Hatred of Poets Can Bring Us Together

Trash on the left and right, let's put our heads together.

I despise poets. They’re useless, the leftwing foil to an obese MAGA police officer/little-league coach who wears the uniform, gut hanging out, always in Colorado, egomaniacs bothering people going about their day, these hacks win awards, the applause is forced, and we’re all thinking the same thing, whether it be Officer Kowsarski or even more commonly Gomez at this point, or, ick, Ocean Vuong, who just won a MacArthur Fellowship and is a tenured professor at NYU at the age of thirty-six, I think I’m choking on my cake, just nobody will say it, let’s just make it through this and put the kids to bed and get really weird with each other.

The federal government just gave this man $800,000 dollars to write poetry. A grant. Could he have not held down a barista position at the same time? This is a scam. Fuck DOGE, but I see why people stray from reality and embrace the right. This garbage is pissing people off and they’re too confused to know how to express themselves so they vote for Trump.

I’m convinced all poets, despite apparently writing a whopping 100 words a month, are too occupied with their own assholes and also probably too stupid to learn three chords on a guitar, so they have to posture as being smart, and humble, to compensate.

There’s no way they couldn’t be humble really. Could you imagine a really confident poet? That guy, or they, would get beaten to shreds at a Joni Mitchell concert.

The guitar, for example, would make them a songwriter, something nobody minds, as opposed to a poet, something everyone hates.

There is absolutely zero question that the bass player in Oasis is more talented than the best poet in the world. It is not up for debate.

Untalented people used to give themselves medals for poetry in the Olympics. True story. They didn’t have any actual talent, so they resorted to poetry, the artistic equivalent of giving handjobs in a Greyhound bathroom.

They couldn’t fake sprinting. They sucked at everything. They became poets.

Here is a poet with some discernible talent on top of it, kind of the merger rule in criminal law, notice it’s something not everyone can do, throwing paint on the wall, try and play it, it’s not so easy, not like writing sixty words while playing with your puffy nipples.

I don’t mean to pick on Ocean Vuong so much, although he is insufferable, I just happened to read his profile in the New York Times and it reignited my disdain for poets.

They’re usually easily avoidable. Just step over them on your way to participating in the economy. But every now and then they blow their way to the top and assault me in the Times when I’m just trying to read about the Trump administration purposefully tanking the economy because they don’t have any actual ideas, so they’re going to run on the economy sucking.

Anyway my dad used to say sarcasm was the lowest form of humor. He said this constantly. I don’t know why. But poetry is the lowest form of art.

Allow me to prove my point. Below are three poems. One of which was written by Ocean Vuong, who won a genius grant, and the other two were written by me in seven minutes.

Please without cheating, read the three following poems. I know it’s a chore and reading poetry feels like sticking a needle in your ear, but bear with me.

There’s a poll I’ve attached. Tell me which one is written by the genius, A, B, or C, and which one was written by an adult baby.

*And I didn’t use AI. Although I could have. AI won’t replace our jobs.

It will, however, replace jobs that were obsolete a thousand years ago, such as philosopher, stone mason, poet, bootblack, and anyone else who smells like they’re wearing a diaper.

I’ll address Ocean Vuong after this one genius poem and two indistinguishable poems, but please realize he’s a pretentious gay guy.

I know, this is shocking. It’s like as if your mechanic was a racist, and this is all a laughable cliche, perhaps an MKA ULTRA or COINTELPRO plot to make people hate liberals and get a fascist elected.

Do I really believe that?

Yes, in no uncertain terms, absolutely. I also think a contributing factor is that all of these fake artists are extorting someone in the government for being a fellow pedophile.

One of these is real. Two are not. Please Vote. Do it for yourself and for your country.

* I’m going to use the same title as well as format for all three poems (two fake, one genius) to eliminate as many variables as possible, but also to draw attention to the fact that the title is straight butt and seems like something a ten-year-old would think was deep:

A

Torso of Air

Suppose you do change your life.

& the body is more than

a portion of night––sealed

with bruises. Suppose you woke

& found your shadow replaced

by a black wolf. The boy, beautiful

& gone. So you take the knife to the wall

instead. You carve & carve

until a coin of light appears

& you get to look in, at last,

on happiness. The eye

staring back from the other side––

waiting.

Jack and Billy play.

B

Torso of Air

Tighten your back, crease

that fight they had about

while they thought you were sleeping duly

in low whispers -- as in a plied home built of

bamboo, grease being the agent

& now him drives you to the market,

you have been there again now

rejoice

& as you hear the terse whispers but

the lemon grass screens it

i’ll give her o u r regards

& you can bring it to us loaded

the door squeaky

Jack and Billy play.

C

Torso of Air

They washed her mouth out

on the train

& what she had inside of it

left a mark on the outer window

let me make up my face

& get me a thing I can take it

between the cars

I look out

It’s all yellow, all bright

& then stormy and the wash comes

over o u r heads and we squirm but

we are only kidding

Jack and Billy play.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS OCEAN. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS OCEAN. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU INDULGE YOURSELF TO THE POINT THAT EVERYONE WANTS YOU AND THE COUNTRY TO FAIL.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS OCEAN. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS, TYLER FOGATT (real name, no comment, senior editor of the New Yorker.)

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU INDULGE YOURSELF TO THE POINT THAT EVERYONE WANTS THE COUNTRY TO FAIL.

Donald Trump.

Also, I added “Jack and Billy play” to each poem because I like to make fun of how abysmally corny poetry is. It didn’t appear in Ocean Vuong’s poem. This is strictly parody. I get the feeling Vuong is the type of person who files frivolous lawsuits.

He’s also been raised in America since the age of two, and has a very interesting biography and an immigration struggle that should be respected, yet he says he worked at “a place called Panera… and a place called Boston Market” because he’s a shill, wittingly or not, twisting your arm to go right.

Let’s resist.