The Cruelest Month

"Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters."

The Five-Two traditionally celebrated with a blog tour formerly called 30 Days of The Five-Two and The Cruelest Poetry Month, spotlighting participants' favorite poems. This year I shortened the event name to pay full homage to Eliot.

There's no full tour, but we are open to guest poetry commentaries and we need two more Poems of the Week to round out the month.

Creating this year's image inspired me. I hope you're inspired to submit so the site can continue. My only socials are Mastodon and YouTube, so I very much appreciate your mentioning The Five-Two in your circles. Thanks as always.

Commentaries

• Thursday, April 6: Charles Rammelkamp on "The Conspiracy Buff..." by David Cranmer

For April 6, 2023, Charles Rammelkamp's commentary on "The Conspiracy Buff" by David Cranmer:

There now exists an underground railroad for women in America seeking abortions. Think about that. Women are legally regarded as less than human, as reproductive slaves. Governments are examining cell phone and social media data to root out possible offenders.

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the Right has been on a rampage, a moral crusade, “protecting the life of the unborn.” In state after state the restrictions are tighter and tighter. The crusaders sound so sanctimonious. The world seen through a “Christofascist” prism indeed, to use David Cranmer’s phrase in “The Conspiracy Buff,” in which his frustration with the conspiracists finally boils over when the credulous person whom he is addressing, a person gleefully willing to believe that Democrats are pedophiles, that the government is implanting tracking devices in the Covid vaccines, that the birther claims about Obama are true, and the rest of the nonsense, calls the story of the ten-year-old Ohio girl who was raped and had to go Indiana for an abortion – and then the Christofascist Indiana authorities were more concerned about prosecuting the doctor than helping the child – “fake news.”

The conspiracist calls it “fake news” because it does not support his narrow worldview – the one in which immoral Socialists (whatever “Socialism” is; they just know it means evil) are trying to undermine Donald Trump and God. In Margery Taylor Greene we trust.

The poem is constructed of six three-line stanzas, the third line of which is a single word or phrase, culminating in a hearty “Fuck you!” to the conspiracy buff – much as many of us find the kneejerk defense of any criminal act Donald Trump does just as frustrating. Fuck you! indeed! —Charles Rammelkamp