Your Failure To Enthuse Is Violence, Apparently

Mr Roy G Guzmán, whose tweet appears below, describes himself as “a marginalised writer,” and an “artist and influencer,” thereby signalling to lower beings both his suffering and his modesty. He’s also, it seems, a tad sensitive:

Note the gratuitous use of white woman. Perhaps that tells us something about Mr Guzmán’s poetic soul. A sample of Mr Guzmán’s creative output, titled Queerodactyl, is reproduced in full below. But before we venture further, you may wish to grip the arms of your chair:

            

            My heart was a dystopian

berry budding in water tiger

lilies claiming

            hocus-pocus wonder. I was broken

vanity, vixen vase, victorious tête-

à-tête — the Scrabble game nobody won

            because the tiles aspired speculums.

Ocean-misaligned brook / brook-misaligned

                                                            agua

— where else could these gospels have dawned

if not in the bellies of men

hyenaing a becoming?

                                    Twerking in church,

I outperformed the candles

diarized in the simpleminded annexation.       Wussup,

                    Blastoise

with the veiniest homebound

                                                pika-pika aim?

Wussup, Sims

              Chumbawamba Family Portrait Simulation?

                        St. Sunny of the Sissies

beheld the bukkake throng

                         of mojo-coated cartilage

squandered

               on the refurbished bunk

for new cetaceans. A dazzling jeremiad

               shone me dead

until I gridlocked the algebraic expressions

                of my body in question marks.

                            These syndicated fiyahs

stigmatized my herculean magma

                                                    shades,

                  but I held these walls apart,

every inch of my mascara cut off

                                                    apple pie.

              You watched me hobble home

while the streets coalesced magenta. Tell Momma

                    the holes I cover with one error

swell — & there are only inadvertent landscapes

                   to dollop with nonetheless.

 

I’ll give you a moment to process that. To internalise its immensity.

Mr Guzmán tells us that he “holds degrees from the University of Minnesota, Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago, and the Honors College at Miami Dade College,” and is “pursuing a PhD in Cultural Studies (Comparative Studies in Discourse and Society) at the University of Minnesota.” Mr Guzmán is now violently blocking lots of people on Twitter. 

Update, via the comments:

After dismissing the recent, rather negative appraisals of his poetry as driven by “toxic masculinity” and “(white) male fragility” - no other possibilities being conceivable, of course - Mr Guzmán has apparently retired from Twitter. We are, it seems, a terrible disappointment to him. Such are the travails of artistic genius. Or rather, such are the effects of spending so much time in the Clown Quarter of academia, where narcissism and flummery are indulged - and consequently being ill-prepared for anything approaching honesty.

Via sk60.

Comments

[Lancastrian Oik]

Band name

"like the unspaced brownbodiesredbodiesyellowbodiesblackbodies

of colonial misogynistxenophilia" is actually a Chumbawumba lyric.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Poetry is where you find it.

gloved fingers masked faces

probe

through the gash

down, metal fingers grab flesh,

pullcutburnstaplesew

flesh

flesh under cold light,      cutslicedstained

oogled by unfeeling eyes

   diseased              they say

who are they to say - disease is a spectrum on the quantum of life

only a nazi would be so unfeeling.

or trump.

By George, yes you can find poetry anywhere, I call that one, "Appendectomy is Rape".

[David]

Begun the poem wars have.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

A sound

   a sound of grinding

     a sound of grinding whining

         a sound of grinding whining metal

death

A smell

   a smell of burning

     a smell of burning acrid

         a smell of burning acrid metal

death

Save your misogynistic mansplaning

   i will not earthrape Mother Gaia for oil for any reason

Save your misogynistic mansplaing

   only the proletariat can truly seize my engine

[David]

Something tells me it’s going to be a long evening.

[Lancastrian Oik]

only the proletariat can truly seize my engine

... and that's from "Springsteen On Broadway".

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

soft golden glow

   accents

warm magenta orange rising

 over purple red

no dawn can compare

               to the reflections from your hair and nose ring

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

... and that's from "Springsteen On Broadway".

Hmmmmpf.

To quote Picasso, "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

Now if you will excuse me, I will return to my muse, there is at least a quart left.

[Hal]

or woke Star Wars, where the explanations favoured involved “sexism,” “toxic fandom” and “toxic masculinity,” rather than a failure to create a product that audiences were happy with.

Three forms of storytelling,
or,
The Once And Future Jedi, by T.H. White,
or,
Poor Mickey Mouse, he has indigestion and gout.

[Hal]

Poetry updated.

[JuliaM]

A poetry slam! I always wondered why that term sounded so violent! :D

[Squires]

Once again, relevant:

https://youtu.be/qmlYe2KS0-Y

[Paul]

TIL that Vogons live amongst us.

[Paul Nottingham]

Please don't quote the poems, that's cultural appropriation.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Upon rereading (I know, a fool's errand) Queerodactyl, I realized that my previous works will never get a grant as they actually make sense, so channeling Senor Guzman, I offer the following, "Shillelaghsaurus".

Hark the herald angles

                   a full fourty fathoms down.
Bismarkian depth's unsullied overtures

   cleave to riven railroads tsunami of ersatz joy;

On another continent a gem world whorl whirls

                     stuporous

while a hooker's red light delight fastens

             sonorous diadems of cataleptic politicians overcoats of righteousness.

  '   Still...

still stills of stills on stilts on the sill, silted, slotted, slatternly sluttish, slothlike soothsayers

     dwell on amoebic symbiosis.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

BTW, Roy, if you are following any of this, all the works herein are copyrighted "David's Genuine Yorkshire Poetry Slam™", so don't even think of plagiarizing - we'll be watching...

[Lancastrian Oik]

For most of my adult life I’ve been willing to give Van Dyke Parks a free pass for ”columnated ruins domino”.

Having read this thread, now I ain’t so sure.

[Sam]

Well Ian, nobody else seemed to notice your Scrabble catch, but I think you nailed it. Excellent. To be fair to Mr Guzman (now the second most famous Guzman I'd wager) how much time has the Western world spent on your pretentious post-Scrabble ponderings?

Check and mate for Mr Guzman.

[FlynPigRanch]

Horseshow Haiku

Near backyard sunset
Old, naked horseshoes play
By the rubber boots

[FlynPigRanch]

Oh my rubber boots,
It is chilly and windy.

With heavy horseshoes,
And two without clothes, naked.

When it farts I feel frightened.

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a Good Night!

[Barney]

"Obviously hasn't seen the new woke Doctor Who."

Remind me. Does SJW stand for 'Social Jodie Warrior' or 'Social Justice Whittaker'?

[Daniel Ream]

Only one man can save us from the onslaught of bad poetry.

[Steve E]

A Frosty Woke Tale

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And being non binary I could travel neither
And still be woke, so long I stood
Without a signal or electronic good
Succumbing to a patriarchal fever;

For with no signal, no Uber fare,
Neither Lyft, nor taxi could be enabled,
I was left marooned with none to care;
All that remained was to put thumb to air,
Though blue hair and piercing would get me labeled.

Intersectionality would see me stranded
At this intersection, how ironic,
My public grant check had not landed
Leaving me walking aimless and empty-handed,
Though, nonetheless I felt iconic.

I shall be telling this while high
to a party of fellow soyboi rebels:
I burnt down that fcuking wood, and I-
At once understood Lennon's Norwegian cry
And the deals that we make with the devil.

[pst314]

When you throw yourself on top of one of them to save the rest of us, we'll speak of you fondly at the regimental club.

Why would I need to do that after I dug that nice slit trench for you in the middle of your pub?

[Hal]

Never fear. When in doubt, one can always go to the classics.

"Dago, Dago, Lassi Lima rintintin
Yanqui unicycle ramar rotoroot
Telstar aloha saarinen cloret
Stassen camaro impala desoto?
Gardol oleo tebephon lumumba!
Ghappaqua havatampa muriel
U canleada horsta wata, bwana,
Butyu canna makit drinque!

Comsat melba rubaiyat nirvana
Garcia y vega hiawatha aloo.
O mithra, mithra, I fain wud lie doon!
Valdaree valdera, que sera, sirrah,
Honi soit la vache qui rit.
Honi soit la vache qui rit."

("Oh, the leaves are falling, the flowers are wilting, and the rivers are all going Republican. O Ramar, Ramar, ride quickly on your golden unicycle and warn the nymphs and drag queens! Ah, who now shall gather lichee nuts and make hoopla under the topiaries? Who will trim my unicorns? See, even now the cows laugh, Alas, alas." Chorus: "We are the chorus, and we agree. We agree, we agree, we agree.")

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Batten the hatches, there may be a Moronolanche from Ace about this topic.

[sH2]

Mr Roy G Guzmán… describes himself as “a marginalised writer,”

Affirmative action poetry. It's not good but who cares?

[David]

Affirmative action poetry. It’s not good but who cares?

It is, I think, a possibility to consider.

Certainly, Mr Guzmán’s intimations of victimhood and oppression are rather dubious, given that his own status, such as it is, has quite possibly been enabled by racial favouritism and racial fetishism, courtesy of other race-fixated lefties and left-dominated institutions. Such that The Atlantic will gush over his poems about “queer brown bodies” - without actually sharing any of them with readers, or even linking to examples, as if the particulars were less important the writer’s pigmentation - and while thrilling to Mr Guzmán’s brownness, as if it were a credential, the measure of validity, and a basis for acclaim.

[TomJ]

On the assertion there are no bad writers, only bad traders and this studying observation:

Words are there to communicate, to connect with an audience, and if you as the writer don't make the least effort to connect, then what are you doing?

This attitude seems to explain the various "Theory" based academic outpourings. If you don't connect the various strings of word soup you are reading into a whole it's your own fault and, as a writer, it's better to be more opaque because if you leave something coherent it may be possible to argue against it whereas if it's totally incomprehensible you can blame the reader for being insufficiently ascended to comprehend. You'd have thought Sokal and Sokal Squared might have acted as an Emperor's new clothes moment for this sort of thing, but the culture seems to evened as yet.

[David]

You’d have thought Sokal and Sokal Squared might have acted as an Emperor’s new clothes moment for this sort of thing,

I don’t think narcissism is amenable to refutation, or indeed shame.

[Charlie Suet]

Typically off topic, but not sure if this has been posted.

I think it works whether you agree with leftist dogma or not.

[Zionist Overlord #73]

There are no bad poets, only bad poetry readers.
There are             no bad movies, only bad movie watchers.
There are no bad TV series,        only            bad TV watchers.
There                are no bad blogs, only bad blog           readers.
There    are    no    bad    mathematicians, only bad math test graders who reject appeals because they're racist.
There are no bad                      lovers, only selfish frigid whiners, OMG why won't you answer my texts?!?!
There are no                 bad blog comments, only           bad blog comment              readers.
There are no bad kings, 
                           only 
                                   stupid kids 
                                                      who won't 
                                                                        shut up.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

@ Zionist Overlord #73

[Patrick Brown]

Is that Neil Gaiman getting busted by ee cummings man?

[Zionist Overlord #73]

@Farnsworth M Muldoon

Thank you.

I had originally written it as simple satire, but then I realized I could add some spaces and make it poetry.

[Spiny Norman]

then I realized I could add some spaces and make it poetry.

LOL

(or, as the kool kidz say, KEK).

[Baceseras]

Who Are We Not To Judge

Joseph Mirra

The precepts of the Lord are pretty clear—
What’s right or wrong is plain enough to see.
And yet the question that we often hear,
Is who are we to judge what shouldn’t be.
It seems the ban on judgment trickled down
From other people to the deeds performed;
To say, “that’s wrong,” will likely draw a frown—
Excusing all’s the choice of the informed.
Again the easy way is taken out;
We’re given props without a price to pay.
If this were really what life was about,
Then who would ever fear the judgment day?
That day when judgments due the greatest blame
May be the evils we refused to name.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/06/who-are-we-not-to-judge

[Daniel Ream]

Is that Neil Gaiman getting busted by ee cummings man?

Quite possibly. The original artist is Ste Dillon, and Neil remembers him fondly.

[D 2]

I read some poems today, oh boy
And listened to a band named
Unspaced brown bodies
And though their fan base is rather small
They do play ska
I don't know why white women don't give them the attention they deserve

I'd love to turn you - someone - anyone - on......

Apologies to Paul & John.

[Watcher In The Dark]

I can do no better than take a quote from the great man's poetry:

"dollop"

There, that sums it up.

[Smallish Bees]

When I read the article, I was struck by Guzman's shockingly fragile psyche, his pose of being the most easily bruised rose petal on the bush, that he would actually find scary, scary violence in someone's approach to reading poetry. Snowflake, indeed.

Until I stopped and remembered these people are the same ones who will wilfully ignore the depredations of totalitarian regimes world 'round, and who act as apologists and cheering squad for their pet goons in Antifa.

What I wonder: Is the pose of snowflake a conscious head-fake, or is it somehow a dual psychological state in which the two opposites somehow are never called to make their appearance on the stage at the same time?

It's hard to imagine someone being so frightened of potential violence of inadequate poetry appreciation while simultaneously wanting to punch Nazis.

I remember being little and lying so thoroughly about something that I half convinced myself that it was true (whatever it was that I was lying about). I think I'd prefer to think these leftists are self-deceived than cynical moralizing creeps who hold others to standards they have no intention to keep themselves.

[Sporkatus]

@Smallish: For my money it's the Renfield response. Someone who is so craven and weak of fibre, with nothing worthy to cling to that they haven't rejected, can crave only power that they know they can't competently wield and could never truly hold. They imagine themselves wielding the power... if only their grasp weren't so feeble, so they indulge an envious and worshipping fawn toward those who do exercise power.

It's well in their minds that everyone else be forced into the same subjugation and servility they have chosen for themselves. Any time they hold a fleeting reign on power, it's to bring others down into the gutter that they know they will inevitably collapse back into, themselves.

Even without contemplating the often comorbid psychosexual hangups that all implies, it's an utterly revolting mindset.

[WJohn]

Search for Hancock's Half Hour, The Poetry Society.
Anthony Aloysius and Sydney were way ahead of their time.

[Hal]

It's hard to imagine someone being so frightened of potential violence of inadequate poetry appreciation while simultaneously wanting to punch Nazis.

It's equally and entirely Me!!!!! Me!!!!! Me!!!!! Me!!!!! Me!!!!! Me!!!!! Me!!!!! Me!!!!! Me!!!!!

My poetry which is required to be admired, that Nazi variety of narcissist who is required to be beaten because of supporting an identity other than mine, Of Course dictators are to be admired because I too am to be a dictator and where you are required to worship MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Etc.

[Smallish Bees]

Spork and Hal, wow, those interpretations are even bleaker than mine! The words thing about true fools, rather than just people who should know better, is that they are not harmless.