Author: Sarah Dunlap
A man known for his political convictions, autobiographies and impassioned speeches, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is now receiving attention for something new – his poetry. Kevin Batton (senior) reported on Obama’s two poems, “Pop” and “Underground,” both found in the Spring 1982 issue of Feast, Occidental’s former literary magazine. Over a month after the Weekly published Batton’s article, various media sources have used these findings to cover and comment on Obama’s poetry, often mentioning Occidental College in the process.
Weekly Staff Advisor Steven Barrie-Anthony placed a link to the Weekly’s Obama article on The Huffington Post, a left-leaning online news website and political blog. In subsequent weeks, media from the United States and the United Kingdom drew from Jim Tranquada’s findings and ran articles describing Obama’s poetry and reviewing its artistic quality.
Barrie-Anthony mentioned the Weekly’s poetry article on The Huffington Post partially for its political relevance. He said that Obama’s student poetry might provide an accurate self-portrait of this presidential contender.
“A 19-year-old writing poetry tends to be more open than a politician is. I just thought people would be as interested as I was in reading it,” Barrie-Anthony said. “I think it’s a good scoop. I thought it’d be fun to get it out there further.”
British poet Ian McMillan analyzed and evaluated “Pop” and “Underground” for the English newspaper The Guardian. While he reviewed “Pop”-the longer of the two poems, written about Obama’s grandfather-somewhat favorably, he found “Underground” to be “more typical of the kind of poem a 19-year-old might write.”
“It’s obscure, faux na’f, mock profound, and it’s got the words ‘musty’ and ‘pelts’ in the same line. It needn’t concern us further; it’ll rightly end up in the dustbin of history, but I’m sure we’ll hear from ‘Pop’ again before the next election,” McMillan said.
In the World News section of British news source The Telegraph, Andrew Gumbel regarded both poems poorly in his March 28 article “Pop goes myth of Obama the young prodigy.” He wrote that in modern-day politics, the embarrassment of authoring sub-par poetry is tantamount to the shame of sex scandals and illegal drug use.
“Of the many embarrassing revelations that can result from a decision to run for U.S. President-the drugs, the sexual behaviour, the fits of anger or religious hypocrisy- here perhaps is a new, excruciating low: having your not-terribly-good student poetry laid bare,” Gumbel said.
Gumbel somewhat agreed with L.A. Observed blogger Kevin Roderick, who referred to the excavation of Obama’s poetry as “a semi-cruel exercise.” “The poetry is certainly good enough not to attract ridicule. On the other hand, nobody is proclaiming it to be a work of genius, either,” Gumbel said. “Time will tell if poetry and presidential politics are deemed to be entirely separate domains.”
In addition to The Huffington Post, Obama’s poetry has been re-printed on a variety of online sources, including L.A. Observed, Obamapedia, and L.A. Curbed. On Barrie-Anthony’s original Huffington Post blog, several users responded with sharply divided sentiments.
While one reader called the poetry “beautifully written,” another simply concluded that “[Obama’s] teacher told him to turn in the poems as homework and he obliged her.”
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