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Maya Angelou partnered with Hallmark
- slibhb 6y agoSome poets have a way of acknowledging tragedy while infusing their poems with meaning, hope, and vitality. Angelou's poems come off as kitsch to me (including the excerpts in this article). Did Eat Pray Love make people's lives better? Perhaps. But that's not the definition of literature.
- femiagbabiaka 6y agojust providing an alternate viewpoint. I think a lot of her poetry is deeply meaningful while still being simply phrased. one of my favorites: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings/ https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-know-why-the-caged-bird-si...
- rectang 6y ago> Angelou's poems come off as kitsch For context, here's some sample "kitsch": Some Kind of love, Some Say is it true the ribs can tell The kick of a beast from a Lover’s fist? The bruised Bones recorded well The sudden shock, the Hard impact. Then swollen lids, Sorry eyes, spoke not Of lost romance, but hurt. Hate often is confused. Its Limits are in zones beyond itself. And Sadists will not learn that Love, by nature, exacts a pain Unequalled on the rack. > But that's not the definition of literature. Sounds like "literature" is ripe for disruption, if the gatekeepers of "literature" are determined to keep people like Maya Angelou out of it.
- arkitaip 6y ago≥ Sounds like "literature" is ripe for disruption. This is the most embarrassing thing I've read on HN - this week. But please let the literary world know what disrupting their world would mean, we could all need a laugh.
- Slow_Hand 6y agoI think it went over your head. Parent post is being sarcastic in response to GP post calling Maya’s work “kitsch” and “not literature”. Maya is clearly an excellent artist and writer so if her work is “not literature” then perhaps the GP poster, in all their wisdom, has the means to “disrupt” a long tradition of substandard writing.
- jpxw 6y ago> the gatekeepers of "literature" are determined to keep people like Maya Angelou out of it. What do you mean by this? If you’re talking about race, then in my experience the exact opposite is true
- rectang 6y agoAccording to the gatekeeper of "literature" in this thread, it's not race, but "kitsch" that disqualifies Angelou.
- Spinnaker_ 6y agoIt's all a replay of Harold Bloom. "They say all bad poetry is sincere. And Maya Angelou is very sincere." He laments that her work achieves undeserving canonical status, and no one wants to disagree for fear of being called racist.
- slibhb 6y agoI don't like her poetry. You do. Fine. I'm allowed to share my negative appraisal. Regardless, if there was an attempt to "keep Maya Angelou out," it certainly failed. My comment about "the definition of literature" was about Eat Pray Love not Maya Angelou. My point was that literature (or art) is not "something that makes people feel good".
- marcinzm 6y agoYou didn't just say that you didn't like it. You claimed that it's not literature. Or in other words, you first paragraph is fine as an appraisal, your second paragraph is gatekeeping.
- slibhb 6y agoNo I didn't. I suggested that Eat Pray Love is not literature on the basis that it makes people feel good. My point was that "whether something makes you feel good" has no bearing on whether that thing counts as poetry/literature/art. I tried to make that point in response to the linked article. If it's "gatekeeping" for me to claim that "X isn't literature" then I guess I'm a "gatekeeper".
- cortesoft 6y ago> If it's "gatekeeping" for me to claim that "X isn't literature" Yes, that is pretty much the definition of gatekeeping.
- Igelau 6y agoYou keep saying that word. Is there some postpostmodern meaning of "gatekeeping" that I'm not looped in on? We just hurl it around now and hope that bystanders mistake the people we disagree with for oppressors? (The downvotes indicate the arrow hit the mark. No lie, I sincerely appreciate the confirmation.)
- beaconstudios 6y agoIt seems like just a more dramatic way of calling something a no true scotsman fallacy. To be actually gatekeeping you'd have to have the power to discourage or prevent people from entering a field, and be wielding that power inappropriately. It's one of a few words that seems to be going through inflation at the moment, like gaslighting.
- chestertn 6y agoI totally agree this is kitsch and not worthy of being next to great American poets such as Whitman or Elliot. I wonder if people will read her in 200 years.
- femiagbabiaka 6y agoEliot is overrated in my opinion, although I do still enjoy his writing. Complicated does not always mean good. It’s a little surprising to me that you don’t see Whitman as kitsch, things like this definitely are: https://waltwhitman.com/i-saw-in-louisiana-a-live-oak-growing.jsp https://waltwhitman.com/i-saw-in-louisiana-a-live-oak-growin....
- chestertn 6y agoI wouldn’t characterize Whitman as kitsch. Maybe saccharine? Many poets from the romanticism sound like that. I won’t disagree with you in that Elliot is overrated. I’m just saying that Elliot and Whitman’s poetry (as an example) is at a higher level than Angelou’s.
- spicymaki 6y ago"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." - Maya Angelou
- Igelau 6y agoMaya Angelou was a living legend. She is not being gatekeepered by a HN comment. Especially considering the context is the availability of her work in greeting cards. That's as mainstream as access gets. That word doesn't mean what you think it means.
- ceejayoz 6y agoUnsuccessful attempts at gatekeeping are nonetheless gatekeeping.
- shaunxcode 6y agoPotent and precise. Kitsch is art for arts sake. This is art for life’s sake.
- phnofive 6y agoI feel the same way about a lot of poetry, but I think kitschiness is a cultural thing, not a personal perspective. How would you define it?
- chestertn 6y agoSee how heartbreak is depicted, for instance in a masterpiece like Paris, Texas and in a random Venezuelan soap opera.
- bobthepanda 6y agoPeople make distinctions between "high culture" and "low culture" in cultural analysis now, because it turns out that gatekeeping literature means we only really have an accurate picture of what elite culture in the past was like, not what the lower classes actually lived, perceived, and experienced. Also, some of our literature started off with not great origins one would really attribute to the "proper" form of literature today.
- chestertn 6y agoWell, I tried not to get into the "low culture" vs "high culture" debate by just trying to put an example that I thought it would be agreeable to most people. In Paris, Texas we see an slow but deep study of a character that has been broken and at the end we have a cathartic moment when we understand and maybe empathize with him. In Venezuelan soap operas (not all of them I guess, but many hilarious examples) you see characters that respond in unnatural and superficial ways to forced situations that are just created for the sake of melodrama and shock. You can might think that "low culture" and "high culture" is a product either of gatekeeping or there's some sort of socio-cultural relativism. I would disagree. I think that one can develop "taste" for good things over time by study, reflection, and criticism. TV shows that looked to me funny and enjoyable 10 years ago when I was in college now appear to me badly written, lazy, and vapid. So I do not think that good and bad in art is relative.
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- dcist 6y agoWhat does this have to do with tech?
- marcinzm 6y agoPer the HN rules: >On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
- jimbob45 6y agoI really don’t like to waste time talking about whether a post is or is not off-topic but...this one’s a stretch for me. I’m glad others in this thread seem to be finding enjoyment though.
- blowski 6y agoThe post itself isn't very interesting, but the conversation is insightful.
- Leparamour 6y ago> If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. There must be an intention behind that rule. If not, what differentiates HN from Reddit? Pretty much anything gratifies at least someone's "intellectual curiosity".
- xenophonf 6y ago> Pretty much anything gratifies at least someone's "intellectual curiosity". Hence why this is on topic.
- Leparamour 6y agoThat sounds like circular logic.
- rectang 6y ago> In response to her new detractors, she unapologetically stated that she undertook the Hallmark enterprise because she wanted her work read and put in the hands of people who did not buy books. The Hallmark Card medium is extremely demanding in terms of not only brevity but clarity. Angelou was setting herself up to write something compelling for a mass audience.