Sarah Palin, The Anti-Poet
Watching Sarah Palin resign the other week, I remembered how frustrating it is to listen to her speak. She uses simple words, but combines them into a fog that's hard to penetrate, out of which a few political clichés like "freedom" and "reform" appear. Most politicians, of course, obfuscate to some degree, but Palin is a master, and she does it constantly. Look at how she turns a simple statement into a mind-numbing puzzle (this is from Hart Seely's terrific collection of found poems taken from actual Sarah Palin quotes):
You know,
Small mayors,
Mayors of small towns--
Quote, unquote--
They're on the front lines.
A quick analysis reveals why understanding Palin can be such a challenge. She follows a folksy "you know" with a clear misstatement--"small mayors"--which she follows with a clarification, which she then amends with the inexplicable "quote, unquote." By the time she gets to her point--that small town mayors are on the front lines (which she could have simply said)--one is too bogged down in misstatements, repetitions, poor syntax and folksiness to know what to think. This is, no doubt, why her interviewers often look a bit stunned, jaw slightly agape, when Palin finishes answering a question: they don't have a clear idea of what she said.
When you extend Palin's speaking style (if it's even a style) to a more complex issue like the bailout, it becomes a sort of verbal Armageddon. Here's another found poem by Seely called "On the Bailout":
Ultimately,
What the bailout does
Is help those who are concerned
About the health care reform
That is needed
To help shore up our economy,
Helping the--
It's got to be all about job creation, too.
Shoring up our economy
And putting it back on the right track.
So health care reform
And reducing taxes
And reining in spending
Has got to accompany tax reductions
And tax relief for Americans.
And trade.
We've got to see trade
As opportunity
Not as a competitive, scary thing.
But one in five jobs
Being created in the trade sector today,
We've got to look at that
As more opportunity.
All those things.
Your head should be spinning at this point.
Julian Gough of the UK's Prospect Magazine opined facetiously this past December that "Palin is a poet, and a fine one at that. What the philistine media take for incoherence is, in fact, the fruitful ambiguity of verse." His example of this "fruitful ambiguity" is a found poem he termed "The Relevance of Africa:"
And the relevance to me
With that issue,
As we spoke
About Africa and some
Of the countries
There that were
Kind of the people succumbing
To the dictators
And the corruption
Of some collapsed governments
On the
Continent,
The relevance
Was Alaska's.
Gough elaborated on his tongue-in-cheek theory: "A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges. A great poet does not self-censor; Sarah Palin seems authentically innocent of what she is saying. She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake." Great poets, of course, do self-censor (even the Beats), at least during the editing process.
Gough's editorial got me wondering if there's any legitimacy to viewing Palin's peculiar speech as a sort of poetry, but I can't think of a poetic movement with which Palin has much in common. Almost all poetry--regardless of its aims-- strives for clarity, precision and some sort of communication. Even if a good poem is difficult, or even surreal, it's carefully crafted to be that way, in order to facilitate a type of understanding. Palin's speech, intentionally or not, works against understanding. Her tangle of folksy obfuscation is the antithesis of poetry, and perhaps more than any other public figure today, she's something of an antipoet.
I do think there are similarities between Palin's statements and a Buddhist ko-an--a deliberately provocative and unanswerable question like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" But whereas the ko-an aims at enlightenment, Palin offers delightenment--if that were like, you know, a word. Quote unquote. All those things. (Sigh)
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Sarah Palin is an "anti-poet" only to those who do not consider Phil Rizzuto a poet.
I am amazed that she has a degree-and she has a degree in journalism-wow,how? must've been that beauty pagent walk,you betcha!
Just what do you call scrambled or incoherent verbage? Logomania comes to mind but surely there are other tags for it.
logorrhea
canihasadictionary. lol.
NOW YOU KNOW SARAH WAS THE SMARTEST WOMAN IN AMERICA,..
According to them, everything Sarah ever said and did was "RIGHT ON TARGET" ! LOL, LOL, LOL !
She can't be the subject of a fat check self aggrandizing all about her ghost written fluff piece - and be governor of an oil state at the same time? This person wants to run the entire United States of America? What has she not resigned from?
Resigning Sarah.
The only thing she has not quit is her constant claiming to be a victim.
She NEVER leaves that out.
America wants a quitter?
I don't understand why the polls rate Palin so highly. Perhaps its about emotion and not fact. Remove the emotion then logically evaluate the facts and the summary is: She is not qualified. She lacks the experience, the education , systematic logical thought and she is not a calm rational adult. When she was being interviewed by highly experienced and educated journalists, she did not know the facts, the history, the laws and global issues.
Can you imagine her in Iraq? Ok. so people do not like Hilary Clinton but if you read her history and background and watch her mannerism, listen to her speak, she at least earned her status on her own merit. Maybe the problem is that women support Palin or 'middle American Mom's' support Palin? Than what does that say about women and rational decisions that women make? That is what is most disturbing.
she's a verbal trainwreck. Can't even comprehend how anyone with 1/2 a brain takes her seriously
Perhaps? ...
"Perhaps its about emotion and not fact. "
Well put...Than
I'm sorry, but you're wrong. It is not women or moms that support her without question; it's conservative men who are constantly coming to her rescue. In my particular circle, no one supports her because she is blatantly unqualified but I have to say the women I know are much harder on her than the men. Perhaps this is because she is an embarrassment and she makes women look incompetent (and yes, many will generalize her actions to all women breaking into the political arena). Furthermore, she is a disgrace as a politician and the fact that so many of her fellow politicians defended her over the past several months disgraces them as well.
I too do not understand how any woman could ever back this woman.I am a woman,I have daughter. The women who love her are the crazy ones,the pro-life evangelical women. Sarah Palin as gov.charge
A woman friend from our Portland, Oregon high school, '51, told me at the outset during the first of SARAH PALIN'S high visibility saturation as John McCain's running mate that all of her 'girl' friends, mostly Republican as it turns out, many whom were my 'old' aquaintances too, saw Palin as a phony from the git-go. They all saw thru her bull. Takes a woman apparently. I didn't see it so clearly, though I immediately saw she was full of it, but I gave her room to be a politician. Talking policy jibberish. In addition trying to cover the tracks of her ignorance with guts, which I found sort of attractive. Not to mention that to me and my type mind she is really attractive. I kept picturing her at a 25 year PLAYMATES OF THE MONTH Playboy Mansion reunion. What with the smart girl specs and wisps of casual arranged hair dangling over her gorgeous eyes I see a full spread April foldout with flute.
Her popularity amazes me too. It's Animal Farm come to life; very Orwellian.
If this woman becomes the next president of the United States. Remember how you all pitched in and helped because you just couldn't let it go!!!!!!!!!!
It says a lot about you and your kind if you would vote for someone just because your "enemies" don't like that person. Whatever happened to looking at the facts?
Where do you think the missiles
come from?
Putin rears his
Head......
Domestic terrorists, paling around
The real Maverick John
McCainFly over our border first
Right here
In the real America!
Take her AWAY, please. Stop talking about her and maybe she will go away.
The thought of her running for anything and using her scrambled mind to fill the newspeak world is enough to make me toss my TV out the window! Take her away, PLEASE. It's not funny anymore. UNCLE!!!!
I AGREE!!!!
I'd sworn off Palin goodies (sort of like giving up empty calories), but I couldn't resist peeking at this, and am glad I didn't miss it. (Delicious!)!
Hopefully, by 2012, Americans will be so spoiled by exposure to a President who not only understands the intricate and dynamic wokings of all the country's moving parts, but can also communiate about them effortllessly and eloquently. They'll hopefully begin to recognize the disconnected warble of the disorderred syntax of a disordered mind, the ramblings of an egocentric airhead who couldn't run a bake sale, much less a country.
(And all the snickering about Obama and the teleprompter is too hilarious. He uses it to make his presentation as smooth, efficient and coherent as possible, to keep the audience's attention, and hopefully reach them with a simple, clear message. He's keenly aware that many who are listening are incapable of understanding a word he's saying.)
Loved the empty calories comment...
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
Can I call you Joe?
Every thing
I read them ......ALL
Only dead fish go with
the flow
You betcha!
Palin had the decency to know that she was no longer effective. Strange we can not give her credit for that. Instead we have so many overblown Senators that should be left long ago.
Perhaps if she has said she was quitting because she was no longer effective, she would have gotten some credit for that. On the other hand, maybe that was what she was trying to say? Who the hell knows?
if she *had* said
Nothing Palin does is motivated by anything as decent as decency. She's a calculating, egocentric, attention-seeking machine who's addicted to the idea of her celebrity who thinks her external appearance and personal "popularity" qualifies her for high poliltical office in this country. Maybe you think that's sufficient qualification for leadership. I don't.
Yeah, that's Obama alright. Oh, you're talking about Palin....
It's unfortunate for the people of Alaska that she took 2 and a half years to "know that she was no longer effective". It took her that long to realize that she was in over her head. Meanwhile, she's poisoned the airwaves for the last year, making us all victims of her inane antics, a status that she has worked harder to claim for herself than she ever did as the Governor of Alaska.
She has a book deal, reportedly for a very hefty sum, and she can't string together a coherent statement. Mind boggling.
She's like Shrub with a dress. Haven't we had enough of that sort of thing by now????
The people who will buy her book don't care what she has to say, and won't care that she didn't write it. They just want something with her name on it, because she's such a hero!
Along with her mind-numbing statements, there are a lot of mind numbing things about her in general!
When I first heard about the book deal, I felt a surge of pity for whomever has to edit it. Honestly, someone's going to gain 25 pounds or become an alcoholic or just quit in tears and need antidepressants for 8 months.
she has a ghost writer,but still that poor person has to make sense of her jumble!
O_O Huh?
Listening to a Sarah Palin speech is like listening to a 13 year old. They think they know everything, do not have the vocabulary to express their selves properly and don't know their butt from a hole in the ground. But hey...they are cute in their efforts.
Perhaps next time, the GOP will spend less time on her clothes hair and makeup and get her a decent speech writer and a tell-a-prompter and MAKE her use them.
Another campaign with her and I will not have any hair left...ple
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
http://www
Hey, don't knock thirteen-year-olds. They have a better vocabulary than she does!
You are right...th
Peace out,
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~
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