Identity Poetry

at

Poet and satirist Kevin Higgins

A response to both Frankie Gaffney’s feelings about identity politics and the ‘disappointed’  reaction from ‘women activists’ about those feelings….

Death Chant of The Handmaidens: For Choir of 350 Identical Voices

We the underwritten do with great solemnity promise
on our watch Union Carbide, Johnson & Johnson,
Lockheed Martin, and the late Herrs Bosch and Braun
will all have penis and balls cleanly dismantled,
made safe, and exported to fortify the wall
keeping terrorists from Judea and Samaria out;

each have a working vagina installed
under a Chanterelle beige
plutonium-powered pants suit fit
to play rhapsodies in
for the safe delivery of the shells
Golda guided onto the outskirts
of Damascus, for Indira’s ‘Smiling Buddha’
one thousand four hundred kilogram bomb,
for Imelda’s closet of shoes too fabulous
for the likes of you, on a grand piano
your grandmother swiped
from departed refugees,

seconds after one’s typed
in the codes to end man,
plant, and womankind;

bequeathed the planet to the gender neutral,
and hence far more successful, bacilli
Deinococcus Radiodurans who unlike us
will waste not one moment working out
on their calculators
which Facebook comments
it would be a smart career move
to like.

Kevin Higgins

FIGHT!

Identity politics is utterly ineffective at anything other than dividing people ( Frankie Gaffney, Irish Times)

Cop On Comrades (FeministIre)

Meanwhile…

Ah here.

sweartrek

Pic via Liberties Press

Sponsored Link

108 thoughts on “Identity Poetry

    1. Clampers Outside

      Why, because the main stream is waking up to the divisionary pseudo academic claptrap and the problems inherent in spreading such nonsense.

      Much more to do, like stop the pure unadulterated made up bullpoo of victimhood culture that identity politics promotes.

      Put your lad away pet, you’re only halfcocked yet

      1. mildred st. meadowlark

        Can we not just lol at the sudden popularity of this ‘sex wee’ thing, and maybe have a chat about what the everliving fkuc it might be?

        1. Birneybau2

          Sex Wee has been around ages and I believe it originated with the God awful Keith Lemon (open to correction)

          1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

            I can’t find my profanisaurus to check. I don’t think it’s in there, though.

          2. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

            I said ‘People are pinpricks’. Minus the pin, obv. No idea how that got morphed.

      2. Brother Barnabas

        Ah I’m only joking, Clamps.

        Bertie wheeled out the ‘sex wee’ thing earlier and I was just echoing.

        I don’t for a minute believe you obtained any sexual arousal from that piece.

    2. Sheik Yahbouti

      Yeah, get over it Frankie. I suspect that there’s a lot more than ‘gender politics’ holding you back from the place of supremacy you THINK you should occupy.

    1. mildred st. meadowlark

      I want it on record that I absolutely abhor that word.

      Unputdownable. (Honestly, wtf?)

  1. Mark Hoskins

    I see Broadsheet have published a poem by Kevin Higgins calling the signatories of cop on comrades Handmaidens of Capitalism. I’m not sharing it but it effectively says that the signatories aim is to demasculinise the big oil, pharma and arms companies. To be honest, that’s libellous, but more ridiculous that a smarmy Stalinist who thinks Corbyn managing capitalism is socialism is calling anarchist, communist and socialist women, some of the most consistent anti-capitalist activists in the country, pro-capitalist.

    What a pathetic man, and anyone who says that’s not misogynistic bullying needs a reality check.

    1. I'm "alright" Jack. Mad Jack is on annual leave.

      Couldn’t understand your poem either, sorry

    2. missred

      Indeed, he echoes the same blokes who, when the working class women activists called out this article last week for the rubbish it was, laughably got called neo-liberals by the article’s defenders. This is the same thing in an awful cringey form. Don’t give up the day job, Kevin!

      1. I'm "alright" Jack. Mad Jack is on annual leave.

        What the hell are yous on about? English, please

    1. Sheik Yahbouti

      I agree. Down with Leather Jacket Guy. He has brought us to the brink of disaster with his crap.

  2. Henry Woods

    When all the nu-alt-poets die
    We’ll build for them up in the sky
    In honour of their gracious wit
    A monument of solid (poo).

    1. I'm "alright" Jack. Mad Jack is on annual leave.

      Because

      A poem by Alright Jack

      Because
      I did not rhyme
      No gobspoo had the time
      To interpret my meter
      So all the sheep were bleaters

    2. browningversion

      I can see it now. Henry’s face beamed on to that monument. Brown . No filters allowed

  3. Alice

    Feeling fragile, pet?

    This is actual poo. Please go and lie down in a dark room with a cold compress ’til you’ve pulled yourself together.

  4. droplovenotshitpoems

    Irish blokes had some Q’s about class,race+gender
    but switched to getting kicks out of trying to offend her
    instead of reading a book
    they thought they’d just make stuff up
    ya know, we would have all sorted this out on a bender.

  5. Boj

    If drugs did not aid in the making of this poem, they should at least be used to cure the poet.

          1. Charlie

            Yes, I believe constructive criticism is much more grown up than pure insults and bullying.

    1. Mark Hoskins

      Well I thought the nastiness was unnecessary but Broadsheet decided to publish it anyway.

      What did you do to deserve to be exposed to the diarhettic ramblings of this pompous fool.

      1. I'm "alright" Jack. Mad Jack is on annual leave.

        Not sure. But I can take you in small doses.

    2. Rob_G

      Well, if you publish your art on the internet, you are inviting public critique. And Higgins is not one to shirk nastiness himself; something about the minister of health “slithering from his mother’s womb” – charming.

      1. I'm "alright" Jack. Mad Jack is on annual leave.

        Art? Damn spellcheck you meant to write “bottom” right?

      2. handstand

        aw shucks. Nothing beats the internet for showing someone up to be an utter dimbo. Love reading a bit of poetry myself on the net . You are what you write .

  6. Gorev Mahagut

    I’ve never seen gender inequality and economic disadvantage get so mixed up. At least not since that time Sheryl Sandberg told her disciples to sell their cloaks and give the money to the poor.

  7. hawkeyed

    Did Kevin Higgins pen this ? Sounds like he played scrabble with the thesauraus . Kafka vomits 50 Shades of Grey and lands in The Handmaid’s Tale. I laugh with existential despair.

  8. Nigel

    The Star Trek gif would now also work if it said ‘That poem made him do a little sex wee.’

  9. Biddy

    Tried explaining intersectional feminism to my aunt in Co. Clare. She got the bit that WOC have different battles to well heeled white middle class intellectual women. I then explained what was going on with the whole ‘cop on’ thing. She laughed “are middle class women that desperate to be relevant in working class politics, sure they’re worlds apart”.

    “Indeed and they are auntie, indeed and they are”.

          1. MoyestWithExcitement

            Of course I don’t support violence unlike the average alt right weirdo. Why did you use the word ‘based’ there, Clampy? *grabs popcorn*

          2. MoyestWithExcitement

            Ok clampy. You, an irish bloke in his 40s, are using alt right slang terms and alt right arguments because it’s a popular slang term with american teens. Ok.

          3. Clampers Outside

            You just made a statement claiming to know something, please elaborate on that, on what you describe as alt-right arguments that you claim I use, thanks.

            Sounds more like a typical leftist tactic of an attempt to discredit by name calling and that’s all your comment will be seen as until you elaborate with proof.

            FYI… Accusation is not proof pet, thanks.

  10. Clampers Outside

    Anyone interested in how “identity politics” promotes infantilism and victimhood culture, please Google Prof Weinstein and Evergreen State College….USA.
    The students are trying to have the professor fired. What is hilarious is that they use racist language to silence the professor…. all the LOLS!

    look for the video.

  11. Élise Hendrick

    Watch the fearsome fem’nist huns
    Sign the letter one by one,
    Surely you must realise,
    The men are under fire!

    In the comment threads of Facebook,
    in the dark of early morn,
    fem’nist succubi came running,
    treating Frankie G with scorn.

    Heedless of Higgins’ plaintive verse,
    which they called ‘pretentious shite’,
    they derided life’s great curse
    of being straight and male and white.

    It’s a worse fate than internment,
    Brutal as a Black and Tan,
    No one with any discernment
    Would share the fate of the straight white man.

    Cruelly banished to the silence
    Of an Irish Times op-ed,
    They stand aghast as awful poems
    Spew unbidden from their heads.

    Proud we march behind their banner,
    No matter what flows from their pen,
    Greatly though the rest might suffer,
    We’ll ask: What about the men?

    On the fellas step together,
    Fighting for their dearest right,
    For no man is truly free
    Unless he can be a gobshite.

    1. I'm "alright" Jack. Mad Jack is on annual leave.

      As bad as it is, Higgins poem is still better than this

    2. Clampers Outside

      I like how you claim to be huns. it’s a fair cop.

      It’s either satire or just typical feminist hate.

      Any comment on the Tuvel / Hypatia debacle and the completely hilarious mess it is and how Hypatia response basically rubbished all of feminist theory…. quite the show, not a sharp shooter show, as Hypatia clearly shot themselves in the face with it…. ‘academic’ feminism… not any more, just circular backstabbing claptrap.

      thank you Hypatia

  12. Angela

    Describes himself as a satirist isn’t that something the French have instead of a sense of humour, yours cringy

    1. Rob_G

      Bupkis. Schmaltz. Chutzpah

      – Yiddish sound so great, I think we should try to get more of them in common usage.

  13. Mollo Tov

    This poem is not only a weak attempt to insult women who signed a important statement and is also an ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE piece of poetry!! hurt my brain to read it.

  14. Bobby

    What the fu..?

    How and why was this written? This is what happen when women want to be heard. Jaysus.

      1. Clampers Outside

        Seriously? I’m not obsessed, I am very interested in the subject. I have always had an interest in sociology and its what I got my degree in. Asking your question, as you have, is purposefully derogatory – “obsession” is intended to be so, I believe – and doesn’t deserve an answer, but I’ll dance anyway. But before I do, may I ask, do you ask a maths grad why they like numbers, or a civil engineering grad why they may like suspension bridges…. hmmmmm?

        Did you look at any of those links? Identity politics is dishonest, divides people, is part of victimhood culture, is anti-academic, infantilising students, dumbs down education,has helped lead to the (IMO) dangerous growth of far right identitarianism, leads to improper use of govt spending…. will i go on?

        Here are some others on the problems….

        Mark Lilla, argues that “American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity.”
        On the socialist left, Shuja Haider and others skewer “identity politics” for dividing the collective “we” necessary for revolutionary politics.
        Both quotes come from here – http://inthesetimes.com/article/19902/heres-how-we-can-move-pastthe-identity-politics-debate-splintering-the-left

        Basically I don’t like ideologies as they are ultimately going to lie and warp the truth to get their way, which I have shown above. And identity polittics is no exception to that which makes it regressive.
        I believe in empiricism and identity politics is an ideology, and all ideologies are like a polar opposite of searching for empirical truth.
        Now, I may not be the most eloquent of commenters – try typing lengthy responses with links on a phone … I need to stop that, the message can get muddled. Anyway… I think that answer will do for now.. I hope it meets your query

        1. Lord Snowflakee

          You seem like a decent fellow Clampers if a little angry.

          However your style of argument doesn’t convince and also a bad workman blames the tools.

          I don’t accept that all aspects of “ideology” are de facto going to be bogus and fraudulent.

          Rather it is more likely there are grains of truth in many of them, which then get warped in the melee to groupthink, and then the lie becomes the truth as Michael Jackson might say. It’s interesting what you say about empiricism as well. As you well know the social sciences by their nature are not based on empirical methods. I’m sure there are indeed terrible methodological abuses committed in those fields but equally there is bad ‘scientific’ research work published as well.

          Anyway hope you are keeping well and I look forward to reading some of your links. I’d steer away from the abusive language directed at other commenters however if I was you, as it demeans you as well as them, and most of us can already tell quite clearly who the fuppin d&&&heads are on this already without your explicit signposts.

          1. Clampers Outside

            Fair points. My style is quite…. clumsy…

            But to say that an equal amount of bad science research is produced is, I’d bet my life on it, incorrect.

            I have no stats but I do know Prof Jordan Peterston of Uni of Toronto (I think) has said that 80% of sociology papers don’t have one single citation….. not one…

            The same is not said of science research papers, in fairness.

            Fair points all the same m’Lord ;)

          2. Lord Snowflakee

            well now I didn’t say an equal amount

            I’m just saying it’s unfair to single out the social science field for criticism no matter how well founded

          3. Clampers Outside

            Well, I think we’ll have to disagree on that then, as I believe it is very much deserving of being singled out for lack of academic integrity and ideological bias of extent that far out reaches any other discipline, and is in fact infecting other disciplines from astronomy to physics, in all fairness

      2. Clampers Outside

        @Petey… slow clap for you lad, if you think a group who incite violence is deserving of a peace prize you are a foolish foolish person, imo.
        I guess you are one of those who think Obama deserved the noble for peace to…. >_<
        ….more facepalming.

        I'd put those two awards up there with the kindergarten approach to medals for everyone, even those who came last, which promotes immaturity and a lack of ability to deal with losing. This is part of the problem with social justice types, they think everyone should win, which is not possible. And its infantalising.
        The left, academically and through the loss of integrity in that field is becoming a joke, and these awards are just a symptom of that bullsh**. How can anyone trust what the left is doing when it has no consistency, and I said, is continually eroding its own scant integrity with each "award" like this. Kintergarden for grown ups… no thanks, I want the real world, crap bits and all. Molly coddling is for children.

    1. realPolithicks

      Clampers, in an attempt to understand what I think any reasonable person would call your obsession with “identity politics” can you give us some idea as to what led you to your current position on this issue? Give us a little background if you feel you can.

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie