Your Concept... It Needs "Work"

I don't like politics.  I like discussion and debate; don't get me wrong on that.  I love a good argument, in fact.  But I can't stand politics.  Someone might as well be poking me in the eye.  Or I might as well be roommates with the owner of 1,000 shrill alarm clocks all set to go off at the most inopportune time of night - namely, right before sleep finally sets in.  But I am willing to put that dislike aside for just a moment.  Okay, more than a moment, as writing this will likely take at least a few of those all too precious seconds.

This country has a problem.  That statement is misleading.  We have several problems.  One of which IS unemployment, the economy, capital, and, yes, taxes.  This problem is multi-faceted and reaches a level of complexity which a humble English major can't really get into, so I, instead, as every professor of creative writing will eventually tell his or her students, will write what I know.  Or at least what I think I know.

There is a lack of truth in language.  Words seem to shift in their meaning, and I'm not sure when it happened, but it's set the idea of things all off-kilter.  Somehow, words have become like art.  Like music.  Two disciplines in which one may ask, "But what does it mean?"  The likely reply (if the composer is worth his or her salt) would be to simply play it again and have the individual interpret, as they are wont to do.  Words do not function like art.  A speech should not be a painting.  A press release should not be a poem.  Words have meaning; politics is not art.  But this doesn't explain why we have so many politicians rearranging facts as though those facts are the features of faces in Picasso's paintings.  Journalists should not need to interpret the words of a politician.

Perhaps this is why I'm so appalled by recent comments made by a certain politician.  The words themselves, while disgustingly general and grossly stereotypical I can stomach.  Lima beans aren't palatable at first, but one eventually develops a taste for them.  What dismayed me was the response put out by the man who spoke the words (paraphrasing): "They [the words] could have been more eloquently stated, I'll say that much."  This is the gist of the retort.  A rebuttal of sorts and one which should send up red flags because politicians are not poets.

I am a slam poet.  In writing this competitive style of poetry, one must always be mindful of a few things: concept, writing, and delivery.  Concept is the core idea or message behind your poetry.  Writing is your phrasing, the words one chooses to express the concept of the poem (how eloquently one states his or her point may be considered to fall in this category).  Delivery is the poet's stage presence; it is his or her performance.  Writing cannot change the concept of the poem.  Writing DOES NOT change the concept of the poem.  Painting a racing stripe onto a Ford Pinto does not change the fact that it's still a Ford Pinto.  It would not change the fact that I would be mildly embarrassed to be driving one.  In fact, I'd wonder if other people wondered if I was trying to hide something by dressing up such a crummy car.  Before this analogy gets too messy, let us use it to talk about something useful.

Mr. Romney writing off 47% of the American public as entitled, victim complex people who expect the federal government to take care of them is an absolutely deplorable concept regardless of how he wants to word it.  Eloquence be damned; no amount of writing can save such crass statements.  If I walked into a slam with a poem with that poor of a concept, I should rightfully lose.  No matter my writing, a bad concept is just that: Bad.  It is uninspired, pandering, and insipid.  Which is to say tasteless.

I will be waiting to see just how the media decides to cover this.  More than likely, the man in question and politics as usual will resort to something like poetic license.  This is what was said, but that is not what was meant.  Sadly, it reminds me of a poet who once said of their own work, "Mine is the kind of work that you can't really understand.  You just have feel."

Romney is a politician, not a poet.  If he were, however, his work would be the kind I could neither understand nor feel.