The figuring it out at kitchen tables

The poem Yale professor, Elizabeth Alexander wrote for the President's inauguration embodies everything I despise about bad poetry.  And then some.



The rest of the day was inspiring and joyous, but this pile of poo just pisses me off.

The poem is utterly meaningless. It breaches and abandons five different themes. The praise song (which never materializes except by saying the words "praise song," which does not make it a praise song). Walking. Speaking. People doing random crap. Love and light.

The poem leaves me with more questions than answers, which is not a bad thing for a poem, I suppose, except the questions are, "is this professor functionally literate?" "does she know what a praise song is?" "does she know how to complete a thought and communicate it in written words?" "does she know what a poem is and the difference between a poem and a list?" "does she know what a cliché is and how to avoid one?" (no!) "If I called this poem hackneyed, would she recognize that as an insult?"

 
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