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!

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!

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.

“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.