We all have off days. Not every poem is a good one. So was that a terrible poem or is Elizabeth Alexander a terrible poet? Well, I just spend a whole three minutes on her web page and I can say with complete certainty that she is a terrible poet. She is to poetry approximately what Rick Warren is to theology. So… Why?!!! Politics has its reasons.
But don’t take my word for it. Have you read “Neonatology,” by Elizabeth Alexander? Here is the beginning, offered for your personal evaluation.
—
Neonatology
Is
funky, is
leaky, is
a soggy, bloody crotch, is
sharp jets of breast milk shot straight across the room,
is gaudy, mustard-colored poop, is
postpartum tears that soak the baby’s lovely head.
Then everything dries and disappears
Then everything dries and disappears
Neonatology
—
In my opinion, that’s the best part.
I guess she's going for establishing some sort of disgust reaction which then causes the reader to question his or her thoughts about femininity. But…it sucks. All it evokes is confusion as to why on earth anyone is writing bad free verse poetry about medical care for premature infants.
Come on! Don't you know that she's “one of the most vital poets of her generation”, and is “a pivotal figure in American poetry”? I read it on her website, so it must be true.
Isn't terrible poet redundant?
She is also incredibly bad at reading poetry. In this age of free form poetry – how it is delivered seems almost as important as what is written – and the thing her delivery most resembled is when someone is giving a powerpoint presentation that they didn't bother to read ahead of time.
That is really mean. I mean is Rick Warren really suggesting that he is doing theology? At least the poet is in the largely circumscribed area of poetry…
Thank you for confirming my opinion of the poetry of Elizabeth Alexander. Obama could have just just looked (literally) around the corner and picked US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan. It might have been short, but it would have been fun and much better. (As it was Lowery was the one with the poetry yesterday.)
That old chestnut, “No poetry after the holocaust.” may have just been an observation, not a proclamation.
Reads like Vogon Poetry.
Isn't terrible poet redundant?
Pretty much.
I mean, know I'm missing something when it comes to poetry. Enough people “get it” (and have “gotten it” for eons) that I readily concede it's ME who has the blind spot. I know they're not just inventing their appreciation out of thin air.
But it's just never clicked. I adore language, but poetry feels like happenstance to me — the happenstance that human beings arbitrarily applied certain meanings to certain sounds. Most every other art form is based on the human manipulation of natural sources: sound, color, light. That's the beauty of it.
But poetry is just the manipulation of something whose very existence was manipulated in the first place. Other art is about creating meaning; poetry strikes me as just playing around with meaning.
KW – First, thank you for the laugh. Secondly, I think the Vogon poetry I've heard is far more lyrical and moving than the work of Elizabeth Alexander.
I couldn't tell if Ms. Alexander wrote this piece using one of those refrigerator magnet sets, or if she dashed it off at a drunken poetry slam, or maybe she just asked Sarah Palin to put some “finishing touches” on it for her, and didn't have time to double-check before she started to read it.
Admittedly, I am no massively-published, well-connected Yale professor. However, as a humble high school speech coach and judge, I can tell you that any high school student who wrote and performed that piece exactly as she did would have earned nothing higher than a II rating – at the district level (assuming a kind-hearted judge).
I'm sorry – I may be mincing words.
I didn't care for the inaugural poem. In my unimportant opinion, it was poorly read, bizarrely disjointed, and felt like a humorless spoof on the work of Maya Angelou.
Suggesting that she was somehow “courageous” to stand at the podium and read work she herself wrote is a little patronizing.
Nobody held a gun to her head and forced her onto that stage. It was a huge honor for which many writers would gladly give any body part required. How frustrating for them to watch her fritter away the opportunity through what seemed like a simple lack of preparation or rehearsal.
Maybe Obama called her the night before and said, “Hey, Liz! I have this little ceremony-thing tomorrow and thought it would be a scream to have you give one of your random-word fake out monologues that make the uber-intellectuals all quiver with inferred meaning! Are you in?”
If that is the case, then I guess it didn't totally stink. In fact, that would actually be kind of funny.
Is hurl
Oh freddled gruntbuggly
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!
Ok, since the conversation has got this far, WW, let me confess the poem that came to my mind for our moment, its weird mixture of hope and confusion, with everything all effed-up, our desire to solve problems and our fear of those solutions, is John Asbery's Soonest Mended, esp. the part of the first stanza:
“This was our ambition: to be small and clear and free.
Alas, the summer’s energy wanes quickly,
A moment and it is gone. And no longer
May we make the necessary arrangements, simple as they are.
Our star was brighter perhaps when it had water in it.
Now there is no question even of that, but only
Of holding on to the hard earth so as not to get thrown off,
With an occasional dream, a vision: a robin flies across
The upper corner of the window, you brush your hair away
And cannot quite see, or a wound will flash
Against the sweet faces of the others, something like:
This is what you wanted to hear, so why
Did you think of listening to something else? We are all talkers
It is true, but underneath the talk lies
The moving and not wanting to be moved, the loose
Meaning, untidy and simple like a threshing floor. “
Neat. Reminds me of Mark Strand, who is also awesome.
Now THAT'S poetry!
Ahhhh…..thank you for that! It cleansed my mind's poetry palate (which needed a good scrubbing after yesterday)
Yep. Excellent retort to those who believe there is no good contemporary poetry.
Tom,
“Most every other art form is based on the human manipulation of natural sources: sound, color, light. That's the beauty of it.
But poetry is just the manipulation of something whose very existence was manipulated in the first place.”
Ever read a book before? Same idea.
You just don't know shit about beauty, man.
you guys are crazy! read the rest of the poem and you will see, at least this poem is great! To show only 5% of the poem is manipulation, either show the whole thing or nothing and give a link. here's the part that follows:
is day into night into day,
light into dark into light, semi-
and full-fledged, hyperconscious,
is funky, is funny: the baby farts,
we laugh. The baby burps, we smile, say “Yes.”
The baby poops, his whole body stiffens,
then steam heat floods the pipes.
He slashes his nose with nails we cannot bear to trim,
takes a nap, and the wounds disappear.
The spirit lives in your squirts and coos.
Your noises and fluids are what you do.
Neonatology
is what we cannot see: you speak to the birds,
the birds speak back, is solemn,
singing, funky, frightening,
buckets of tears on the baby’s lovely head, is
spongy.
___________
I don't like all of her poems either, I think the inaugural poem was crap, but this one is not.
I can't believe she teaches at Yale. Forget about delivery, her poetry is so juvenile (and not in a good way). Shouldn't you have to do more than make a list to be Poet Laureate? Or at least have it be an interesting poetically worded list?
This poem was typical of the modern university educated politically liberal poet.
Apparently, we are expected to accept regurgitated ideas, rhythms and images from the great poets of the past as though they are something wonderful and new. Well, they were wonderful when they were original and when their poetic execution made sense. Now, this Alexander woman has made a hash of it. This is an embarrassment for America.
I have spent a lot of time in different colleges and universities in recent years and I have seen this crap everywhere. One of these days we are going to have to wake up and see that a person who is able to string words together is not a writer or a poet. A person who memorizes the days lesson and graduates at the top of their class because they are the best at regurgitating is not a genius.
It takes both creative discipline and genius to be a poet.
Elizabeth Alexander has neither!
This poem was typical of the modern university educated politically liberal poet.
Apparently, we are expected to accept regurgitated ideas, rhythms and images from the great poets of the past as though they are something wonderful and new. Well, they were wonderful when they were original and when their poetic execution made sense. Now, this Alexander woman has made a hash of it. This is an embarrassment for America.
I have spent a lot of time in different colleges and universities in recent years and I have seen this crap everywhere. One of these days we are going to have to wake up and see that a person who is able to string words together is not a writer or a poet. A person who memorizes the days lesson and graduates at the top of their class because they are the best at regurgitating is not a genius.
It takes both creative discipline and genius to be a poet.
Elizabeth Alexander has neither!