I don’t believe in censorship, but censure is sometimes called for. In this case, it’s a piece of pseudo-political dreck by Michael Robbins, who—in a poem tantalizingly entitled “To the Drone Vaguely Realizing Eastward”—attempts to avenge the 200-plus children so far killed by drone strikes. Here’s the first verse:
This is a poem for President Drone.
It was written by a camel.
Can I borrow your phone?
This is for President Mark Hamill.
Maybe one has to be drunk on Sterno to write this way, or maybe all it takes is a PhD from the University of Chicago. In any case, readers who enjoy bashing their own skulls with a tire iron may enjoy the rest of Robbins’ ersatz poem here.
If, on the other hand, you prefer (a) real poetry and (b) real politics, let me suggest a real poet: Bill Knott—the fellow I believe Robbins is ham-handedly trying to imitate (in tone if not in form). Take, for example:
Testament
You know the fable
How a soldier’s bible
Kept in his jacket pocket
Stopped a bulletBut that catechism
Born to foster schism
Also stopped his heart his
Mind from finding peaceHe would not have had need
Of such a shield
Nor would his blood have been
Thrilled to kill someoneOf another faith
If in that book he had not first read death
Or Knott’s poem about Robert S. McNamara:
Secretary
The technocrat gloats
at his remote desk
but just to show
he’s still humanhe still does a few
chores by hand
and adds a human
touch for examplerather than having
his computers do it
he himself stampsall by himself
stamps PAID on
the casualty-lists.
And, inimitably (take that, Ez!):
Penny Wise
well alright
I grant you
he was a fascist
ahem antisemitism the
er war and all
I’m not defending them
but at least
you’ve got to admit
at least he
made the quatrains run on time
These I got from Knott’s Selected Political Poems, 1965-2005, which is (I believe) out of print. More’s the pity!
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 17 books, including a translation of flash fictions by Mexican author Miguel Lupián, and co-edited two anthologies. He lives in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. He teaches at the University of Denver's University College, where he currently directs three programs: Professional Creative Writing, Arts & Culture Management, and Global Community Engagement. 
Thanks, Ed. Good to see Thomas Lux out there stumping for Bill's <i>Selected</i>….
here is something re: Bill's "stuff" :<br /><br />http://www.pw.org/content/thomas_lux_searches_for_the_elusive_bill_knott<br /><br />
Bill, I wish you'd do one of your close readings on a Robbins poem. His most famous piece (the one with the lines "you shouldn’t drink diarrhea / unless you bring enough for everybody") might be a place to start. It's easy to praise to condemn any writer without specifics. I happen to think that Robbins' specifics provide rope enough to hang him, but I one of your
Robbins doesn't need me to defend his work, but I'll just reiterate that I think<br /><br />he is a massively talented writer, and anything he publishes is worth<br /><br />reading, even this deadline occasional verse—<br /><br />
Do I call you Ted, Hash, or Berryman? I'll go with Ted. I read your send-up of Robbins and got a big kick out of it. Keep after it!
Joseph, Thank you for being one of the few dissenting opinions on this poem. It blew my mind to see so many residents of the internet praising it, some even going so far as to call it "brilliant". In fact, I wrote my own blog post about this poem that you can read <a href="http://tedhashberryman.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/
It's certainly not the stance I object to, Bill. (The subject deserves trenchant treatment.) It's the content, such as it is. But it may just be that I'm out of the pop-cult loop enough to miss the relevance of Mark Hamill, a camel, an Ernie, and a bomb bay door in the context of drone strikes. I continue to think Robbins must have been drunk or otherwise altered when he wrote it.
and he deserves praise for the adversarial content of his poem—<br /><br />did any of the other commissioned poems even reference the starwars drones used by the Obama administration?—<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
Joe, I appreciate your kind words about my "political" poems,<br /><br />but I think you're being too harsh on the Robbins effort . . . no, it is not one of <br />his best, but it was occasioned/commissioned and is indeed a 'deadline' poem,<br />and has to be read with those conditions and qualifications in mind . . . given<br />those limitations, I think what he wrote is
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