Her PC credentials are beyond reproach. She carries herself with the dignity of a well-paid academic celebrity. She speaks
in a serious
expressive
tone and
a
deliberate,
meaningful
cadence.
She’s the go-to poet for presidential inaugurations, Kennedy Center galas, and other large, well-funded events where the content or artistic value of a poem is irrelevant, but having heard of the poet is. She’s the Paul Shaffer of poetry. (“Guys! We’ve got a televised all-star band tribute to a famous rock star. Make sure Paul Shaffer is available!”) She might be a very nice lady too. And yet Maya Angelou’s poetry is uniformly, strikingly, fascinatingly terrible. Try reading one of her poems. We dare you. Just hearing the first stanza makes us tremble with dread: flashbacks to graduation ceremonies in the blazing sun, or an endless outdoor theater festival we made the mistake of attending.
Okay, you say, it’s her delivery that makes her poetry so “powerful.” Poetry is an oral tradition, you say. That is true. But also true: her pretentious delivery makes her pedestrian verse ten times worse. (Hey, that rhymes!) If you want to actually enjoy a Maya Angelou-style poem, you need to imagine her writing and reciting a Froot Loops commercial:
Now that is brilliant.
The bottom line on Maya Angelou is that she’s symptomatic of what’s wrong with modern poetry in general. It’s controlled by an overly cerebral, politically correct academic establishment. It serves as a meta-comment on what poetry is supposed to be, rather than standing on its own as an art form. And it anoints a select few, like Angelou, to serve as bland ambassadors for something that really shouldn’t have ambassadors. Poetry may be in trouble as an art form, but trotting out the likes of Maya Angelou to grimly bear the cross doesn’t help matters.
