http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/09/b...ma-invites-rapper-common-to-a-poetry-reading/
Hereâs an opportunity to relive your high-school poetry classes.
First Lady Michelle Obama has scheduled a poetry evening for Wednesday, and sheâs invited several poets, including a successful Chicago poet and rapper, Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., AKA âCommon.â However, Lynn is quite controversial, in part because his poetry includes threats to shoot police and at least one passage calling for the âburn[ing]â of then-President George W. Bush.
Back in 2003, First Lady Laura Bush held a poetry evening, and she invited several poets to reprise the work of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. Although none of those poets had urged violence against a president, Bush canceled the event after left-of-center poets protested and threatened to disrupt the event.
Hereâs a sample of Dickinsonâs work that could have been presented at Bushâs event:
Iâm nobody! Who are you?
Iâm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then thereâs a pair of us â donât tell!
Theyâd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Hereâs a sample of Commonâs work, transcribed from a 2007 video with 837,613 viewers on YouTube. Students, please compare and contrast the two poems. Youâll get extra credit for counting the death threats. There is no extra credit for identifying spelling errors. By the way, âUziâ is slang for a compact machine gun:
A Letter to the Law
Dem boy wanna talk⦠[indistinguishable]
Whatcha gon do if ya got one gun?
I sing a song for the hero unsung
with faces on the mural of the revolution
No looking back cosâ in back is whatâs done
Tell the preacher, god got more than one son
Tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton
I walk like a warrior,
from them I wonât run
On the streets, they try to beat us like a drum
In Cincinnati, another brother hung
A guinea wonât see the sun
with his family stung
They want us to hold justice
but you handed me none
The same they did to Kobe and Michael Jackson
make them the main attraction
Turn around and attack them
Black gem in the rough
Youâre rugged enough
Use your mind and nine-power, get the government touch
Them boys chat-chat on how him pop gun
I got the black strap to make the cops run
They watching me, Iâm watching them
Them dick boys got a lock of cock in them
My people on the block got a lot of pok* in them
and when we roll together
we be rocking them to sleep
No time for that, because thereâs things to be done
Stay true to what I do so the youth dream come
from project building
Seeing a fiend being hung
With that happening, why they messing with Saddam?
Burn a Bush cosâ for peace he no push no button
Killing over oil and grease
no weapons of destruction
How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one
The governmentâs a g-unit and they might buck young black people
Black people In the urban area one
I hold up a peace sign, but I carry a gun.
Peace, yaâll.â
The First Ladyâs office did not return a call from TheDC.
Hereâs an opportunity to relive your high-school poetry classes.
First Lady Michelle Obama has scheduled a poetry evening for Wednesday, and sheâs invited several poets, including a successful Chicago poet and rapper, Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr., AKA âCommon.â However, Lynn is quite controversial, in part because his poetry includes threats to shoot police and at least one passage calling for the âburn[ing]â of then-President George W. Bush.
Back in 2003, First Lady Laura Bush held a poetry evening, and she invited several poets to reprise the work of Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. Although none of those poets had urged violence against a president, Bush canceled the event after left-of-center poets protested and threatened to disrupt the event.
Hereâs a sample of Dickinsonâs work that could have been presented at Bushâs event:
Iâm nobody! Who are you?
Iâm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then thereâs a pair of us â donât tell!
Theyâd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Hereâs a sample of Commonâs work, transcribed from a 2007 video with 837,613 viewers on YouTube. Students, please compare and contrast the two poems. Youâll get extra credit for counting the death threats. There is no extra credit for identifying spelling errors. By the way, âUziâ is slang for a compact machine gun:
A Letter to the Law
Dem boy wanna talk⦠[indistinguishable]
Whatcha gon do if ya got one gun?
I sing a song for the hero unsung
with faces on the mural of the revolution
No looking back cosâ in back is whatâs done
Tell the preacher, god got more than one son
Tell the law, my Uzi weighs a ton
I walk like a warrior,
from them I wonât run
On the streets, they try to beat us like a drum
In Cincinnati, another brother hung
A guinea wonât see the sun
with his family stung
They want us to hold justice
but you handed me none
The same they did to Kobe and Michael Jackson
make them the main attraction
Turn around and attack them
Black gem in the rough
Youâre rugged enough
Use your mind and nine-power, get the government touch
Them boys chat-chat on how him pop gun
I got the black strap to make the cops run
They watching me, Iâm watching them
Them dick boys got a lock of cock in them
My people on the block got a lot of pok* in them
and when we roll together
we be rocking them to sleep
No time for that, because thereâs things to be done
Stay true to what I do so the youth dream come
from project building
Seeing a fiend being hung
With that happening, why they messing with Saddam?
Burn a Bush cosâ for peace he no push no button
Killing over oil and grease
no weapons of destruction
How can we follow a leader when this a corrupt one
The governmentâs a g-unit and they might buck young black people
Black people In the urban area one
I hold up a peace sign, but I carry a gun.
Peace, yaâll.â
The First Ladyâs office did not return a call from TheDC.
