In response to this post about Obama reading poetry, Slog tipper ubutunes writes:
Turns out he writes it, too, or used to, when he was surfer boy Barry Obama his first years as Occidental College. Check out this report from Fox news in Greensboro, featuring Bill the Baker, a then friend of Obama.
Many thanks to ubutunes, who notes, in the spirit of full disclosure, that he “went to grad school with Bill the Baker.” Did he go by Bill the Grad Student back then, or did he bake in addition to his studies?
I wonder if more or less people would have voted for him if he ran as “Barry Obama.”
The New Yorker ran an article about Obama’s poetry last year, and they printed one of his poems (“Pops”, about his grandfather) a month or two ago.
Here they are. His prose style actually translates fairly smoothly into poetry.
Are we the poets that write the poetry.
Or is it the poetry that writes the poets.
Health care is a right, that must be written.
And yet, we must right the wrong of those rights yet to be wrote in a rite of passage.
More like Bill the Stoner back then!
Damn, I should’a said, Bill the Baked!
“We socialized a lot.”
Fucking Socialists.
I think that I shall never see
A Constitution as lovely as a chainsawed tree
It brings to mind my lovely shredder
And walk-in safe to make you wetter.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
You derailed my candidacy, Sarah
Fuck you
Hitler enjoyed poetry. Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler. Therefore, poetry is a liberal plot to destroy Israel and launch a new Holocaust. Q.E.D., bitches!