At last week's Democratic National Convention, poet and activist Amanda Gorman performed her most recent verse entitled "The Sacred Scene."
Unsurprisingly, it was a potent mixture of melodrama ("whether our earth shall perish from this country") and confused sloganeering ("united we can endeavor to humanize our democracy and endear democracy to humanity").
While I'm certainly no authority on good poetry, there's little question that Gorman has been riding a rocket ship to popularity fueled by her allegiance to leftwing political causes like racial victimhood and feminism. That obedience to the cultural zeitgeist got her an invitation to perform at Joe Biden's 2020 inauguration, which opened the floodgates to a litany of media adoration and adulation.
It was so exaggerated that Gorman was even invited to deliver a poem "Chorus of the Captains" at Super Bowl LV.
(Because nothing gets fans of safety blitzes and post routes fired up for the championship like bizarre rhymes about Covid deaths.)
Nonetheless, Gorman has learned how to maximize her skill set and she's using it to great fanfare. Good for her. Just because I prefer Dr. Seuss-style poetry doesn't mean I begrudge her fame and financial windfall.
But there are signs that the Gorman poetry freight train may be slowly running out of steam. Her DNC performance spawned some provocative responses like this.
Walsh was far from the only critic of the "National Youth Poet Laureate." In fact, one such critique brought about what may be the greatest social media exchange of the year.
Shot:
Chaser:
Amazing.
It makes me wonder which is more incredible: (1) That Gorman has gotten wealthy off of her uninspiring prose, or (2) that X can remain free to use when producing such quality entertainment.
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