[Jim Hayes]

And The Bad News Is..

My midnight tweets are fashioned on the fly,
I never know myself what they’ll say next.
I dump Iran, tell Kim he’s one great guy.
I leave our allies angry and perplexed.

I suck up to the Russian hard man Putin,
I love his Gulags made to intern foes,
no fake news for him- he puts the boot in.
Forget the Wall and build me one of those.

I’d send back all four broads where they belong.
I’ve a forty point support base locked down tight.
A misogynist and racist can’t go wrong-
I jibe with their deep instincts and I’m white.

Old Sleepy Joe or who’s-that? hold no fears.
A cupla rust-belt states and four more years.

[E. Shaun Russell]

Jim,

This is certainly occasional verse, and I wonder if it could have enough staying power to feel at all relevant past this year. I also can't help but think that there's nothing particularly novel about any of the items you mention. Sure, it might be their first time in a poem, but does that make them enough for a poem?

Perhaps more damning, however, is that picking out Trump's many, many tweets and comments etc. is low hanging fruit. It's so incredibly easy to select abhorrent things he has said and form them into a poem of sorts. In fact, it might work better as a non-metrical "found poem" -- just pick out a bunch of his tweets, trim them judiciously, and put them together.

Ultimately, for me this poem just leaves me with a feeling of "and?" after I read it. We know all these things about Trump, and we hate him for them...but seeing them packaged together in a sonnet like this doesn't feel novel or new, and doesn't even provide much of a different perspective than what we get from the so-called 24-hour news cycle. Technically I have a few nits as well, but I think the problem (for me) is conceptual.

[Jim Hayes]

Thank you Shaun, good hearing from you, I have to confess that not being assailed on a daily basis here by Mr Trump I may have imagined this to be a little more fresh than obviously appears to be the case.

Your take is valued and I appreciate your comments, as regards occasional verse well, this is obviously such, but I would be more inclined to dismiss it if Mr Trump’s somewhat malign influence were to be equally ephemeral, alas, it will not prove so I fear.

You indicate you have some technical concerns which I would welcome your advice on.

All best

Jim

[Susan McLean]

Jim, since you've asked for the technical problems, I would advise you to take out the comma in S3L4 or at least move it to before the "and." The correct word in that line would be "jibe," not "jive," but it is a very common error to mistake the two, and I thought perhaps you were implying that Trump would make it, which certainly sounds credible. I have to agree with Shaun that there are no real surprises here, but I think that there is always a place for topical verse, even when it does not have a long shelf life.

Susan

[Jim Hayes]

Thank you Susan I can understand that targeting Mr Trump is indeed picking low-hanging fruit and while I may well be now polishing a poo I’ve made the changes you suggest.

I’m glad you support occasional verse, while it rarely has a shelf life the immediacy of poetic comment has a value and provides useful satiric commentary to current personages and events, not saying of course that I’ve actually managed to achieve that here.

With kind regards

Jim

[RCL]

I especially like that most hated man in America's junk is delivered as a sonnet, the traditional format of love poems. So there is a bit of irony.

[Jim Hayes]

God help me Ralph, who knows what subliminal urges are at work here.

[Jake Sheff]

Jim,

I read this and have to agree with Shaun.

Jake

[Mark McDonnell]

Also what Shaun said, I'm afraid, Jim. It's just a list of abhorrent things that Trump has said, done or (probably) thought, none of which are news, strung together into sonnet form. It's not funny, insightful, or angry enough to be memorable, for me, and it should be at least one of those things. And for a first-person piece, it doesn't even really sound anything like Trump.