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Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Full of Shit

 


This is what I think of the Amanda Gorman kind of poet. Nobody ever gave her a critique of her writing. She spent her whole life in private school and Harvard hearing how great she was. My colleagues on facebook gush about her awful writing. 

5 comments:

Leslie B. said...

I'm the world's meanest person because I notice that now single mothers and children of single mothers are saints. Not that I'm for the nuclear two parent family and all that -- I just notice that if you're part of a single mother family *and* you've had some kind of disability you overcame then your poetry is by definition good. And I know there is no way to make this wry remark without being called mean.

Jonathan said...

People in my social and facebook circles are gushing over her poems. These are professors of Spanish or English, or poets themselves. One person, I don't know all the well in real life, was complaining about negative opinions, even though I wasn't seeing any. This isn't really the first tine "poetry" was in the superbowl, because it isn't really any more poetic than the average ad copy. It's like saying literature is at the superbowl because of the commercials.

Leslie B. said...

Well, it's pedestrian but I've seen worse. Here's a translation I did lately, of something I find self-indulgent:

“Where Sparkling the Sicilian Sea”

Watch out, a thin membrane is one thing
And a thin member is quite another
And is practically all we have left
Old prostatic incontinent men
Well past our sell-by dates, the joke was
That it was the 28th of the month at least
Without counting the extra days
Of our imaginary desire
Around the neighborhood, the parish
“I cannot deal with her
But I can still deal with poetry”
Said an octogenarian friend and poet
Yet I still hide
My hands open for her
For her bare thighs her feet
Her soles with slight grooves of soil
That I caress parsimoniously
Erect among the alleys of my district
Defiant before the narrow streets of the world
“So wretched”

Jonathan said...

Wow. It certainly is self-indulgent and precious.

Leslie B. said...

Yes. And like, ick -- the idea that this is cute, that anyone but a nurse can deal with it, the refusal to realize that even a nurse would be looking away. It's important not to have dinner with anyone over 45 if this is how they get later.