If Manfred Mann was Poet Laureate
“revved up like an owl,
another explosion in the night.”
I know you can make a sea gull explode, but I didn’t know you could make an owl explode. Do you need to disguise the Alka-Selzer like a mouse and pull it on a string?
This reminds me of the indecipherable lyric to the Beach Boys’ Help Me Rhonda as quoted in Dave Barry’s book of bad songs:
Well since she put me down
there’ve been owls puking in my bed
lieu: “Blinded by the Light”, although recorded by Manfred Mann, was written (and recorded) by Bruce Springsteen.
On the south side of old Newark
Just beyond the cobblestones…
Well if you go down there, you’d better best beware
Of the poet LeRoi Jones
Now, LeRoi heard owls hootin’
And he used it in his rhymes
When he wasn’t just protestin’
All those white men and their crimes.
Now he’s bad, bad, LeRoi Jones
Baddest man except for his clones
Badder than Mayor Hague
And his poetry’s kind of vague.
The Bard of Perth Amboy is undoubtedly New Jersey’s real Poet Laureate.
Of course, that should be the Bard of Asbury Park.
I had also, until now, only heard of LeRoi Jones, and not Amiri Baraka. To my knowledge, the former is the name by which he has been commonly known. From radical Mark Rudd’s letter to Columbia University president Grayson Kirk, 1968:
I hope somebody can help me with this brain teaser, that came up in that poem: just who did get rich from Armenian genocide?? Because I can’t think of anybody.
An anti-Jew poet Amiri
Writes screeds that at best leave me weary.
…If we sent Baraka
…To a cave in Iraqa
New Jersey folks sure would feel cheery.
Bard of Perth Amboy! Bwahahaha!
I know you corrected yourself, Colibri, but the image of Jon Bon Jovi as the poet laureate of NJ is too funny.
Shot through the heart,
And you’re to blame.
Osama, you give terrorism,
A bad name.
I actually read through that entire poem. Wow that was much longer than it needed to be.
But it does sing well to “Sympathy for the Devil” music.
Who got rich from the Armenian Genocide? Read about it here: http://www.cilicia.com/armo10.html
These two paragraphs are also from the poem:
Who put the Jews in ovens,
and who helped them do it
Who said “America First”
and ok’d the yellow stars
Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
And all the good people iced,
tortured, assassinated, vanished
*
Are they anti-semetic? If not, why would the statements in question be? This peom is operating on a continium, a description of monumental acts of terrorism that are never called that. What’s so hard about that to see?
I think the so called controversial statements were taken out of the poem to serve an agenda, because in the context of the poem, there isn’t any anti-semitism implied or overtly stated, quite the opposite from my point of view.
Oh, and for those that seem to be clueless about the Owl, what other than an Owl is full of “Whos”?
Poetry & whos.
Whoville. Dr. Seuss.
Theodore Geisel? That sounds vaguely Jewish.
And the Sneeches, with those ‘stars upon thars’?
Dammit, there’s a connection there somewhere!!!
/me dons aluminum foil hat
Errrrr…EasyPhil, I think you’re missing the point. The lines in question were referencing the “fact” that thousands of Jewish workers were told to stay home on 9/11, as part of some sort of conspiracy. This is, in every way, shape, and form, a blatant lie, and one that is spread mainly by Anti-Semitic rumor-mongerers with nothing better to do.
The fact that Baraka puts it in his poem serves absolutely no purpose other than to further that rumor. And its being included in a poetic list of other atrocities (by a poet laureate, nonetheless), seems to be implying that it is true, and therefore lends it an air of credibility that it never came anywhere near deserving.
Uh, yeah, but hopefully the “poet laureate” of anything can avoid using something hamhanded enough to make an eighth grade honors english student blush. Also, writers can’t just ignore the concrete imagery of their phrasing in order to achieve a lame metaphor. The picture of the exploding owl distracts from whatever point he’s trying to make. The anti-Semitic stuff is a character flaw; the exploding owl betrays a lack of literary skill and supports the hypothesis that Baraka is a hack coasting on the support of 60s Marxism chic.
I don’t see anything at all wrong with this opinion. You may see art as serving different interests, but his opinion is perfectly valid. What did you expect from a radical?
LeRoi Jones may be the name he was born with, but that doesn’t mean it’s his “real name.” His name has been Amiri Baraka for 34 years. He has the right to change it if he wishes, especially if it’s for religious reasons.
The poem does seem to imply that this rumor is true, which is silly. But you guys are overreacting. Criticizing the Israeli government or some Jewish people does not make you an anti-Semite. Notice that he wrote this poem last year, when there was less information about what had happened. Everyone immediately blamed the Arabs, does that make them racist?
I don’t see anything at all wrong with this opinion. You may see art as serving different interests, but his opinion is perfectly valid. What did you expect from a radical?
LeRoi Jones may be the name he was born with, but that doesn’t mean it’s his “real name.” His name has been Amiri Baraka for 34 years. He has the right to change it if he wishes, especially if it’s for religious reasons.
The poem does seem to imply that this rumor is true, which is silly. But you guys are overreacting. Criticizing the Israeli government or some Jewish people does not make you an anti-Semite. Notice that he wrote this poem last year, when there was less information about what had happened. Everyone immediately blamed the Arabs, does that make them racist?
Is he implying that it’s true or is he asking who put that out there and why? How could he be against the holocaust, the framing and killing of the Rosenbergs, but be anti-semetic about the twin towers disaster?
Is he implying that it’s true or is he asking who put that out there and why? How could he be against the holocaust, the framing and killing of the Rosenbergs, but be anti-semetic about the twin towers disaster?