» News
He don’t know it, but he ain’t a poet
Daily Caller
Poet James Franco wrote an Inauguration Day poem and it is awful
Renowned poet/ actor/ crazy person James Franco wrote a poem in honor of President Obama’s second inauguration and it is pretty awful.
Yahoo! News commissioned several renowned poets — plus Franco — to write inauguration poems à la ”The Gift Outright,” Robert Frost’s famous poem written for John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration.
Shockingly, it turns out that Franco is no Robert Frost. Here is an excerpt from “Obama in Asheville”:
I met Obama once, in D.C., the Correspondents’ Dinner. I was the guest of Vanity Fair, guided through D.C. by the wife Of Christopher Hitchens, when he was alive. We went to Hitch’s place, He had books from floor to ceiling, and said he had read
To Borges, when he was blind, Old Icelandic Eddas— Then we waited in a private room with the likes of Tom Cruise, And Katie Holmes, and Claire Danes. When Obama entered The crowd converged. Finally, I got to shake his hand,
He knew me from Spider-Man. I asked him for advice, I was scheduled to give the commencement speech at UCLA And there were some undergraduate knockers against me; He had been denied the usual honorary degree by Arizona State
Because he hadn’t accomplished enough, so I wondered How he dealt with detractors. He smiled his smile and said, “Humor.”
redgrandma
January 22nd, 2013
He’s no poet. That doesn’t even rhyme!
Stranded in Sonoma
January 22nd, 2013
Yo! Obama sucks!
My masterpiece.
CrustyB
January 22nd, 2013
News bureaus hire poets and actors to write poems about the president’s inauguration. Wait…what universe did I wake up in today?
Unruly Refugee
January 22nd, 2013
Who the hell is “President” Obama??
The Mad German
January 22nd, 2013
Ok heres mine.
Got up took a dump
Turned on the TV
So a rehash of Nazi Germany
Turned the TV off
logged on to IOTW
celebrated their 5 years
Wore my IOTW button
went out hung the flag
read the Bill of Rights
Cleaned my gun
norman einstein
January 22nd, 2013
Mr. Mackey: “Drugs are bad…mmmk?”
RosalindJ
January 22nd, 2013
I couldn’t watch the video because Adobe Flash has gone all wonky on me.
But I wanted to because of the writer’s last line in the piece made me laugh: “You can watch Franco read his work in what appears to be a hostage video if you really want to:”
Boobie the Rocket Dog
January 22nd, 2013
WARNING
You WILL hear the writer read (not recite) his work if you go to that link.
It is automatic; you cannot avoid it.
RosalindJ
January 22nd, 2013
P.S. That’s not poetry. It’s not even prose. It’s about the caliber of ‘What I Did on My Summer Vacation”, and it’s dreadful.
Bad Brad
January 22nd, 2013
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Barry’s killed the economy
I got the flu.
hanoverfist
January 22nd, 2013
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Four more years of this Bozo
and the country is thru.
Boobie the Rocket Dog
January 22nd, 2013
Think like an English teacher– if you rearrange the lines with a CR at every misplaced capital letter, they come out approximately equal in length. Does that make it poetry?
The Jack Kerouac of the 21st century? I don’t think so. Kerouac sucked, and this isn’t up to that standard.
________________
I met Obama once, in D.C., the Correspondents’ Dinner.
I was the guest of Vanity Fair, guided through D.C. by the wife
Of Christopher Hitchens, when he was alive. We went to Hitch’s place,
He had books from floor to ceiling, and said he had read
To Borges, when he was blind, Old Icelandic Eddas—
Then we waited in a private room with the likes of Tom Cruise,
And Katie Holmes, and Claire Danes. When Obama entered
The crowd converged. Finally, I got to shake his hand,
He knew me from Spider-Man. I asked him for advice,
I was scheduled to give the commencement speech at UCLA
And there were some undergraduate knockers against me;
He had been denied the usual honorary degree by Arizona State
Because he hadn’t accomplished enough, so I wondered
How he dealt with detractors. He smiled his smile and said,
“Humor.”
ericthetuba
January 22nd, 2013
To quote the esteemed Iowahawk, “Inauguration is to poets what Christmas is to midget actors.”
Moe Tom
January 22nd, 2013
Roses are blue
Violets are red
and I am going
Back to bed.
Johnny Freedom
January 22nd, 2013
There once was a man from Nantucket,
Whose &^%$ was so long he could suck it,
Obama made him a Czar,
Gave him a ride in his car,
And swallowed at least half a bucket.
fin
CrustyB
January 22nd, 2013
Hickory Dickory Dock
Obama can suck my…
RANDO
January 22nd, 2013
“…undergraduate knockers against me.”
Boo hoo, loser.
even steven
January 22nd, 2013
People who call that poetry would probably say a slab of tofu is filet mignon.
MNHawk
January 22nd, 2013
I haven’t cried at poetry to that degree since reading
Under water grottos, caverns
Filled with apes
That eat figs.
Stepping on the figs
That the apes
Eat, they crunch.
The apes howl, bare
Their fangs, dance,
Tumble in the
Rushing water,
Musty, wet pelts
Glistening in the blue.
/weep
Stranded in Sonoma
January 22nd, 2013
Did he mean these? What a bully!
GI-had Joe
January 22nd, 2013
There once was a Court Jester named Franco
Who played the part of Poet Stanko
With a tug of his pen
Obama said when
And Franco, stopped jerking his Wanko
Tracy
January 22nd, 2013
HE’S AN ASS-H*LE, TAX THE CRAP OUT OF HIM!
Tim
January 22nd, 2013
Shakespeare, Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Yeats were all fidgeting till I read them some of Franco – then they laughed aloud and closed their covers.
One of em said: “He’s an appropriate poet for that Obama fellow!”