i think he inherited his poetic talent from his REAL biological father: frank marshall davis.

That may be the only honest thing Bam has written in his life--because it was a realization. His father, in the ash stained chair, was Stanley Dunham, Stanley Ann his disinterested half-sister. Hence a birth necessarily more mysterious than Jesus and Moses combinied.

Barry was abandoned by every real and imagined parent that he ever had, but fellow travelors are not known to value their young nearly so highly as their intriques. The Rosenbergs were offered their lives in exchange for an admission of what the government knew for a certainty through the Veronna intercepts. They chose to leave their sons both orphans and deluded.

I've read Neoneocon's posts on Davis, and on this poem, and I have serious doubts that Obama actually wrote this. It's very very good, and unlike anything else I've ever read of Obama's. Someone has suggested that Davis wrote the poem. In any case it is disturbing and clearly speaks of what is, at the least, a relationship where an adult is overbearing and disregarding of healthy boundaries with a younger person. Sounds more like sexual abuse to me, though.

There should be a genre called 'Vogon Poetry'. This would be one of its classics.

Bring a tear to Douglass Adams' eye, it would. Yes indeedy do.

"Pop" is, if I recall from past commentary, Frank Marshall Davis. And yes, the poem does indeed seem to allude to an "improper" relationship.

Wasn't some of the phrasing excerpted in one of Obama's books?

It's very very good, and unlike anything else I've ever read of Obama's.

I'm not criticizing you, Rigel, nor am I questioning your understanding of poetry, it's just that I am clearly very much out of touch with what constitutes "good" in this regard. To me, it read like a typical sophomoric effort to be deep, revealing, and shocking.

It's very very good, and unlike anything else I've ever read of Obama's.

I'm not criticizing you, Rigel, nor am I questioning your understanding of poetry, it's just that I am clearly very much out of touch with what constitutes "good" in this regard. To me, it read like a typical sophomoric effort to be deep, revealing, and shocking. ))

Well he's no Vanderleun, that's for sure. I think the poem's imagery and tone are vivid and surprising; I want to take a shower after reading it and I want to find the parents of the narrator and slap them for subjecting their son to this oily toad. The poem is not at all like the unimaginative and graceless Obama writings I've seen from his school years. And yes, I think Dreams from my Father had to have been heavily ghost-written, too.

I agree with that. It may be that it is so disgusting that I fail to appreciate how hard it is to make it that way. I'm no poet, and I have been spoiled by Gerard.