Poet Laureate Loses Laureateship
Amiri Baraka's “Somebody Blew Up America”
Amiri Baraka lost his New Jersey poet laureateship when the Anti-Defamation League denounced Baraka's anti-Semitism in "Somebody Blew Up America."
Baraka’s screed reads like a list of incoherent notes jotted down briefly without thought of making any kind of sense. The speaker fulminates in a grammatically/historically challenged voice that reveals a low level of literacy and lack of common sense.
Even the title gets it wrong
The title, “Somebody Blew Up America,” presents two erroneous assertions. The screed supposedly reacts to the events of September 11, 2001, when nineteen Middle Eastern Islamists boarded four passenger airplanes turning those planes into weapons of war.
Of course, as is well documented, most people know that those Islamists did not succeed in blowing up America. They took out two World Trade Center buildings in New York City and part of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., while the fourth airplane crashed in field in Pennsylvania. The worst they did was killing almost 3000 Americans in their despicable act.
So the reader can take the “blew up America” as exaggeration but nothing more. However, the claim that “Somebody” committed those heinous acts is utterly disingenuous. Everybody knows who did it. By implying that he does not know who “blew up America,” the speaker places himself with the conspiracy theorists, the truthers who claim that it was not “terrorist” who commandeered those planes, but the U. S. government.
American terrorists
The poem mockingly cries, “It wasn't our American terrorists / It wasn't the Klan or the Skin heads,” with the innuendo that it probably was the Klan or the Skin heads and not the Islamists who actually committed the act. (Amiri Baraka is the former LeRoi Jones, who changed his name in 1968 after deciding to identify as a Muslim.)
The speaker demonstrates a lack of erudition even in education by such lines as “or reincarnates us on Death Row.” The use of “reincarnates” in such as way shows that the speaker is unclear about the meaning of the word.
Who, who, who
By the third section of the tirade, the speaker has launched into a repetition of questions about who did what, with the implication that the white man did all these things to the black man: “Who do the saying / Who is them paying / Who tell the lies / Who in disguise / Who had the slaves?”
This monotonous form continues for the rest of the poem (well over a hundred lines) until the speaker gets the clever idea that he sounds like an owl, that is, “Like an Owl exploding.”
Anti-Semitism
Everyone agrees that this “poet” and all poets have every right to entertain and bellow about any thoughts and beliefs that care to. Amiri Baraka has every right to complain about slavery and ignore the fact that a bloody war fought in this country to end slavery, if he chooses.
However, as William Davidson and Shai Goldstein asserted in their letter to New Jersey Governor James McGreevey, “It may be that as a poet, Mr. Baraka may say what he chooses, no matter how ugly, irresponsible or deceptive. However, we don't believe that the residents of New Jersey, nor their representatives should have such venom spewed in their name.”
Baraka has his speaker spout the following lines that the Anti-Defamation League found to be anti-Semitic: “Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed / Who told 4000 Israeli / workers at the Twin Towers / To stay home that day / Why did Sharon stay away?”
The governor agreed with the league and requested that Baraka resign his poet laureateship. When Baraka refused, the governor eliminated the position.
