Sarah Palin: The Bard of Wasilla; the Homer of Homer, Alaska

Sarah Palin: The Bard of Wasilla; the Homer of Homer, Alaska

I'm sure there must be an element of tongue-in-cheek here, but to be frank, Palin's speeches are actually pretty good populist poetry, with just a touch of the Beat Generation rhythm. If you went up to the podium and recited some lines from Sandburg or Whitman or Allen Ginsburg in support of some social issue like raising the minimum wage, people would call you crazy, because it would only be marginally relevant, and would not be sufficiently linear for our prosaic world. But it would still be pretty damned good poetry. Below we have the words of Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Woody Guthrie, Allen Ginsberg, and Sarah Palin. I don't think you can argue that she is not in the populist poet tradition.

I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for someone to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
Turning safety nets into hammocks,
and all these new Democrat voters
that are going to be coming on over the border
as we keep the borders open.
How ‘bout the rest of us?
Right wingin’,
bitter clingin’,
proud clingers of our guns,
our god,
and our religions,
and our Constitution.
Tell us that we’re not red enough?
The singiest,
square dancingest,
drinkingest,
yellingest,
preachingest,
walkingest, talkingest,
laughingest, cryingest,
shootingest, fist fightingest, bleedingest,
gamblingest,
gun, club and razor carryingest
of our ranch towns and farm towns
yacketayakking
screaming
vomiting
whispering facts
and memories
and anecdotes
and eyeball kicks
and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action,
cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats,
the horseman in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles,
and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child,
The young fellow hoeing corn,
the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd,

You hard-working Iowa families.

You farm families!

And teachers!

And teamsters!

And cops, and cooks!

You rockin’ rollers!

And holy rollers!

All of you who work so hard,

You full-time moms!

You, with the hands that rock the cradle!

You all make the world go round,

and now,

Our cause is one!