Must Read: Kristen Stewart’s Embarrassing Poem ‘My Heart Is A Wiffle Ball/Freedom Pole’

"and she\’s sharing with the world one of her works." you\’re not exactly a word smith yourself nitwit

I like. Its not bad.

Kristen, here's a little about what I don't like. I don’t like the fact that I’m about to give you props. I don’t like that I am simultaneously horrified and titillated by the ridiculous, yet strangely endearing title of your poem. I don’t like that I started reading your poem expecting to think it was total garbage, and that by the end of it, I found myself questioning the promise of what I was writing in my early twenties. I don’t like that your poem is, in many ways, comically flawed, but is all the more compelling for it. I don’t like that I didn’t come up with a neologism as goofy and novel as “kismetly,” despite the unlikelihood that I would ever want to do so. I don’t like that as I read your poem, I found myself trying to pry free from the grip of some of your poem’s genuinely striking lines “…I’ll suck the bones pretty,” or “Devil’s not done digging/He’s speaking in tongues all along the pan handle.” I don’t like that your poem’s abundance of problems at the syntactic, semantic, formal, sonic, and imagistic levels (as exemplified by lines like “Something Whilst the crackling stare down sun snuck”), do not, at least for me, entirely undermine its merits or potential. I don’t like that I find myself disagreeing with much of the negative feedback flooding the comments sections of the forums in which your poem is being discussed. I don’t like that I found your poem compelling enough to seek out what people are saying about it. I don’t like, Kristen Stewart, that if you choose to commit yourself to writing poetry, you could probably become pretty good at it within the not-too-distant future. And I especially don’t like–hater that I am–that despite everything I say about your acting, if I were to try to become an actor, you’d still be Wallace Stevens to my Robert Hillyer.

I wonder if Kristen Stewart wrote this at all. I think some quite experienced poet may be having you on, with her collaboration. Some of it is quite sophisticated, even striking. I might be doing her a big disservice, but this doesn't sound like the Kristen Stewart I've heard in interviews, groping for, like, expletives, like. I don't hear that voice coming up with 'Your every twitch hand drum salute/salutes mine'!

The reliance on adjectives and adverbs, which are the weakest elements in a sentence, makes me cringe. Once you strip away the unnecessary description (show and not tell, people), however, the scaffolding of the poem is decent. She, like any young writer, insists on using an over abundance of modifiers, which succeeds in muddying the figurative language and weakens the language, as a whole. If you find that you have to qualify a noun or a verb with a descriptive word then the chosen word is not strong enough to withstand the meaning or emotion that is being employed. Once she figures out how to control her language and aesthetics without relying on descriptors, her work will be more concise and readability will improve. Part of this process is understanding which words are now considered familiar and overused such as neon.

This reminds me of that gibberish song that Scott Adams' blog readers put together back in 2008. Look up She Amazed Me by Rivo Drei on YouTube. Great stuff.

step away from that Thesaurus…further…further..yep, one more step..(though I am pretty sure it's a joke or a bet)

From a 'failed writer/storyteller' who writes long boring technical and legal documents for a living: this is beautiful. I find it better than a lot of Kerouac stuff. Most of us will never achieve our highest dreams but when there are others who trying to get there, it should remind us that only those who take the chance make it.

Immature, unintelligent, pretentious girl who cannot act and now apparently cannot write a good poem. She comes off as a 16 year old who thinks saying stupid things that make no sense is actually very deep and philosophical, and immaturely doing exactly the opposite of what people request you to do, without any purpose or goal, is thought of as rebelling against society or not conforming to its norms. I really hope she sticks to her independent films where she can continue to act in movies where all she does is looks depressed or looks constipated.

I think people that like this are just doing the "I don't understand it therefore it's brilliant" bs. This poem doesn't even make any sense' like not even a little bit.

Open Letter to Kristen Stewart (re her poem)
Dear Kristen Stewart,

I’m a poet and professor at UCLA, and thought you might be interested in what some of my poet friends (most of whom also teach and are otherwise very accomplished) and I have been writing on Facebook about your recent poem published in Marie Claire. This is partly to address the apparently universal opinion by journalists – most of whom seem to not know anything about literature – that this is a terrible poem.

…

Another poet here in Los Angeles – he studied linguistics and works at Google – wrote “For someone who never went to high school, I think ‘Your nature perforated the abrasive organ pumps’ shows a pretty promising imagination.” I think what he means is that there is genuinely Surrealist element in the first stanza – “abrasive organ pumps” could have been written by Antonin Artaud – and has some real shock value. This same poet wrote (in response to some negative commentary on the FB feed):

Not sure why folks are hating on this poem. It’s young, but the more I read it, the more I like it. For someone just starting out, it isn’t overly freighted with expectations of what a poem should do or be. If it’s ‘beat’, it’s more Bolinas or young Bernadette than hortatory elder beat. That first line is weird and inspired. And moonlight strafing the foothills, nicely observational.

…

You found your strongest defender in a poet, editor and teacher at a major university in the Midwest. She wrote:

I actually think this poem is TERRIFIC. I guess there’s something wrong with me. It has a great punchy energy, it’s strange, and I never know where it’s going next. I would put stars all over this poem if it were turned in in my class… Also the language isn’t boring – kismetly and ubiquitously have a nice feel to them. I think this is pretty great.

…

I think you were really brave to publish this poem, especially in a magazine in which you can’t merely hide behind their literary credentials to help it pass. Keep going!

Kismetly yours,
Brian Kim Stefans (and a bunch of other poets)

I can see for the comments that people wit high school degree is here.And for the tone I figure that you are full of hate and envy.Is so good that Kristen don't put attention to that and that she is enjoying life with a good account in the bank.Now go and work hard to pay your bills and stay away from the computer and get a life.

Great, so KStew's not only a d^ck, she's an idiot. Kismetly? Gobbledygook, more like.

The Poet society liked it.

Read what professors wrote about the poem- they salute her writing!

I'm a published poet and this isn't THAT bad. While not great, I've definitely read much, much worse.

When you attach to a story this headline, "Must Read: KS's Embarrassing…" it is clear immediately that the story is nothing but a cheap insult. Sorry not to write more, but I have to go to a bear baiting, or is that a stoning, or maybe I will just write "Kick Me" on a bunch of post-its and stick them to the backs of people I don't know. Where are you, right now, by the way, just asking…

OMG this poem has completely changed my life. I was in such a dark place and I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning but then I read this poem and it changed my life in more ways than I can begin to fathom because it touched me on a spiritual and emotional level. My soul is rejuvenated like cacti in a desert.  Love Robsten FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Psych! Kristen sort your self out please love you but come on stick to the moody faces. Lot of Love your Number 1 fans from England! So kawaii!

I CAME IN LIKE A WIFFLE-BALLLLL

But then again, that so called poem is hilarious and with is a freedom pole, lol

Lesson learned for indiewire- don't post anything related to Kristen Stewart or this site will be inundated by hilarious comments from her die hard fans.

F the haters IndieWire that are commenting & probably trolling. Great article Kevin. A great laugh haha.

This so called "poetry" is absolutely dreadful, pretentious, & thoroughly embarrassing. Like honestly, WHAT THE F&^% is she saying?!?! lmaooo

Her & Mr. I'm not famous anymore Shia, need to go hook up & wear bags over their heads, speak in tongues, & "suck each others bones"….
– 1 sleeps around with a married director (cheating on RPatz only the guy every teen girl wants to be with) smh
– the other just plagiarizes everybody known to man, & gets into fights & loses haha

Their both immature children whose arrogance is unbelievable especially given their lack of any talent whatsoever. If only they could JUST GO AWAY & others more deserving be in the spotlight…

Look, it sucks, but it's not a damn bit distinguishable from 99% of published poetry.

Poetry, one more thing she can't do!

Kevin,you forgot to add that SWATH part 2 is not going to happen.This is more important information than some poem:)

Oh please. one minute she's "shy" the next minute a "fierce badass". She is what she is: a bad actress who's false sense of entitlement and arrogance caused her to ruin her own career by getting caught sleeping with her director. Oh and that poem sucks ass.

Love Kristen Stewart. What a wonderful poem. So full of emotion. Great future and career ahead for Kristen. She's moving forward and not looking back. Only the tabloids and some fans of a certain person that can't move forward.

Embarrassing? Shame on you for picking on a clear attempt at bravery and vulnerability. Not embarrassing in the slightest, this piece is lovely. It's too bad you're perpetuating persecution of a person built upon nothing but judgmental gossip.

Wow, I thought I sucked. What the hell did I just read? Pretentious horse shit. At least people seem to like it. Good for her. No more criticism from me.

it's not bad, you guys are dicks

Not sure why you think it's embarrassing. The poem means something to her and she was kind enough to share it. The article and comments show how intolerant and prejudice the public is. It's not Kristen Stewart's poem thats embarrassing, but people who are small minded and making fun for sake of being a judgmental nitpicker.

This comment section is giving me LIFE! Cheers, Playlist.

I think the only thing embarassing here is you Kevin. I like the image of "One honest day up on this freedom pole." It's day spent away from hacks like you.

Lol She's so damn embarrassing. Her whole ''idgaf'' attidue is screams desperation

wait, Jennifer Lawrence talks about armpits and burps and the journalist writes as she is gorgeous, inteligent and mature but if kristen stewart writes a poem full of metaphor about life, with phrases that journalists don't understand, she's embarrassing?

Kevn Jagernauth, I hope you don't have a daughter, or a sister the same age as Kristen because one day, you will realize what a jerk you are when one of your women being treated the same. Karma.

Hmm, I still don't know if Playlist loves or hates Stewart…

How does you taking a mean and unnecessary jab at Kristen Stewart for trying something different qualify as news? Since when did this site become TMZ?

Wow. Journalism really is dying.

An obviously very shy person opened up enough to let a personal poem be published and you and Perez Hilton use it to try to bait people to mock her. Good going. Must be a proud moment for Indiewire.

is this a gossip site or movies?

I thought this site was written by professional journalists…. disappointed

I thought this was a serious site about movies, not a shit gossip site that hangs around the artists.

This reminds me of Friends' episode when Joey was writing a letter to the adoption agency and he used some computer application to replace every word with "better sounding" word. She did the same thing right?

Really speaks to how much smoke this girl has had blown up her ass that she's proud of this.

you're so idiot theplaylist

A new poestress is born.

Lol what a piece of sh*t. Another Shia in the making, lol.