Cigarette Bro-Poet from Portland (1 Viewer)

[gabilager]

so there is a guy named Collin Yost that posts his verses on Instagram and recently published a book with his poems. some of the verses were awful, some were alright, nothing new under the sun.

but a woman (an artist and writer, i think) tweeted some of his poems, mocking him for his writing. it went viral (as we can see here https://electricliterature.com/this...feel-much-better-about-your-work-c252a0faf4d9 and here http://www.wweek.com/arts/books/2017/08/29/everybody-hates-portlands-cigarette-bro-poet/ and here http://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2017/08/portland_mans_cigarette-themed.html).

later, his instagram page got a lot of comments about how lame he was, and his book got some hard reviews over the last 3 days, by users who didn't bought the book.

anyway, he was doing his thing, writing his shit, I really don't see the point of so many cheap shots on him - and I never heard about this guy until today.

a quote from one of the articles: "You keep on doing you, Charles Brokowski! Aspiring poets everywhere need an inoculation against impostor syndrome."

I would like to hear some thoughts from you guys.

 

[LickTheStar]

I saw this yesterday and... ugh, yeah it's really awful.

But that's Portland in a nutshellf. I knew a ton of people writing awful poetry that were as pretentiously terrible as this guy. At least he's... erm... Yeah I got nothin'.

 

[mjp]

Poetry is blood sport, like UFC or Thunderdome (or KFC if you're a chicken). I thought everyone knew that.

 

[gabilager]

they might just be :jesus:

 

[Vin Makazian]

He don't have any respect for his jaw

 

[mjp]

Well, if lindsay bee says it's so, it must be so. Then again, consider the source.

 

[gabilager]

baby jesus.

quite stylish the & thing

 

[hoochmonkey9]

Wow. She's just as bad as bro poet. Shitty poets making fun of shitty poets. Been there...

 

[gabilager]

the bro poet, that I once defended, is explaining himself everywhere, claiming for mercy, asking people to read him as a joke, a satire, a guy having fun and nothing else.

damn, bro. I'm disappointed. I'll have to be lindsay bee fan now.

 

[sarapna]

uh, this guy makes me feel much better about my stuff!

let's just leave it at that :DD

 

[gabilager]

news on the bro-poet

https://theoutline.com/post/2488/collin-andrew-yost-the-most-hated-poet-in-portland

 

[esart]

Now he's the most famous poet in Portland.

 

[d gray]

Sweet Danny V better step up his game...

 

[skiroomalum]

That was a wrenching read. I'm glad I'm old and mostly technologically feeble.
People are just not good to one another...

 

[gabilager]

skiroomalum, it's getting easier and easier to NOT be good to one another... all it takes is a 140 characters tweet.

 

[mjp]

a 140 characters tweet.

280.

 

[gabilager]

old habits die hard

 

[esart]

Is it really easier to be an asshole? Or can you just promote it wider?

 

[gabilager]

feels easier, i guess. less guilty. and you can promote it wider. maybe both and the result is the one we know.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Anytime we get a new National Poet Laureate everyone bitches that it should be someone else. Yet Donald Trump (a person with an AMAZING IQ and HUGE hands) personally appointed this young talent. And President Trump doesn't even LIKE things that rhyme. Step Off people...

 

[mjp]

Collin Yost (no relation to Colin Jost) suffers from the same thing Danny Valdez does, and it isn't bad poetry - I mean it is bad poetry, but most poetry is bad - it's that corny macho pose that they both adopt. The pose stinks of pretense and shallowness and just plain stupidity, and it rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Misogyny is a tough sell these days. The sun is setting on the era of the bro. I don't know what a lot of these fools are going to do when it gets dark. They're going to be lost.

Going to Twitter or Instagram to mock Yost seemed pointless, because, who cares? But I can see why a lot of people did. If he had shown up here with that shit I most certainly would have mocked him, because he deserves mocking. The poetry he posts is begging to be mocked.

That he's become a somewhat sympathetic character now is all down to the fact that he handled his viral lynching perfectly. I mean he responded just how you should respond in order to make yourself a sympathetic victim. I don't think he consciously did that, it seems like he's just a mellow dude, so it worked out for him. But that doesn't mean his poetry isn't useless, and that all the derision that was directed toward him wasn't justified. It was.

Like I said, poetry is blood sport. Look how bitchy and dismissive Bukowski could be. Poets have always insulted and hated each other. These kids will figure that out eventually and get themselves some other hobbies.