Amanda Palmer doesn’t impress me. She never has. And while I’ve never bought into her exhaustingly whimsical pro-artist nonsense that’s actually really self-serving and obnoxious, I’ve also never felt the need to physically recoil at anything she’s done. Until now. Until reading her “A Poem of Dzhokhar,” where she writes:
you don’t know how many vietnamese soft rolls to order.
you don’t know how convinced your parents were that having children would be, absolutely, without question, the correct thing to do.
you don’t know how precious your iphone battery time was until you’re hiding in the bottom of the boat.
you don’t know how to get away from your fucking parents.
you don’t know how it’s possible to feel total compassion in one moment and total disconnection in the next moment.
you don’t know how things could change so incredibly fast.
you don’t know how to make something, but the instructions are on the internet.
You can read the whole thing here. But, be warned—if you don’t like it (and many people don’t) that’s not Palmer’s fault. That’s your own inability to see what the poem is really about. And her response to that criticism is what makes it all the more awful:
