"Pop" [by Barack Obama]

On the basis of two poems Barack Obama wrote and published as an undergraduate, Ian McMillan in The Guardian opines that the Democratic nominee for president had

<<
obviously read the Beat poets and writers like Gary Snyder and Charles Bukowski, who knew that the simple words are the best ones, as long as you place them carefully on the page.

Barack likes his line breaks, his enjambments: let's end a line with "broken" and start it with "in" just because we can! Let's make the reader think the chair is a broken chair and then surprise them! Later on, the grandfather's eyes are "dark, watery" and his neck is "thick and oily" as the teenage Obama relishes the sound of words and begins to feel his way around the kinds of things they can do.

In one line Barack "shinks" away from grandpa, a strange word that, according tourbandictionary.com, means "an evasive sinking manouevre", which is clever and poetic. It could also mean to be hit in the face with a penis, which isn't. Or it could be a typographical error.

There's a humanity in the poem, a sense of family values and shared cultural concerns that give us a hint of the Democrat to come; towards the end of the poem Obama sees his face "framed within / Pop's black-framed glasses / and know he's laughing too." He sees himself reflected in his grandfather! If those lines don't end up in a campaign speech, then I'm a tall thin Swede.
>>
From “The lyrical Democrat” by Ian McMillan in The Guardian (Thursday March 29, 2007).

And here is "Pop," written when Obama was 19. To my mind the most potent line in the poem is one of the shortest -- and goes unremarked by the Guardian reporter (himself a poet). The line is "Fail to pass." The multiple meanings of pass, and the syntactical complications of the lines, make it worth pondering. The appearance of "easy" and "hard" in alternate lines (eight and nine) is also worth noting.

-- DL

Pop

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes,
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I'm sure he's unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he's still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He's so unhappy, to which he replies . . .
But I don't care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I've been saving; I'm laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I've got on mine and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; 'cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop's black-framed glasses
And know he's laughing too.

-- Barack Obama

Find out more about Barack Obama's poetry connection here, here, and here.

Comments

[Laura Orem]

I like this - but then I'm a commie pinko hippie liberal. The Guardian guy is pretty snarky, in my opinion. There is a lot of good stuff going on in this poem -- I'd let the writer into my workshop.

[DL]

LO is right about the "sarky" edge of the Guardian guy -- I mean "snarky" but "sarky" comes close as does "smirky" and they're all like "shink." What i liked about the Guardian excerpt is the last phrase, which seems to imply that the reporter is a fat short fellow from the Levant (Oscar).

[Laura Orem]

I bet he can't play the piano, though.

[DL]

Or crack a spontaneous aphorism.

[billy bob joe wilson]

Man does that poem suck...

[DL]

You lie.

[Max]

That poem is deep. It
must have deep
er meaning. It's so

deep I almost fell
in it and then I saw my re
flection in its depths and
I knew
Barack Obama is right
right right

on!

(Can I be president now?)

[John Cassidy]

Too bad you didn't fall in and drown, Max.

[Max]

That was a hateful comment to make, John Cassidy. And frankly, it surprises me coming from you, a leftist. I thought hate was the sealed domain of the Right.

I am always learning new things.

(Can I be president now?)

[Mario Lavender]

What a racist comment billy bob.

[gwb/nyc]

Like
Michelle's latest hairdo will require you to
work.

Michelle's stylish ensemble
is
going to demand that you shed your...
cynicism.

That you put down your divisions.
That you come out of your isolation,
that you move out of your comfort zones.
That you push yourselves to be better.

And, like,
that you engage.
Michelle's picture on the cover of Vogue will never
allow
you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.
Dig?

-Barack Opoema

[John Cassidy]

Max, Max, Max, you surprise me. Hateful? Hardly. I was just commenting succinctly. It is your hostile and sarcastic tone that makes such a comment as mine almost inevitable.
I am not a leftist, and your assumption of my politics is quite in keeping with your lame attempts at humor, you name-calling know-nothing.

[Roquentin]

Why does Obama write his mother instead of grandmother?; same number of syllables, after all.

[Roquentin]

"his mother"--eighth line from the bottom (sorry).

[Jonathan R. Silber]

DL:

Your parody of Obama's po
Em exhibits more wit and in
Vention than the o
Riginal.

[Jonathan R. Silber]

Meditating on the profundity of Obama's poetry inspires me to share a Deep Thought by Jack Handy:

I believe in making the world safe for our children, but not our children's children, because I don't think children should be having sex.

[Joy Jackson]

And that's what you consider witty or profound? "Taxi!" I'm late for my shink appointment.

[Clemond N. Flinch]

I want to live in Ian McMillan's reality just for one day. If a poem of this caliber can be reviewed with such glowing ecstasy then it would appear that Mr. McMillan has never felt a raw negative emotion like the crippling suffering that this poem evokes in all its literate readers. Thus, logic dictates that for McMillan, the world is a cotton candy coated orgasm wrapped up in a magical piece of bacon that arouses the senses and both metaphorically and literally heals an ailing heart. For this man, the 19 year old Obama is the poetic equivalent of a rainbow: a sudden preternatural event inspiring awe and ecstasy.

[Matt]

I like Max's poem. It is amusing. Hostile is a more appropriate description where physical injury is desired.

[Joy Jackson]

Max's poem is doggerel. Matt is wrong about "hostile," which is routinely used to characterize speech with intent to wound. Roquentin needs remedial math if she or he or it thinks that "grandmother" and "mother" have the same number of syllables. DL did not write a parody of Obama's poem but a sort of head note. Jesus. What a bunch of crackpots.

[bdsista]

I really like it, what I find interesting is the lack of objectivity because now Obama is President.

as for the why didn't he use X words, well its his damn poem and I'm sure when he wrote it, his motivation was not to have it dissected to death. Damm!

The 4 Quadrants Of Power

[Betz]

I believe Frank Marshall Davis, a perverted poet, wrote that for his young friend Barack Obama as a gift.

Obama is not capable of writing that, and it smacks of Davis, his mentor.

FRAUD.

[BKW BKW]

I don't know about everyone else, but it sounds like they were both masturbating??!! Very strange piece for sure (at least it was for me anyway :-)

[Will]

Dark. Depressing. Confused. Empty. And obviously homosexual: amber stained shorts & smells? If this poem is truly from Obama, there more going on under the covers than we've been led to believe.