Rating the poetry of inmate Andrew Tate
Is there any literary or theological merit to the prison literature tweeted from an alleged human trafficker? (No.)
What is a poem? That’s debatable.
But there are good poems and bad poems.
Before you go on, don’t miss my last piece on the imprisoned fellow here:
Now let’s get into Tate’s poems — delivered to us via Twitter, which he apparently can still access while in a Romanian prison awaiting charges — and tally a final score for his oeuvre.
Universal Soldier
A poem starting with a complaint about the “many” narrows its focus to Andrew, who is definitely not mad online and authoring this as an excuse to post a 7 minute advertisement for performance enhancers.
POEM SCORE: 3/10
A “rich kid” is a wealthy baby goat. Andrew is not a GOAT.
Like John Donne’s classic No Man Is An Island, the poem starts with casting a wide net (Donne’s “no man”; Tate’s “many said”) and focuses on the individual (Donne’s “clod”; Tate’s me me me) but Donne’s individuals were extrapolated back to universal human experience.
Sanctioned punching is not war. It’s barely infantry.
I’m not watching 7 minutes of punching unless it’s a compilation of Mike Tyson.
One Need Not Be a Chamber to Be Haunted by Ghost Demons
Tate is aping on Matthew 8:31-32, where Jesus Christ commands a demon to leave a possessed man.
And the demons begged Him, saying, “If You are going to cast us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”
And He said to them, “Go!”
The authority to cast out demons was given to the apostles (and modern priests) in Matthew 10:1 and Mark 3:15.
Jesus summoned His twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.
And it must be done in Jesus’ name (Luke 9:49-50), not by men in their prison pajamas who up the ante with a direct challenge to “the demons” that he is “always ready”. Tempting Satan is how you get more demons.
POEM SCORE: 1/10
Blasphemous
Doesn’t rhyme
Crashing into the Woods on an Icy Evening
I grew up and learned to drive in Canada.
I actually wrote a poem about black ice for school that my parents saved. This is all I can remember:
“Watch out for the black ice,
It’ll take you off your feet!” - Margaret, age 8
Not sure about the rest of it, but I probably rhymed “feet” with “street”, “sleet” and “concrete”.
Insurance will cover repairs from black ice if you’re driving the speed limit and sober. Everyone’s just happy you weren’t maimed or killed. Slow the fuck down.
POEM SCORE: 0/10
Bad driving advice
Bad poem about driving
Less accurate to life than my elementary school homework
Twas The Night Before Nobody Died
Last time I got a phone call about the death of someone I love, I watched Mass online. Sunday mornings don’t stop. It was very comforting.
You should answer tough times with faith in God — that was the homily this morning as part of the Feast of St. Joseph, matched up with a gospel reading on the blind man (John 9) who was thrown out of the temple for insisting that it was Jesus who cured his disease.
POEM SCORE: 1/10
Adults are banned from receiving Christmas gifts
“Just don’t be depressed bro”
Revised previous issue of calling children “kids”
Sex trafficking victims should be happy that nobody has killed their family members today
Which brings us all to the final tally.
COMBINED SCORE:
One half dozen sex trafficking victims out of a legion of demonic ghost warriors.