Poet's Delight

In recent posts, we've mentioned poets from Northern Ireland and rappers. It therefore seems appropriate to point to a funny item in this fortnight's Private Eye magazine (sadly only with limited web availability and on a few newstands around the USA). This builds on a story from a couple of weeks ago in which Irish poet and Nobel prize winner Seamus Heaney praised the work of Eminem, and in particular the verbal energy that he has brought to the language. The Eye's parodic response to this:

Seamus Heaney’s 'Beowulf'
as translated by Eminem

Big f*cking monster givin everyone sh*t
Along comes Beowulf and he ain't taking it
Kills the motherf*cker Grendel with a big f*cking sword
Then kills the motherf*cker's mother cos he's so f*cking bored.

Writes Seamus Heaney: In this wonderfully energetic recreation of the 8th Century masterpiece, Mr Eminem conveys a sense of spiritual and poetic discovery that we have not known since the work of Bob Dylan and John Lennon. I don’t want to "diss" more conventional poetry, but we must admire (cont. p. 94)