Elizabeth Barrett Browning has officially been cancelled by Poetry Foundation, publishers of Poetry magazine. The announcement comes as it relates to Poetry Foundations 2023-2025 strategic plan. One of the key purposes of the plan is to “underline principles reflecting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging, and commitment to anti-racism in all forms.” The strategy also states among its focus objectives is to, “Convene and sustain conversations about issues impacting poets…” This is to include, “conversations already taking place (e.g., poetry disability, mass incarceration, etc.)”
Based on these components of the strategy, fans of Poetry magazine were quick to point out correlations between guns and mass incarceration. This triggered a research effort that revealed an uncomfortable truth. John M. Browning, inventor of the machine gun, and Ronnie G. Barrett, founder of Barrett Firearms Manufacturing are both indirect descendants of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It didn’t take Twitter users long to make the connection between machine guns, war, and the disproportionate number of minorities in the military.
Soon the #MachineGunLizzy hashtag campaign lit up the Twitterverse, forcing Poetry Foundation to respond. They announced, “Elizabeth Barrett Browning is cancelled!”, and immediately deleted all of her content from their website. They also demanded the US Military take an anti-racist stand, suggesting they eliminate battle, and instead resolve conflicts with Poetry Slams. There was no official response from any branch of the military, or Department of Defense. However, the Commander In Chief, Joe Biden agreed that poetry could be the solution to world peace. “If we had more poetry and more hugs in this world, the war in Ukraine would never have, uh, I mean, Crimea, no, yes, no war anymore,” the president said.