Baraka -- thump & stump -- Baraka's Somebody Blew Up America

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Date Posted: 02:44:11 10/09/02 Wed
Author: ChrisW
Subject: Baraka -- thump & stump

1. Well, of course the Guv could always ask Baraka to quit, yes, that's fine. But to demand, enforce, cause punitive action to befall a non-political position such as poet laureate? Nope.
2. It's not a matter of the "correctness" of Baraka's implication... there's a certain amount of isolation involved in some aspects of Americans' knowledge of international affairs versus our counterparts in other countries. I believe it is entirely possible that there was an international inkling that something bad may go down on 9/11 and that the US gov't was inept in its interpretation of key information. Baraka might be engaging in a bit of hyperbole in order to get his point across.
3. Of course not. No one person can, whether Governor, President or college football booster. Elected officials need only win by plurality. Specialized state, um, honorifics are selected by "experts" in their related fields.
4. This and the above question are very similar. Many Americans don't even know how "their (political) candidates" stand on most issues, dazed as they are by clever rhetoric, rote promises and emotional appeals. How many people notice the Poet Laureate? How many would vote? Almost by definition of the title this person is not obligated to speak "for the people" but for his/her ostensibly greater and deeper vision. Poet Laureate is an apex, not a servant.
5. Baraka's fault is not "speaking his mind" but rather doing it so poorly and with such an obvious agenda. His poem rehashes many points found elsewhere but provides little else. The controversy should be that our state Poet Laureate did indeed produce such dreck.
6. No. See #1.
7. Poet Laureate should speak his mind; however it should be able to be assumed that he/she *has* one, and that there is a certain amount of cultivation and even-handedness therein. It seems to me Baraka does not do justice to his predecessors, and its obvious that he has decided to corrupt the Olympian nature of position in an attempt to further his own prejudices -- something that could set an ugly precedent for down the road.

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