96 Comments

She is praised by people who don’t read real poetry. Real poetry is no longer taught in K-12.

The West has a long tradition of poetry. Might be good to get to know it before gushing over such juvenile stuff.

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Roses are red, violets are blue, I support the current thing, and so must you!

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Red is the rose, green is the grass, the woke commissars can all kiss my ass!

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This is the face of affirmative action and too big to fail.

A place where you are encouraged to use large type and double spacing.

A place where creativity can be created by emancipating it from someone who's work product is novel.

A magical utopia where parenthesis can walk off pages, free of their shackles .

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Exactly my question. Where the F is the poetry? Repeting leftist propaganda in short lines is not a poem. Wtf.

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Well you see being innovative, creative, producing truth and beauty is a White Western construct which must be demonized and destroyed because racist.

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Was wondering the same. 😂

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No shite! That poem could’ve been written by an elementary school kid! Wow! I am really shocked.

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She is praised by people who can barely read.

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She is a literal, breathing Google Gemini AI construct.

"Gemini, show me a picture of 'failing upwards' due to family wealth and connections."

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With a dash of Maya Angelou pomposity.

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🎯!!!

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Lol. Exactly!

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Color of skin>>>talent in today's America, as far as the regime is concerned. And ESG will bring it worldwide.

Gorman is doing to poetry what Lysenko did to science.

Did anyone else notice that the first name of one of the poet laureates is Jellystone?

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Makes you think twice about flying or surgery, right?!

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And law, accounting, plumbing, vehicle maintenance, you name it.

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Desperately tracking older surgeons and dentists .....

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I betcha John Holliday's a good dentist...he ain't putting up with that shit

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I thought that was where Yogi Bear and Boo Boo lived.

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Like the inhabitants of that mythical park, Ms Jellystone looks like she raids her fair share of pic-a-nic baskets too.

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There is a certain dullness of the intellect that must be required to even accept this is as poetry, never mind exalt it.

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They know it’s terrible. It isn’t about the work, it’s just an opportunity to be seen praising a non-white woman while embracing their own self-hatred.

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Mmm, I don’t think there’s real self-hatred there. It’s self-aggrandisement (I can self-flagellate better than you!!)

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The tragic part isn’t the politics, it’s the terrible, terrible “poetry.” We have lost so much through our degrading modern educational system, and one of the greatest losses is the ability to read and appreciate great poetry. For those like me who were robbed of this by ignorant teachers, a great book to help you start liking poetry, and teaching your kids about it, is called Doorways to Poetry by Louis Untermeyer:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0595006523/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

He has a whole fun section at the end mocking bad poetry and explaining what makes it bad. He would have had a field day with ms Gorman…

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My parents bought me Louis Untermeyer's Golden Treasury of Poetry when I was a child. Far better than anything I was taught in school!

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Thanks for the reference, will get for the grandkids.

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This poem is truly awful - boring, banal, mediocre, hackneyed, supercilious - and mildly nauseating.

Elevating, indeed exalting this jumped-up, no-talent, little shit will eventually end badly for her.

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Let me share with you a little of my own work. Yes, I have applied for the MacArthur, the Rhodes. Was told I lacked "a diverse background" despite a lineage of French Acadian, Spanish, and Choctaw. So unfair. Here's one of my early pieces:

incessant cawing from a crow out back

gorgeous black feline

lounging on the deck no idea

whose cat that is but

that is

definitely not a stray

“oh glorious, glorious fuckery today!!” yes

I am poet laureate, in both

deed, and dead

and, in fact, I say

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Needs more sanctimonious victimhood.

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A randomized heroic couplet generator would make a more interesting read. And even the Davos bird singing lady was more interesting and pellucid, plus entertaining. But I am sure this poet will handle the national debt and defense with aplomb.

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Amanda Gorman vs Greta Thunberg in a no holds barred cage match. Winner takes all.

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They’d probably just end up making out.

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Only on Netflix would such unnameable woke smooches take place.

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I think the cancer has metastasized farther than that….

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How to "climb" a hill by stringing together a long series of cliches, hitching that to the media machine. Eat grapes and watch the scenery as you are celebrated as a "poet," hauled up the mountain of accomplishment and fame.

So greatness in the modern age is the triumph of rank mediocrity, elevated artificially? They literally destroy everything they touch. A sea we must wade indeed. More like a cesspool of low expectations.

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That isn’t a poem. It’s a whine. And a horrid one at that. And hypocritical as all democrats are. Wow. And doesn’t diversity have to include those of no color? Like unidentifiable races? White people? I guess only if you’re black do you fit in. They keep using that word. Diversity. I don’t think it means what they think it means.

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Who's the lease diverse person in every organization?

The Chief Diversity Officer!

Go figure, right?

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The anointed Golden Child becomes the most malignant of all.

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poet 😂

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I remember, more than anything, the robotic hand gestures of Gorman. If it were left alone as a one-time performance, it would be little more than an extra-event of the inauguration. But it did not stop there-the Super Bowl? Re-reads on popular talk shows? Pushing the poem as a brand?

Poetry does not do this. Poetry does not garner this much attention from the general population. I had a slight cringe when I heard Swift`s new album was called "The Tortured Poets Department". With Swift, we have yet another poet or "poet" who has been connected to the Super Bowl. Ironic. Poets do not pen poetry from a private jet, poets don't date quarterbacks, either. As much as I do not want to make hard and fast rules about what constitutes an artist or poet- I slightly mourn the old idea of what these terms meant, what they represented. But something already mentioned- those who are deeply moved, knowledgeable, appreciative and active in their pursuit of the arts won't fall for any of this. Amanda Gorman is a political stunt with a Gorman Vs. Goliath (racism, etc.) aspect. Only way it could work. When looking over her CV- it is clear that being a poet, simply, is not good enough. The awards- ugh.

As a dedicated artist who is also a straight white male- I would never, ever, throw my name in the hat of anything in hopes of being "chosen". The only option that makes sense is to keep the head down, work on the craft, and maybe this nonsense of marginalized voices will blow over one day.

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She writes Friday night poems.

The Need for Saturday Poetry

There are those who write Friday night poems,

manic, frantic poems of word grenades

that are thrown in your face

fiercely and emotionally

with no thought to consequence,

restraint, or the future.

“It is here, man,

it is in your face and your mamma’s face

and dig it, I don’t give a

[choose your favorite curse word]

see, man, it is my poem,

my poem that matters,

and only I matter

in this world’s creation, man,

understan’ what I’m sayin’...”

and the poet leaves the stage and spotlight

to screams and high fives

and another shot and beer

as institutional

as the poem was not.

There are those who write Sunday afternoon poetry,

wonders of iambic pentameter and tetrarch

and word constructions so dense and thick

that the early settlers to American,

had they faced the same forest of words,

never would have made it past

the white sands of the Eastern Seaboard

great pedantic wonders of words on page

and now on the Internet’s wall beckoning

but leaving the soul as cheated and empty

as stomachs fed on grass in a famine.

these poetry Pharisees and Seduces

leave the lectern and seminar

to the abject loneliness of the desk

with no window and soldier on,

cursing their superior’s orders

while religiously obeying them.

Others write Saturday poetry,

work and art poetry,

poetry that takes

the everyday and routine

and knows that, yes,

the baby must be fed,

but the baby has always to be fed

not only the sweet

and nutritious mothers’ milk,

but the poetry and song

and gentle mental caress

of the word well turned,

so that generations hence,

poetry is still sung to the baby

whose eyes dart back and forth

in half sleep and is touched

in the deepest corners of their minds

by words that connect them again

to the peace of the womb

and the ultimate peace of Heaven:

Like Emily Dickinson,

they scrub the floors

of the Halls of Poetry

just to raise their heads

occasionally

to hear the angels, sing.

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Who to credit for great poetry?

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Excellent.

Real poetry?

Even Shakespeare couldn't beat the lyrics from West Side Story

- Puerto Rico my heart’s devotion

Let it sink back in the ocean!

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More like "I'm depraved on account I'm deprived!" -- West Side Story

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Touche!

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