The editors of the 2015 edition of the Best American Poetry anthology have come under fire for including work by a white poet who used a Chinese pen name.

Yi-Fen Chou, as it is revealed in the bio at the back of the book, is really Michael Derrick Hudson of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Here, Hudson explains that the poem chosen for the anthology, “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve,” was rejected under his real name forty times before he sent it out as Yi-Fen Chou, which was rejected only nine times before it was accepted.

“If indeed this is one of the best American poems of 2015, it took quite a bit of effort to get it into print, but I’m nothing if not persistent,” Hudson writes.

Sherman Alexie, who identifies as Spokane/Coeur d’Alene Indian and guest-edited the anthology (with series editor David Lehman), defended the inclusion of Hudson’s work in a post on the Best American Poetry blog, in which he argued that he only learned that Yi-Fen Chou was Hudson’s pseudonym after he had picked the poem.

“Of course, I was angry at the subterfuge and at myself for being fooled by this guy. I silently cursed him and wondered how I would deal with this colonial theft. So I went back and reread the poem to figure out exactly how I had been fooled and to consider my potential actions and reactions.”

The poem’s no less compelling under Hudson’s true name, Alexie writes, and to jettison the poem would be out of embarrassment and a conscious effort to address past injustices in the poetry world, not because the poem isn’t good.

Many praised Alexie’s response, but many also disagreed. Brian Spears, poetry editor for The Rumpus, argues against the claim implicit in Hudson’s bio—that there’s an unfair advantage to being a writer of color.

“[T]here’s no indication outside of Hudson’s narrative that the yellowface he adopted had anything to do with the acceptance of the poem,” he writes. “Isn’t it more likely that his persistence had more to do with the poem finding a home than his choice of an Asian name?”

Read Slate writer Katy Waldman’s opinion, in which she argues that “the criteria editors apply to separate one tangle of beautiful poems from another will obviously have less to do with the beautiful poems themselves than with the kind of artistic community we want to nurture—one in which people of all backgrounds can speak their particular and irreplaceable truths.”

Read other opinions from blogger Angry Asian Man, Megan Garber, and Conor Friedersdorf. You can purchase a copy of the anthology, which includes work by poets Emma Bolden, Jericho Brown, Rafael Campo, Natalie Diaz, Denise Duhamel, Saeed Jones, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Claudia Rankine, Jane Wong, and many others.

Michael Derrick Hudson photo: Poetry Foundation site.