Close, but not quite. (Michael Jackson)

[scottwoods]

Well, you would think that in all of the discussions about the recent death of Michael Jackson I'd have my new Poetry Is Doomed column. I have a column forming in my head, but so far there isn't enough of a poetry slant to the issue - except that I'm hearing from a lot of poets - to justify a PID column. It isn't about poetry yet, so it doesn't

Comments

[theryk]

"But remember: If someone is your friend, where they stand on the MJ question will not generate cause to de-friend them. If you thought someone was your friend, but because of their answer to the MJ question you're now done with them, then they were not your friend, you were not their friend, or both. "

GODJESUSCHRISTWITHBLOODYEARDRUMS, thank you, Scott.

[scottwoods]

Bloody eardrums? I think he could fix that.

[theryk]

What?

(heh heh...)

[shadowprison]

Indeed. I am so disappointed that there are so many intense things happening in the world right now and MJ's death is the only thing that defies the apathy of public consciousness.

I mean c'mon, people...Jon and Kate are filing for divorce!!

[scottwoods]

Don't think I ain't following Jon and Kate every day!

*sike. I didn't even know who they were supposed to be. I had to look them up and then bother to not care.*

[radioactiveart]

I owe them a column, but I've got too many topics rolling around right now to focus well. None of them deal with MJ.

I've already responded to your last point on the FB, but it bears repeating here: I've already felt this. At least one person on FB, I can tell, is having a serious issue with my own opinion, and it bothers me a lot.

Thing is: public figures of any sort are certainly just people, but their images (which we too frequently confuse with "the people" behind them) are part of the public discourse, and are as subject to all the vagaries of that discourse, including polarization of opinion, as any other subject is. Not everyone will have the same opinion or experience of them. Taking too serious offense at the opinions offered, especially when the figures are themselves polarizing, seems to indicate a lack of tolerance...at least to me.

[scottwoods]

People should indeed be larger than their issues.

[radioactiveart]

Yeah, but I know how hard that can be.

This has made me see exactly how much the MJ phenomenon and story meant and means to a lot of people -- something, I think, for reasons I talked about in my own post, I just didn't register. I was so...divorced from caring about the mass media during his heyday that I didn't quite get it.

I still don't quite get the phenomenon, but honestly, I do now get the degree of meaning. If nothing else, I've learned that.

[stagger_lee77]

thank you. you said this better than i ever could.

[scottwoods]

Thank you.

[dj_muse]

I'm with you.

I know there's a poem in this somewhere about the way people have a need to see everyone as all good or bad, and if they're a pedophile they must be this unspeakable monster and that if they're a talented person or they "were always the nicest person, I never saw anything wrong" that they couldn't possibly have done these other things. But I'm not able to write it just yet.

It goes back to the theme of people wanting to put people into easy "good" or "bad" boxes and not being able to accept that there's no such thing.

[scottwoods]

That's a hard poem in this age.

[dj_muse]

Slam poetry especially seems to be prone to this mindset, doesn't it?