Lefty National Youth Poet Laureate to recite at Super Bowl
28th January 2021
Amanda Gorman is our National Youth Poet Laureate. Lucky us.
The title isn’t an oxymoron — it’s not impossible for a young person to be a great poet — but the appellation doesn’t sit well on Gorman. “Laureate” means a person who is honored with an award for outstanding creative or intellectual achievement. Gorman has achieved little as a poet, other than being named youth poet laureate.
If Gorman has distinguished herself at all, it’s a left-wing activist. And young people make better activists than than they do poets. But “National Youth Left-wing Activist Laureate” doesn’t have the same ring. Plus, there’s too much competition for that honor.
In a nation where Maya Angelou is considered a poet at all, much less a Great Poet, nothing ought to surprise us.