Sarah Palin for U.S. Poet Laureate
Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 03:20AM
(A note from about a week after I posted this: the guys at Prospect magazine read it, laughed a hollow laugh, and asked for a longer, slightly different version, which you can read here...)
Well, Sarah Palin is back in Alaska, and all you can hear around these parts is the lonesome wail of the broken-hearted satirists of Europe. Come back Sarah! We love you! It's OK if you think Africa's a country! We don't mind. It's not like you were running for President of Africa. Hell, there's people over here in Europe think America's a country...
At least she's still giving interviews, to sort out these terrible misconceptions, so I can still get my regular fix. In today's one, with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, "the Alaska governor explains what she would have discussed had she been more available to the press."
Which turns out to be stuff like - I know Africa is a continent! Embedded in sentences like this one:
"I don't know, because I remember the discussion about Africa, my concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue, as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska's investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars, I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen anymore."
I like the middle bit of that sentence the best. It has a kind of poetry. And she says "continent", just to bang it home that she knows it's a continent. Subtle, but brilliant.
Hell, it IS poetry. Read it again:
Africa, a poem by Sarah Palin
"And the relevance
To me
With that issue,
As we spoke
About Africa and some
Of the countries
There that were
Kind of the people
Succumbing to the dictators
And the corruption
Of some
Collapsed governments
On the
Continent,
The relevance
Was Alaska's"
As Kurtz should have said at the end of Heart of Darkness, "The relevance! The relevance!"
If Obama is serious about reaching out across the aisle; about ending the divisions between Republican and Democrat - between red states and blue states - between people who believe in evolution and people who believe in creation - between monkeys and humans - between literate and illiterate - if Barack Hussein Obama truly believes in Change - then he will appoint Sarah Palin as the United States' seventeenth, and greatest, Poet Laureate.
Reader Comments (4)
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2008/1111/1225925645861.html
And an 82-word sentence is a bit long, even for Proust or Faulkner.
On the other hand, I give her credit for (unlike some other people) remembering where she is in that thought, all the way through.
Here's how I'd diagram that long sentence (I have to use dots because the system throws out leading blanks):
"I don't know,
...[what I would have discussed]
because I remember
... the discussion about Africa,
my concern has been
... the atrocities there
...... in Darfur
...and the relevance to me
........with that issue,
as we spoke
...about Africa
.. and some of the countries there
.............that were kind of
................ the people succumbing
................... to the dictators
............... and the corruption
....................of some collapsed governments
.......................... on the continent,
...the relevance was
......Alaska's investment in Darfur
.........with some of our permanent fund dollars,
I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen anymore."
Try to find Subject-Verb-Object...
Here's the core sentence:
because I remember
the discussion about Africa,
I wanted to make sure that that didn't happen anymore.
I do believe that Gov Palin is the brightest light (in more than one sense) to shine on national politics in a long time (maybe Teddy Roosevelt was the last), and she has a great future in that arena.
But there's a big difference between well-delivered rhetoric (in the good old sense) and poetry.
I don't think she said "continent" just to show us that she knows that Africa is a continent - that would put her even with any decent 8th-grader - but rather because that's the best word to fit there.
Looking back at the core sentence and the full version, I have to conclude that she's a good speaker, one who thinks ahead. The beginning and end of that sentence is tied perfectly with everything between.
If she were writing it, she'd probably break it into two sentences.
Which reminds me: there are differences between informal speech - conversation - and formal speech - delivered to an audience - and writing for publication. This was an interview - conversation - and for someone like Cavett to judge it on the basis of formal speech is unwarranted. If we assume that he's smart enough to know those differences, I can only ascribe malice to his diatribe.
I agree with you that there is a core sentence about Africa and Alaska in there, and that it can be discovered through archeology, but I fear that some of Sarah Palin's listeners may not be as swift-witted as she is, and may not be able to find that core on a single hearing.
Which is why the sooner she puts out those mighty thoughts as a slim volume of verse, to be read again and again, the better.