I am so bored by your average run of the mill 'name' critic. I just read this article by Adam Kirsch about that tedious poem that was read at Obama's inauguration. Kirsch at least mentions the word "cliché" at the end of the piece, but otherwise it's the same stuffy literary bullshit that never gets to the point. Ok, Adam, we get that you know lots about Virgil. Thanks for the history lesson.
I get annoyed that so many critics of poetry just cannot get to the point, because they are too busy showing how "literary" they are. The reason the poem sucked is because it was prosaic and lacking in music, full of trite, clichéd or flat phrasing, and because it was just a dull use of the language.
A lot of bad poems fail for these reasons. If Kirsch and other critics and editors could recognize this, they could save us all a few yawns.
Monday, January 26, 2009
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2 comments:
Angelou's poem was worse than this chick's. I hate the phrase about not fighting the institution but joining it. The fact that he'd compare this hack to Obama is ridiculous.
That's the problem with all the bad, contemporary poets out there: she's like all of them. Impressive resume (prof at Yale, Pulitzer Prize finalist) and yet that poem sounded like it could have been written on a napkin somewhere and tossed into the trash.
"Don't fight the institution but join it," is not advice to live by. That's why we have so many shitty writers out there winning awards.
And yes, he gives the typical crit we spoke about, flowering it up with Virgil, only mentioning one or 2 bad phrases. He could have underlined the entire poem since it was all cliched crap. No one will remember this woman. No one remembers the guy who read at Clinton's and people would forget Angelou but you have that Doprah idiot who keeps talking about her and the publishers keep allowing her to put out her lame cookbooks and "feel good" tripe.
New profile image. Kiwi says hi.
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