Dissing Poetry Again...

I've made a decision to pretty much leave any comment on the political campaigns to my own personal blog.  Figured my work on other blogs (rare are it is) should be focused.  So I blog about poetry here.

But I have to say this morning's column by E.J. Dionne alerted me to the recurring belittling of poetry.

Yesterday Hillary Clinton said:

"You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose."

Ugh.   Perhaps this sentiment is not surprising coming from the candidate with a real lack of poetic articulation.

But what does this mean anyway?  That you govern in the closed single layer?  I'm trying to think of how such a flippant (and stupid) comment like this plays out.  So no prosody in governance. And if one has very little poetry in one's campaign (ahem.. Hillary) what does that leave for your governance?

The whole thing is just another irritating note.

Comments

[Mgushuedc]

Let's see, Hillary says you campaign in poetry, but Laura Bush says that there's nothing political about American Poetry. So here are some alternatives:

You campaign in Cheerios, you govern in Fruit Loops.

You campaign in disco, you govern in thrash metal.

You campaign in chocolate chip cookies, you govern in broccoli.

You campaign in taffeta, you govern in gingham.

You campaign behind a force field of lies, you govern in a secret fortress of power.