A Poet Critiques Al Gore’s Poem
Al Gore should stay away from poetry. The poor man has absorbed so devastating a pummeling of late that he scarcely needs yet another crippling body blow that could finish him off for good. One must, of course, admire him for the resilience he has shown up to now, despite the damning revelations that have brought most of his “global warming” work into terminal disrepute. Nevertheless, he soldiers on, publishing yet another book, the ambitiously titled Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, which appeared in November of this year, and in which he does his utmost to salvage both the earth and his respectability.
As it happens, the earth and Gore’s true reputation stand in inverse relation to one another, the former actually doing reasonably well, the latter in shreds. Though one would never know this from the MSM, where — with a couple of exceptions — we discover that the earth is wobbling toward its doom while Gore strides forth undaunted to complete his redemptive mission. But then, the MSM are also on their last legs, whistling “Kumbaya” as they totter past the graveyard, so perhaps we should take their depositions with a grain of salt, if not the whole salt shaker.
To return to my subject. There are two insults one must be wary of giving when speaking to or of another, for their effect is particularly injurious. One is to assert that a person has no sense of humor and the other is to suggest that a person has no poetic talent. Nevertheless, there are times when honesty must trump discretion, and this is one of them. The plain fact is Gore is a bore. He fails on both counts.
I have never heard him crack a joke and never read anything by him in any way distinguished by wit, verve, levity, or even a hint of paronomasia. He is deadly earnest and his pomposity knows no bounds. In his defense, one might object that he is dealing with issues of such forbidding gravity that no margin remains for playfulness or creative vivacity. Yet even the gloomiest philosopher of all time, Arthur Schopenhauer, who saw human existence as a rupture in the harmony of the universe, acknowledged in his The Wisdom of Life the importance of laughter and gaiety.
No less damaging to Gore’s prestige is his pretension as a poet. It is surely no sin for a talentless amateur to set about writing poetry, but it is undeniably a transgression of the first magnitude should he seek to publish it. For it is not only a disclosure of personal foolishness which an individual may not survive — not much harm there — but it brings the noble craft of poetry down from Mount Olympus into the drains and sewers of the age, infecting the public sensibility, deluding the naive, contaminating the respect for tradition and high culture that should animate the life of a people, and reducing by contagion the faculty of aesthetic taste and judgment in all the fields of artistic endeavor. OK, so I’m going over the top, but I’m apprehensive that the gods might not forgive the would-be poet for so grievous a trespass. One can just see a distraught Erato, the muse of lyric poetry, squirming on her pedestal.
I hope it will be understood that I am not engaging in what David Denby in his new book calls “snarking,” a term popularly derived from Lewis Carroll but repositioned to mean the practice of gratuitous malice. I focus on the poem because it is symptomatic of Gore’s encompassing delinquencies, a textual microcosm that merits examination. It is what the French call a mise-en-abîme, an inset or miniature of the larger picture. But the poem also interests me because poetry is a serious matter, especially in an age which has lost its memory of the lyric afflatus. Thus, to adapt W.H. Auden writing on the death of W.B. Yeats, we might say that November 3, 2009, was “a dark cold day,” indeed, a black day for the spirit of poetry which looks increasingly like it may have joined Yeats in the grave. For on that day Gore released Our Choice, which featured the poem in question:
One thin September soon
A floating continent disappears
In midnight sun
Vapors rise as
Fever settles on an acid sea
Neptune’s bones dissolve
Snow glides from the mountain
Ice fathers floods for a season
A hard rain comes quickly
Then dirt is parched
Kindling is placed in the forest
For the lightning’s celebration
Unknown creatures
Take their leave, unmourned
Horsemen ready their stirrups
Passion seeks heroes and friends
The bell of the city
On the hill is rung
The shepherd cries
The hour of choosing has arrived
Here are your tools
I have read worse poems than “One Thin September,” but not all that many. It is a dull, anaphoric litany riddled with malapropisms and marred by an unabashed tendency to pure bathos — no different from his prose. Close assessment of the piece might offer a corrective to those who continue to venerate its author.
David, I apologize for this assault on your art form. The Goracle made me do it.
Old Al Gore, he shouts and he screams,
He gets rich giving people real bad dreams.
Is he Espicopalian? We don’t rightly know.
Is he a space alien with one giant toe?
Whatever he is the adjective is weird.
Same conclusion when he grew a beard.
Now Al, he saves the planet by writing bad verse.
I can’t save diddly squat, but my verse is worse.
You might want to watch your references. In science fiction and alternative sexual circles, Gorean is taken to refer to a series of science fiction novels that take place on an imaginary planet called Gor. I forget the guy’s name, but the books are a cross between soft-core pornography and Edgar Rice Burrough’s series of books featuring John Carter, Warlord of Mars. Or so I’m told.
Anyway, while I think you were trying to insult Gore (probably with good reason) I doubt you intended this reference.
Here my redaction of the poem with words restored from the original MS:
One thin September soon (that’s gibberish, I know).
a floating incontinent fat man disappears
in visions of the midnight sun with lots of snow.
Vapors rise as quickly as his halitosis
and fever settles on an acid sea; therefore
Neptune’s bones dissolve from osteoporosis.
Snow glides from the mountain—set off by some villain—;
ice in father’s gin—floods of salt; for a season,
a hard rain comes quickly, for we do like Dylan.
Then dirty Al is parched from a sad lack of beer.
Still, let’s party! Kindling is placed in the forest
for the lightning god’s celebration. Over here,
unknown creatures, like Bear-pig, with his human face,
take their leave, unmourned, and I hope your heart is stirred
as Horse-men must ready their stirrups for a race.
An old passion seeks heroes and friends who are young,
though the bell of the city bike needs a good clean.
On the hill is a ladder with a broken rung.
The shepherd cries, “Hey, voters are deluded fools!
The hour of choosing a global hoax has arrived!
I give you man-made warming; here, then, are your tools!”
An awesome defining of a poem hardly considered worth the time to read it. I congratulate the writer of this article. However, I seriously doubt it will make any difference to those that consider Al Gore to be a supposed “great man” and pushing an agenda that needs to be attended to. the LIE has been consummated by a never ending deluge of “truth” from the left that causes all disagreement to be considered foolish. After all, RELIGION has no doubt, at least to those who “believe”.
I’m guessing The Poet of the Age chose September because the snow is pretty much melted by then on most mountains in the USA. But in northern latitudes, where Al is so rightly concerned, the upper slopes already have fresh snow. On this point we may fault our humble prophet from Tennessee. Otherwise, we can only bow to his genius and not doubt that every word and comma are carefully chosen and impart enormous wisdom to those who would only believe. Move over Edgar Allen Poe.
WHOA!
I have heard dribs and drabs on the radio, but the whole thing. OUCH. That is some pitiful verse. His ghost writer should be shot.
Maybe it was a typo, with the gliding snow and the hard rain. Maybe it was supposed to be CHUBBY RAIN but when he used the Microsoft Syntax Checker on his poem, it automatically changed it to hard rain.
So we can blame it on Bill Gates, right. Big Silicon.
“” I have never heard (Gore) crack a joke and never read anything by him in any way distinguished by wit, verve, levity, or even a hint of paranomasia. (paronomasia?) “”
And nor will a clever fellow like you, who knows very well a sense of humor indicates measurable intelligence, be holding his breath while waiting for the one-time holder of the title — and now but First Runner-Up (to Big Ears) in the World’s Most Dangerous Dullard Stakes — to show signs of such.
If a high IQ is “global warming,” the hapless Al-Fredo Gore-leone is surely the next Ice Age.
No wonder the very sound of his name has us all standing aboot, shivering in our shoes, eh? (little Canuck Lingo for you, there)
Brian Richard Allen
Lost Angels – Califobambicated 90028
And the Very Far Abroad
I despise the Goracle, but attacking people for trying to express themselves in verse, song, graphic or any art is petty and small. There is no useful measure of good or bad art. His ideas suck, but I applaud his effort and willingness to experiment in art. He can’t be any worse at it than he is at science.
I thought the Goracle was writing about Atlantis. A refrence to the One World government that gets destroyed by the one true shephard of mankind. Yet, like Atlantis, those horsemen ride to fight against what they already read has the right to destroy them.
Those like Gore would read such a poem, and see the chanting pagan prose as a call to arms, refusing to repent of their desire to worship power, and money. Using a lie,(global warming), to further their agenda of placing a false god on the throne of earth. Like Nimrod at Babel, man can be as G-d.
Maybe, I am off base on this poem, and reading to much into it, but I don’t think so.
Perhaps he should have taken a hint from Scooter Libby or maybe Lynn Cheney and inserted some lines about bears raping little girls, or may a hot, sweaty lesbian scene or two . . . Git R Done!
Ode to Deadman
There once was a guy on Pajamas
a boy who will always be mama’s
From his chair in the dark
he googles and barks
sprinkling sugarplum commas
#9 bagoh20 say: “There is no useful measure of good or bad art.”
Who are you really Frank Rich?
Willie Nelson=Beethoven?—–W.H. Auden=Hallmark Cards?—–Presley=Pavarotti—–Warhol=Monet—–Franken=Twain?—–Toscanini=Welk—–Frank Rich=Swift?
Get a grip, pal.
Gore’s poem was actually written by Percy Dovetonsils. Add plagarism to his sins.
Wonderful article. I loved it.
I loved the tone. I loved the literary references. I loved your vocabulary. I had to look up “paronomasia.”
You brought in Zeus and the Gods, and your “LOL” towards the end — referring to Gore as our “shepherd ” — well….you had me ROFL!
You have cleansed my spirit, which needed a cleansing after my read of Gore’s “poem.”
The MSM reviews and praise for Gore’s “poem” were an insult to all who write poetry, and an insult to those like me who simply read and enjoy poetry and literature.
Thank you!
Isn’t The New American the magazine of the John Birch Society? As in, Eisenhower was a commie controlled by his brother Milton? And lots of new paranoid conspiracy theories since then?
Not a source with any credibility. And frankly, that kind of association reflects on the rest of one’s argument…
“Well I quit my job so I could work alone / Changed my name to Sherlock Holmes / Followed some clues from my detective bag / And discovered there was red stripes on the American flag…”
Midnight sun in September? Typical of old Al’s understanding of science. Of course there is only midnight sun on the Solstice (June 21 in northern hemisphere, December 21 in southern). On September 21 there are 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night everywhere on earth. But then again I never thought Al was from this part of the universe.
I’m not nearly as poetic as some of you. But yes, Al Gore is definitely the biggest douche in the history of the planet.
Read the words and listen to the melody of Bob Dylan`s `A Hard Rain`s Gonna Fall`. As usual, Algore worded his sissy poem right alongside Dylan`s song. More plagiarism from a worthless life that is Algore……….
Big Al Gore is a pathetic man. He has the distinction of being the only Democrat who ever got within 5,000 votes of his opponent and was still unable to steal the election. Even Big Al Franken was able to do that.
15. Patty:
So you read and enjoy poetry AND literature.
peekaboo-ooo-ooo
Algore Haikus:
Algore opens mouth
Carbon Dioxide blows forth
The globe warms. We die
Eco-warrriors
Should not ride in limousines
To save the planet
We were all only
Few Florida hanging chads
From catastrophe
If we give Algore
Another award or two
Will he PLEASE shut up?
There once was a chap
Who lost by a chad
His minions all claimed
That the nation was had
He started to drink
And sometimes he’d drive
He grew out his beard
And started to jive
His rap was recorded
And put in a movie
Very soon after
The world thought he was groovy
They gave him a Nobel
He was awarded a Grammy
Even took home an Oscar
But his rap was all scammy
When the e-mails came out
They all looked like asses
For buying Algore
And his greenhouse gases.
Some good writing, David; must we conclude the Goracle is good for something? I’m having fun imagining Kevin Spacey lecturing a room of politicos on the brilliance of the artist-leader.
About six months ago I ran across an article that had an interview with Bob Dylan. He was asked about the ‘hard rain’ song. He was asked what the phrase ‘meant.’
It was about a rain storm, he said.
He was referring to the wet stuff that ruins picnics. He was further quoted as saying that he was a bit surprised or taken off-guard when people started referring to it as representing fall-out or war, or whatever.
It was about rain. The H2O kind of stuff.
Jim Anderson
anderson.james@att.net
You mean — are you saying that — Al Gore is NOT the brilliant, talented, creative, self- sacrificing hero and savior of the world?
Algore has become a cartoon, and the best part is he did it to himself. I also applaud his efforts to make an ass of himself.
Well, he:
couldn’t be president,
is definitely not a scientist,
didn’t finish divinity school…
Maybe he wanted to see if he was a poet who didn’t know it?
My punctuation’s criticized by Now and Then’s high court, but if I said a thing he liked I’d reassess the thought. It’s Now and Then who likes the gloom to hide a venal smile and vomit lines which almost rhyme and manufacture bile.
Ignore Now and Then, Deadman. I think your version was sheer genius of its kind. And almost in classic Dantean terce rima, at that!
“Turn me on dead man…”
If the poem was really that bad, what does it say about the critic that he needs 20 times the length of the poem to critique it?
To put it another way, if I saw a lousy football player, I’d say “He’s a terrible football player. Too weak, too slow, can’t catch, can’t remember the play. Period.” If I couldn’t point out the flaws in such an obviously bad performer in a succinct fashion, one would have to wonder whether I knew what I was talking about and/or whether the player really was as bad as I claimed.
I was interested by the title of this piece, but found the critique long, boring, nauseating, grasping at straws, and so unbelievably pretentious, that were I Al Gore or any public figure, I would love to be critiqued in this fashion, for what I foudn to be the unbelievable snobbery of this critique rubs me as a regular guy so wrong that in fact it paradoxically elicited sympathy for the subject. I’m not sure the worst human product ever produced wouldn’t come out looking good with the help of this brand of criticism.
What kind of poetry or thought can one expect from a man so stupid he failed divinity school. He is an unmitigated fraud.
I’ll be d@mned. I never expected to actually hear real Vogon poetry. I now need to have my ears cut off… excuse me (rrrraaaaallllph!)
I repeat: “There is no useful measure of good or bad art.” The proof is that there are just as many people out there that think it’s wonderful as think it sucks and all you can do is say: “I disagree.” You have no way to prove you are right. I would go further and bet that you could get most of the two sides to reverse opinions by simply changing who the author is and nothing else. There is no accounting for taste. And political bias is more powerful than any perceived literary qualities either way.
Al Gore has redeemed the reputation of Vogon poetry.
Excellent White Devil, I’ve been waiting for someone to compare ManBearPig’s poetry to the great literary works of the Vogons.
#35 Michael Lonie
Not to mention Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings and Grunthos the Flatulent.
Reading it, at first I thought AlGore was trying to write haiku, which would be in keeping with his Eastern/mystical pretensions. But he keeps getting the line counts wrong. He obviously was not using iambic pentameter, although he may have thought he was doing so.
Whether in blank verse or vers libre, he’s no Don Marquis.
We can mark this down as yet another way Al is incapable of making sense. The scary thought is that he was one heartbeat away from the Presidency for eight years, and nobody noticed that he was a potential train wreck.
(Well, except maybe Hillary.)
clear ether
eon
The climate wars switch to bad ditties.
(At least mine rhymes in places and I think is witty!)
Gored Ode, Al
This thin December soon to go
Continents cloaked in deep snow
Change, maybe a fifty year low?
(Despite the millions C inner Earth glow!)
Belicose hot air flows
The acid sea lie grows and grows
In parody of AGW’s nose
(How long can it get? No-one knows)
Snow clouds glide in from the sea, pregnant with precipitation
The ice they father extends glaciation
As deep cooling hits the nation
(Killing many, no preparation)
Sand parched makes deserts to increase
Kindling made as frozen trees decease
Lightning sparks, fires start with ease
(Symptomatic of the freeze)
Unknown creatures as always must
As cycles swap warm rain for dust
Take their leave, unmourned alas
(Nature rules. It comes to pass)
Green shirts? Fools and funds they seek
Propaganda, gagging the meek
Too many far too scared to speak
(Scientist’s bigotry reaches a peak)
Drowned churches, unseen in the deep
Exposed as levels downward creep
The UV, O3 and cloud control
(The source of change, were truth to be told)
Mournful tolls from ghostly spires
Relate the truth, no Earth on fire
Despite it, yet the farce is played
(Alarmist leeches STILL ply their trade)
The propheteer, hear him lie,
The hour of choosing has arrived
Ten years until the Earth will die,
(Since 88, daily, spit in your eye)
Your descendants they will bake at best,
Without your cash to feather Gore’s nest
Without the basics you must make do
(Use just one sheet to clean your poo)
Believe, without proof
The hype thesis spoof
The cash cow gas will causes a disaster
(Its true value? Raucous laughter)
Al Gore’s twelve days of Christmas
On the first day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
a bogus Harvard degree
On the second day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Two turtles, steamed,
And a big old SUV
On the third day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And a stint as US VP
On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And an Oscar all for me
On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
A big sweet G-5,
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And a Nobel under my tree
On the sixth day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Six carbon credits,
A big sweet G-5,
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And a nice little carbon broker fee
On the seventh day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Seven white bears swimming,
Six carbon credits,
A big sweet G-5,
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And a feverish acid sea
On the eighth day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Eight maids in Nashville,
Seven white bears swimming,
Six carbon credits,
A big sweet G-5,
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And the hugest house in the galaxy
On the ninth day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Nine glaciers gliding,
Eight maids in Nashville,
Seven white bears swimming,
Six carbon credits,
A big sweet G-5,
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And a free pass on TV
On the tenth day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Lord Monckton laughing,
Nine glaciers gliding,
Eight maids in Nashville,
Seven white bears swimming,
Six carbon credits,
A big sweet G-5,
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And a whole herd of fawning sheep
On the eleventh day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Eleven rain-parched dirt plains,
Lord Monckton laughing,
Nine glaciers gliding,
Eight maids in Nashville,
Seven white bears swimming,
Six carbon credits,
A big sweet G-5,
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And paeans for poetry
On the twelfth day of Christmas,
my true tools gave to me
Twelve dumb algorithms,
Eleven rain-parched dirt plains,
Lord Monckton laughing,
Nine glaciers gliding,
Eight maids in Nashville,
Seven white bears swimming,
Six carbon credits,
A big sweet G-5,
Four hockey sticks,
Three French fries,
Two turtles, steamed,
And a quite convenient fallacy
Lots of talent out there. Seriously.
David
Please excuse klunkiness of some lines of Al’s Twelve Days. Wrote it as I was steeling myself to go out and shovel — a piece of the Arctic ice sheet had apparently broken off and drifted into my driveway overnight — so was a bit distracted.
Somewhat smoother revision here.
but it brings the noble craft of poetry down from Mount Olympus into the drains and sewers of the age, infecting the public sensibility, deluding the naive, contaminating the respect for tradition and high culture that should animate the life of a people, and reducing by contagion the faculty of aesthetic taste and judgment in all the fields of artistic endeavor.” SIMPLY BRILLIANT.
wow!!! you guys are great!!!
my analysis of Gore’s poem is simple…he’s a spoiled rich kid that never quite got the big pay off and he wants attention..simple, the school yard bully.
A 21st Century Psalm
December 7th has come and past
We must act, before Copenhagen is passed
If that Treaty is law I guarantee
Another occurrence of infamy
As they strip away democracy
We wish to debate the natural state
It was warm for awhile, but cold as of late
The scientist tried to hide the decline
Deny debate through deceit and design
The science was settled and the data deleted
All opposition was effectively defeated
From checking the facts, and results repeated
Who could prove the science was cheated
Man Made Global Warming is a lie
The CRU e-mails and codes do testify
The purpose, a Carbon Debt to apply
Kiss your money, technology and freedom goodbye
The silence is deafening across the land
As the revelations the public now understands
The weathers a carrot meant to disguise
A corrupt agenda before our eyes
And now we see light shining in Truth
Politicians, media, and search engines declare moot
You can glimpse the extent of the hypocrisy
In how they declare there is nothing to see
So much for transparency
Climategate Googlegate Copenhagengate
Who gave you permission to decide our fate?
Censoring discussion denying debate
The Spirit of Truth you desecrate
In all debate Truth intervenes
Asks does the end justify the means?
Demands that honesty remains supreme
That commitments aren’t made on fraudulent schemes
It’s time for the passive acceptance to end
It’s time to stand for freedom as free men
It’s time to expose the lies and deceit
It’s time to take it to the streets
Do not commit sedition do not get jailed
Non-Violent revolutions do not fail
The voice of the Prophets, Gandhi and King
Are calling for you to get marching
Or just sit back and take the vaccine.
AL GORE IS ANNOYING,GLOBAL WARMINGS JUST A LIBERAL TRICK,HE PULLS IN THE CASH,HE BELONGS IN THE TRASH,
AL GORES A BLABBERING DORK,ONCE STUCK HIMSELF WITH A FORK,HIS HOT AIR STILL RISING,AND STILL HIS DESPISING,HE CERTIANLY BELONGS WITH THE ORKS