I really would find more value in this post if he had followed up beyond day #8 of eating rupi kaur page by page
This is such a shit take, to be honest.
Bad poetry that resonates with people isn't bad poetry, it's just poetry. So you don't like it - neither do I. It's still poetry. Don't be butthurt that the brown woman who learned how to market herself because society doesn't just do it for her like to does white men has succeeded in finding a broad audience - learn to market yourself as more than a misanthrope, Sizemore.
Ugh.
Hard meh on that stance from me. That path takes you to "anything creative that people make that resonates with people isn't bad, you just don't like it." in my eyes, the title is attention grabby but the intent from the article is not to negate the fact that kaur puts out "verse" -- rather that as opposed to a 'poet' she's more of just a hack. And that resonates with me.
Kaur certainly doesn't seem like someone steeped in any deep knowledge of contemporary or past poetry. Or even spoken word or rap. She seems like someone that writes stuff that happens to resonate with people and it happens to take a form that looks poetic, so it's been called poetry.
I think poets as a whole might be pretty butthurt about the Kaur thing. I don't think it's just a white man response. It's funny because there's like what, six living white men who I could easily name who I know of who make a living as poets and that I would say "have a broad audience" -- and I spent like ~7 years of my life pretty dedicated to reading poetry as well as writing about it. I don't think the average person could name more than a handful. Kaur has exploded while most poets who consider themselves craftspeople universally struggle for any attention whatsoever, regardless of their gender or color.
Don't boil the conflict down to put it in a box you like the shape of (oppression olympics). With Kaur it's kind of more than that. NO modern poet that I am aware of has had the success or popularity of Kaur. And she's terrible
Edit: As an addendum, I don't exactly see Sizemore posting any hot takes about how terrible Amanda Gorman is, and I'd say she's probably the #2 hot poetic topic/poet of the moment next to kaur. And she's definitely still behind Kaur in terms of recognition.
Yeah, something happened that caused her to pop up on Twitter last night but I couldn't find what specifically it was. So this was the next closest thing I could find. oh wait, no this was it, i actually had found it