So tickled were Prospect by a recent post on author, poet and all-round man-of-creative-media Julian Gough's blog that we asked him to revisit the topic for our most recent issue. The result: an Opinion piece outlining the case for Sarah Palin as America's next poet laureate. As Gough notes, "A great poet needs to leave open the door between the conscious and unconscious; Sarah Palin has removed her door from its hinges. A great poet does not self-censor; Sarah Palin seems authentically innocent of what she is saying. She could be the most natural, visionary poet since William Blake."
As Gough also notes, others got this bandwagonrolling a little while ago. But it deserves its press, not least because the results are eerily convincing as a certain kind of free, dimly political, associative writing. My personal favourite has to be this moving tribute to innocence and youth:
A Child When you consider what's going on in this world, the most promising and good ingredients in this world is a child. The hope that a child brings and just understanding that. Being near and dear to my heart.But you can make up your own. And why not try it with other politicians and would-be world leaders? Who knows, an informal poetry competition could be just the thing politics needs to reinvigorate its relationship with language, truth, beauty, and all those other things we care about in books.
