Why Twitter was right to mock Craig Raine’s poem

Yesterday was a strange day on Twitter. For most of it, a living poet was trending.

Unfortunately for Craig Raine, the poet in question, he was trending because a poem of his entitled ‘Gatwick’ had appeared in the LRB and Twitter didn’t like it.

Most comments ranged from amused contempt to, well, just plain old contempt. But it wasn’t only angry feminists, as Lara Prendergast suggested yesterday, who leapt into action. Indeed, I saw much more ridicule than anger. Many of us were merely enjoying mocking what is by no means a good poem.

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Which is the point, really. Certainly there is no shortage of bad poetry in the world. I have written some of it myself. But most of it doesn’t end up in the LRB.

For those who haven’t read the poem, it falls into three sections. The first comprises just two lines, name-drops Tom Stoppard for no apparent reason, and rhymes ‘Gatwick’ with ‘sick’.