The Myth Of The Wussy Poet

While introducing Hillary Clinton at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio last week, Tom Buffenbarger, President of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, launched the following vitriolic attack on Barack Obama's toughness:

"Give me a break! I've got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak! This guy won't last a round against the Republican attack machine. He's a poet, not a fighter."

"A poet, not a fighter?" I, for one, would be happy to step outside with the pasty, out-of-shape union exec and show him that the terms aren't mutually exclusive.

I'm going to put a few of things aside--1) Buffenbarger's smearing of Obama supporters; 2) the hilarious inference that Clinton is somehow "blue-collar"; and 3) the incongruity of a man who looks like James Lipton after a two-week drinking binge talking about toughness. Instead I'm going to focus on defending poetry.

It's not a hard defense to make. While the misconception of the "wussy" poet is common in America, I know from internationals I've talked to that it's a decidedly American misconception, a manifestation of the tired idea that men should only express their feelings while drunk or during football games lest they appear, you know, weak. Sure. Were Wilfred Owen and history's long litany of soldier poets weak? Is Iraq war vet Bryan Turner, who just published Here, Bullet, a book of poems about the war, not tough enough? Tell him he's not a fighter.

Mr. Buffenbarger would do well to read Ohio's own James Wright, an Army veteran from a steel town outside of Pittsburgh called Martins Ferry. His father was a factory worker, and his poetry encapsulates the lives of working class Ohioans Buffenbarger is supposed to represent. Here's one of Wright's best from his book The Branch Will Not Break:

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio

In the Shreve High football stadium,

I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,

And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,

And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,

Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.

Their women cluck like starved pullets,

Dying for love.

Therefore,

Their sons grow suicidally beautiful

At the beginning of October,

And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.

That's the voice of a fighter: someone seeking the sublime in people who never receive such treatment. I posted the poem on my blog a few months back and got the following anonymous response:

"For anyone growing up in the Ohio Valley - the Valley that threatens to die so often - this is a remarkable poem that simply portrays life... It's incredible that this exists and isn't better recognized or awarded for capturing life as it was, or might still be...."

Here's an excerpt from another of Wright's poems called The Sumac in Ohio--it's about real toughness:

"Before June begins, the sap and coal smoke and soot from Wheeling steel, wafted down the Ohio by some curious gentleness in the Appalachians, will gather all over the trunk. The skin will turn aside hatchets and knife blades. You cannot even carve a girl's name on the sumac. It is viciously determined to live and die alone, and you can go straight to hell."

In the LA Times' endorsement of Obama, they wrote, "In the language of metaphor, Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility." You can certainly argue against those points. But I have no doubt that a poet, no matter what he/she chooses to drink, drive or wear, could speak for Buffenbarger's union members a lot better than he has. The next time he speaks, he'd be smart to just quote one.

Comments

[JerseyBob]

A fighter and a bit of a poet Muhammed Ali (Cassius Clay) wrote poetry and would regale the public with seemingly impromptu recitations of his latest composition. Wussy? Panache rather! Speaking of which, I'd wager he would enjoy Cyrano's hilarious banter during a sword fight.

[Spiriteddona]

i loved to read poetry at 16, because i assigned it to myself. the lace shirt guys really moved me. you defended poetyr. i defend wussies! lol!

[april4president]

The age old truism that water is stronger than rock comes to mind...

[alkamm]

Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather,
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these.and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world. W.B. Yeats

[NYC07]

Let's not forget the great poets of both World Wars, People Like Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke,Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, Keith Douglas,Randall Jarrell,John Magee etc. We know what wusses Military Men are !!

[nowaterboardUSA]

There's plenty examples of tough poets. My fav is Charles Bukowski.

[faust2001]

What the last quarter century of American politics and culture has shown us is that the cult of masculinity obviates one from the responsibility of being a real man.

[JScott]

Doesn't help that Ernie Kovacs perpetuated the stereotype albeit as a caricature as Percy Dovetonsils.

[Rhydderch69]

"The pockets of their greatcoats filled with barley..."

[hontonoshijin]

Try surviving in this culture as a poet in the face of total disregard. That takes a toughness that goes a lot deeper than the merely physical. Although I too would be happy to take the argument outside.

Any sane human would realize that an understanding of words is an addition to one's strength and not a detraction.

[SFreeborn]

Good grief. Poets kick ass as hard as anyone else can. You can tell when the stereotyping gets badly overblown that the inquiry has been shallow. Here's one I wrote long ago...

My darkened anger blows hot winds
That scorch my soul and drive my love away.
No sonnets written, sweet and soft,
But stiff hard words in velvet envelopes,
Delivered by a wizened heart.

I thought of it when I saw Hillary was yelling "Shame on you Barack Obama!" Unfortunately, she must be too busy to hear the tone of what she is saying. It's not a good sound. It's a dried up sound.

[accountability]

oh pftttt.
that guy is an idiot.
A working class "hero" with his 15 minutes to use his street wit.
Why give him the time of day...
Oh, because he was attached to Hillary.
DOH.

Anyway, there have been many a poet who were two fisted drinkers and brawlers... and those were the women!

We all know that Obama is not a Wuss. He plays politics as dirty as any man I have ever seen.

[snruB]

General George S Patton was a poet

[LBKN]

... as a stonemason... I must daily win a battle of 'toughness' with the most stubborn media on the planet... and off the top of my head, I can offer the aforementioned "Buggenbarfer" a well constructed tough poem by Ruddyard K.:

"When you're wounded and left on the Afgan plains
and the women come out to cut-up your remains
just roll on your rifle and blow-out your brains
and go to your Gawd like a soldier."

Hillary becomes more "Yesterday" with each passing day.

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

This Vietnam Veteran poet has a few stanzas in reply to the blowhard supporter of Senator You-Know-Her, browbeaten enabler of Deputy Dubya Bush's Vietnam II in the Bay of Goats. From "Buffaloed Girl" (after the traditional song of a similar title):

Buffaloed girl, won't you come out tonight?
Bask in your fright; hide in plain sight.
Buffaloed girl don't you put up a fight;
Just dance to the right with the goons!

Buffaloed girl, don't you burn any flags;
Marry some fags; count body bags.
Buffaloed girl, wrapped in riches not rags,
Just keep raking in those doubloons!

Buffaloed girl, send our troops to Iraq!
Then leave them there! Don't bring them back!
Buffaloed girl, cover George Bush's back,
And scrape up a few more platoons!

Buffaloed girl, just stay out of the fray.
Keep your mouth shut! Keep making hay!
Buffaloed girl, while the cat is away
Just keep playing mice with buffoons.

Buffaloed girl, don’t you hear the troops cry?
Wounded for wrongs; dead for a lie
Buffaloed girl, look in everyone’s eye
And then soil your own pantaloons

Buffaloed girl, under Lieberman’s wing
Saving his job, that's the main thing
Buffaloed girl, you and Holy Joe sing
The duet of right-wing spittoons

Buffaloed girl, rail at video games
Focus group that; spout the right frames
Buffaloed girl, don’t you name any names
Just save children from their cartoons

Buffaloed girl, take a “listening” tour
If you don’t know; if you’re not sure
Buffaloed girl, voters like their fake “pure”
Like war debt that simply balloons

Buffaloed girl, when it counted you hid
Don’t try to lie. That’s what you did
Buffaloed girl, Dubya made you his kid
When you bought the crap that he croons

Buffaloed girl, your irrelevance mounts
Even in small, measured amounts
If “it” takes a village, by all your accounts
Then take “it” to Mars and its moons

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2006

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

And just to add one more "wussy poet" polemic to the mix, from "An Ersatz Commander in Knickers":
Before a mirror now she stands
Saluting with her two left hands
"Commanding" like some jaded Joan of Arc
A warfare welfare mother slick
Another monkey on a stick
She gladly held the match that lit the spark

She clearly failed to look and see
The dwarf dyslexic chimpanzee
Who made baboons of her and Bubba Bill
Attacking those upon the left
Who saw through Dubya's lack of heft
She now sounds less a leader than a shill

In thrall to medals on the chest
Not nearly brightest nor the best
She signed off on a jingoistic jaunt
No judgment did she bring to bear
Emitting only heated air
Her bad decisions have returned to haunt

And now with knickers in a bunch
She lives to rue the fateful hunch
She followed on her first blind date with war
It seemed like such a little thing:
A rapt submission to a fling
That's left her used again like Dubya's whore

Yet unrepentant at the ease
With which war caused her brain to freeze
Our You-Know-Her wants us to make her queen
She's got this urge to have a go,
She'd like us all to truly know,
In spite of all that we have heard and seen

She now says she would like to fight
And not just pander to the right
She says the middle finger them she'll give
But calculating cons and pros
She tallies up the "yea"s and "no"s
And then displays a pinky as her shiv

It simply doesn't seem to work
This "centrist" mush served by a jerk
Who likes the times that buy men’s souls just fine
For having sold her own soul cheap
She now can utter not a peep
When voters choose someone more genuine

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2007

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

What the hell? I might as well add one more to the myth of the wussy poet who has for years on end now regaled our reactionary "rulers" with their own ridiculousness. From "Maybe or Maybe Not": a poem in search of Senator Hillary Clinton -- missing, and presumed ambivalent (with apologies to Rudyard Kipling's "If")

If you would lose your head when others wouldn't
And let polls do your thinking when you won't,
If you could trust George Bush when wise men couldn't
But still excuse his lying when they don't,
If you can wait for someone else to lead us,
And being led yourself, follow behind,
And, living large, dine with the ones who bleed us,
Yet never seem to pay us any mind;

If you're content to make George Bush your master,
If you can slink away to his estate;
If you can turn Triumph into Disaster
And treat Joe Lieberman as your blind date;
If you can bear to hear the lies you've spoken
Straightened by truth to make you look the fool,
Or watch what former Democrats built broken,
While right-wing cynics use you as their tool;

If you can make one heap of all our army
And risk their lives on one throw of the dice,
And lose, and cover up by speaking smarmy
And blame somebody else by talking nice;
If you can show no heart or nerve or sinew
Yet serve your own self even as you flee,
And so put out when there is nothing in you
Except the sign you wear which says: "Kick me!"

It could be that someone will come to teach you
Some braver soul, perhaps, will show the way
Maybe an errant vertebra will reach you
Perhaps your spine will stiffen one fine day
You may, perhaps, or maybe you won't, either
Perhaps you'll skitter further to the right
Like other chicken hawks, you need a breather
Before the next time that you take to flight

With luck, we won't lose more than three each day now
Perhaps only a dozen died this week
It could be you've found some cool way to say, "Wow!
Just look at all that `Victory' we seek!"
You could have chanced to find some Chinese money
To borrow from our children for your war
Maybe you'll visit good King George, your honey,
And pledge your party as his loyal whore

You and the press have sure played Rip Van Winkle
And gone to sleep to wake up out to lunch
While vampires on our "values" loudly sprinkle
Invective while continuing to munch
Yet still you quake and quiver at the vision
Of greedy bats out after our last dime
Upon our necks they make a new incision
While you prevaricate and stall for time

While Cindy Sheehan shows true grit you wobble
And, like the wildebeest, hide in the herd
Content to let the lion chew and gobble
On others' children - all without a word
Perhaps you'll dodge a vote and so we'll stay in
Most likely you'll decry some burning flags
While soldiers die you slither on your way in
To Senate chambers famed for bogus gags

No doubt you'll raise more funds to sell your virtue,
And kneel for kings to lose the common touch,
While only friends but not your foes desert you;
Because you've asked too little for so much,
You'll likely fill the unforgiving hour
With only sixty seconds' worth of work,
And still expect the Earth for you to flower,
Which maybe will not happen now, you jerk!

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005

[OhioPoBoy]

I was struggling with this vote but that just snapped it for me. What souless vampire would try to divide us by using the word "poet" as an epithet. It makes me want to punch the next machinst I meet. I write poetry and I played football. I read poetry and I took boxing in college. I will go toe to toe with any Hillary supporter who wants to call me out for believing in the possibility that we can come together as a people and make a difference. Robert Frost read at JFK's inauguration and it made me proud to think that America was more than just guns but had room for roses as well. You just lost another Ohio voter with that smart*ss remark and I am calling every intelligent person I know to relay this piece of divisive dreck. If you can't beat 'em, mock them.