Dear Crew of the USS Tom Clancy, Thank you so much for subscribing to The Hunt for Tom Clancy, the world’s finest exegesis of current events through the lens of a Maryland Insurance Salesman turned Pentagon Propagandist. Today I’m going to talk about Jeffrey Epstein and Harvard Poetry and how that relates to the former President of the University of Virginia, Jim Ryan. I’ve got to foreground some of this, though, so be patient (or just skip ahead if you’re impatient). -Matt
• • If you’ve been on board with The Hunt for Tom Clancy for a minute then you know I’ve been on the Jeffrey Epstein beat for a long time, generally probing into the areas—like his giant New Mexico ranch Zorro—that are occulted by the mainstream media’s focus on New York. An example is this piece:
Now, in Spanish, Zorro means Fox. The Newfields Museum of Art in Indianapolis (https://collections.discovernewfields.org/art/artwork/17160) has this character study for the Pinocchio Villain Honest John…a well-dressed Fox who lures children off to Pleasure Island.
Here’s a clip if you need a refresher. I’ve also written quite a bit about the way the modern practice of American counter-intelligence emerged from and remained close to the world of American academic poetry. Basically, James Angleton was a Yale trained poet who recruited other Yale trained poets to be spies; the poet/spy dual identity thing goes way back, but many English poets were also spies and the Americans kept up that tradition. For more on that may I recommend my Master’s thesis from the University of Virginia (https://libraetd.lib.virginia.edu/public_view/0z708z16q) entitled “The Anxiety of [Covert] Influence: Frank Wisner and The [Secret] Bond Between English Literature and American Espionage.” Chapter five of that master’s thesis plus these two pieces should bring you up to speed. Finally, we can get to the poetry. Jeffrey Epstein was apparently a big fan. Here’s a poem, with an accompanying sketch, to Epstein from Donald Trump • • Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? So, here’s an Enigma for you. In what world would one consider having Woody Allen deliver a lecture on poetry, sincerity and morality to middle school teachers in a project advised by Jeffrey Epstein a good idea?
Harvard, apparently. The world of Harvard. Elisa New, an English professor and spouse of Harvard’s President Larry Summers thought this was a great idea, along with her organization Poetry in America (a collaboration between Harvard’s Programs in Professional Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education).
• • Lisa New, Harvard’s Powell M Cabot Professor of American Literature (now Emerita), author of The Regenerate Lyric: Theology and Innovation in American Poetry, spearheaded the idea and kept up with Jeffrey Epstein about it. • • Interestingly enough the man who’s signature is on my University of Virginia Master’s Degree, Jim Ryan, is also on this list of interviewees. He was Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education at the time (from 2013-2018). To Read on, you must become a paid subscriber. If you become a paid subscriber, there is a wealth of bounty in the archives. You can’t lose. Subscribe today

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       (https://thehuntfortomclancy.substack.com/p/the-poetics-of-jeffrey-epstein)