Poetry Makes Nothing Happen? Ask Laura Bush (barf alert)

The Nation ^ | 2/24/2003 | Katha Pollitt

[Lauratealeaf]

Then the Secret Service would be forced to drag their sorry behinds outside where their little photography chums would chronicle the fiasco for some cruddy coffee table book that the libs would purchase with adolescent glee.

Oh yes! They were salivating for those images.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I feel sorry for Hamill and all of the other poets who were hurt by this. I think i'll send them something. Anyone know if Hallmark makes a card that says "Sorry that you couldn't urinate on America at The White House?" I'm sure it would make them feel better.

[hoosiermama]

Here's my contribution:

Sadamm
Fight Flight
No place to go!
Dead

[Askel5]

what does "contrast gainer" mean?

this has nothing to do with the plaid pants, does it?

[Brad’s Gramma]

Roses can be
read when they're ritten about in

a book
and violets may be
blew if they are blewed
around the yerd on a windy day.

But that has nuthin' da do wi-
th a war agin a baaaaa-
d
man
and my daughters who are
more beuutefull then

the day
don't care fer my political
love of
(what were we discussing?)

stuff.

But they don't have private
jets to
fling around in so you know like
they need to no that they haf a safe
werld to life
in
to.


And they no that Saddam Hoosang is
not a nice
man so they think
we should
go
boom
boom
and get rid of him.

---

Do you think I could be a great poet someday, too?
Thank you, Katha Pollitt, for not disgracing the White House with your "presence".

[MJY1288]

The anti-war poetry is so incoherant and it reflects in their message. In fact I wouldn't give it the dignity of giving their spew the lebel of "Message". I would label it an "Outburst" of ignorance from the un-informed

[hoosiermama]

I like your better than mine.

[SpringheelJack]

And they demonstrated their fear of the carefully chosen word--their fear of poetry."

Nobody fears bad American poetry. I'd imagine that the Bushes just don't like being insulted to their face by morons.

Mark Twain, whom she calls the "first real American writer," so eat your heart out Bradstreet, Edwards, Franklin, Irving, Douglass, Emerson, Thoreau (especially you, Henry, you civilly disobedient antiwar tree-hugger, you).

I wouldn't call Twain the "first real American writer," but I think it's obvious what she meant. Do you notice a difference between Twain's writing style and those of the other writers mentioned? You should: they're tremendously different. Emerson and Thoreau and the rest of the bunch are all wordy and indebted, stylistically, to English models; Twain isn't, and most American writing in the 20th century has followed Twain in that regard.

if they're willing to forgo all that, antiwar feeling must be positively rampaging across the land.

No --- it's just that the asshole quotient is higher among mediocre American poets.

"There is nothing political about American literature," Laura Bush has said. But it would be hard to find writers more subversive than the three she chose for her event. Whitman's epic of radical democracy, Leaves of Grass, was so scandalous it got him fired from his government job;

But not for the book's politics. Whitman's boss thought it was indecent because of some of its frank depictions of sexuality.

Hughes, a Communist sympathizer hounded by McCarthy, wrote constantly and indelibly about racism, injustice, power;

Okay.

Dickinson might seem the least political, but in some ways she was the most lastingly so--every line she wrote is an attack on complacency and conformity of manners, mores, religion, language, gender, thought.

That's exaggerated BS of course; Dickinson wasn't political --- in fact, she was one of the least political poets America has ever had. Nobody honestly dealing with her poetry can pretend otherwise.

None of these quintessentially American writers would have given two cents for family values (Whitman was gay, as perhaps were Hughes and Dickinson), abstinence education, the death penalty, tax cuts for the rich, Ashcroftian attacks on civil liberties or the other hallmarks of the Bush regime. It's hard to imagine them cheering the bombing of Baghdad.

Hughes would be opposed, Dickinson wouldn't care, while Whitman would almost certainly be for it: he was a big trumpeter of spreading American democracy around the world, and believed strongly that it was worth fighting for. He certainly would have no truck for a guy like Saddam Hussein, a man opposed to every single thing Whitman held sacred.

[dansangel]

Miss Pollitt, the pompous, self-righteous b*tch, is getting an e-mail I hope she enjoys with her morning coffee....NOT!!!!

[happygrl]

If Mrs. Bush had done the sensible thing and invited Cowboy Poets, she wouldn't have had her symposium stampeded by these effete dandies.

[lsee]

Oh, AntiJen, most EXCELLENT!

[Jen]

Aw shucks! Thanks. hehehehehe

[Nea Wood]

LOL! I love it! I hope you're sending it to her.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Bravo! I needed a good laugh this morning. Your skills are already way beyond Amiri Baraka's.

[Jen]

I emailed my poem (?) to The Nation which printed Ms Pollit's. You think they'll print it?? hahahahaha

[Corporate Law]

Thanks for the ping. I am certain that these lowlifes would have had a hissy if conservative tried to turn an invitation to speak in a Clinton White House forum into a diatribe against the bombing of Bosnia and Kosovo.

[Alouette]

my daughter
who hates politics
and does not care much for poetry

Is this the same daughter who asked her Ma for a little flag, just a little one, to fly from her own room, after 9/11? And Ma said YOU'RE GROUNDED!

[Utah Girl]

Yes, it is the same daughter. I'll bet there are battles royale in that household.

[Alouette]

it is the same daughter. I'll bet there are battles royale in that household.

I'm going to predict that this daughter will rebel, become a born-again Christian and marry a U.S. Marine.

[vikingchick]

That is absolutely hysterical!

Perhaps you should go
mail yourself to the moon
or marry a palm tree
or some other kinky thing
that I do not understand.

ROFL!