communication Studies

But my primary motivation for contributing to the powerful work on display here is to confirm that everything other people have shared from personal experience resonates strongly with Watten’s reputation. By the time I arrived at Wayne, his verbal attack against his colleague Kathryne Lindberg was still very much a topic of conversation. One longtime member of the faculty shared with me that he and many of our colleagues believed Watten's treatment of Lindberg contributed to her suicide. I also learned from another colleague that Watten had taken to bragging that, after Lindberg’s suicide, all his major adversaries in the department had either left or were dead.
[Click heading to read more]

Account from Richard Grusin, Former Wayne State Department of English Chair, Professor at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

"I am extremely troubled, as I presume you must be as well, by the fact that in just over a year of your tenure as interim chair, Barrett Watten has engaged in three instances of verbal and emotional violence against women in the department--a staff member, a graduate student, and a full professor, the last of which you witnessed yourself. These incidents have created a hostile atmosphere in the department, particularly but not exclusively for untenured female faculty."
[Click heading to read more]

Account from Brian Whitener, Professor at University of South Alabama

I am writing to corroborate a posting made by Marie Buck. I moved to Michigan in the summer of 2008 and became friends with Marie in the following year. I recall vividly a series of conversations about how to handle the situation with Barrett. In particular, I recall conversations discussing how to handle the voicemails Marie details, conversations concerning the creation of the record she has posted, and conversations after these events about how to navigate her PhD program and the social space of poetry in Detroit where Barrett is/was a figure.
[Click heading to read more]

An account from Donnie J. Sackey, former faculty member in the Wayne State Department of English

One of the most humiliating experiences as a faculty member was how he and another faculty member attacked me and another colleague (a woman of color) during a meeting. The other white faculty members sat quietly. Some reached out afterwards to talk about how racist it was.
[Click heading to read more]

An account from Jonathan Flatley, professor in the Wayne State Department of English

"The most frightening and concerning part of the interaction was Barrett’s angry, aggressive and threatening bodily posture and facial expression, even more than his also upsetting and offensive angry verbal outburst. The whole event was disturbing and distressing to witness."
[Click heading to read more]

An account from Tara Forbes, graduate of the Wayne State PhD program

"I have been informed that Barrett then confronted the male faculty member's partner, who is a woman faculty member (not from English), about her partner's behaviour. This is approximately when I entered the hallway of the Student Center (outside the teach-in room) and saw Barrett shouting at the woman faculty member, including telling her to keep her husband in line, and that her husband only approached him because he was jealous of Barrett being "an intellectual male presence" in the woman faculty member's life."
[Click heading to read more]

Account from Nick Fleisher, former faculty member in the Wayne State Department of English

I was only at Wayne for three years, as an assistant professor on the other side of the department, so my encounters with BW were relatively limited. In my third and final year there I chaired the department’s Policy Committee, and BW had some issue he was very angry about, which caused him to draft a lengthy and strident email to the faculty list . . .
[Click heading to read more]