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The Poetry of Sarah PalinRecent works by the Republican vice presidential candidate.

By Hart SeelyPosted Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2008, at 1:25 PM ET

Sarah Palin. Click image to expand.It's been barely six weeks since the arctic-fresh voice of Alaskan poet Sarah Heath Palin burst upon the lower 48. In campaign interviews, the governor, mother, and maverick GOP vice presidential candidate has chosen to bypass the media filter and speak directly to fans through her intensely personal verses, spoken poems that drill into the vagaries of modern life as if they were oil deposits beneath a government-protected tundra.

Thursday's nationally televised debate with Democrat Joe Biden could give Palin the chance to cement her reputation as one of the country's most innovative practitioners of what she calls "verbiage."

The poems collected here were compiled verbatim from only three brief interviews. So just imagine the work Sarah Palin could produce over the next four (or eight) years.

"On Good and Evil"

It is obvious to me
Who the good guys are in this one
And who the bad guys are.
The bad guys are the ones
Who say Israel is a stinking corpse,
And should be wiped off
The face of the earth.

That's not a good guy.

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)


"You Can't Blink"

You can't blink.
You have to be wired
In a way of being
So committed to the mission,

The mission that we're on,
Reform of this country,
And victory in the war,
You can't blink.

So I didn't blink.

(To C. Gibson, ABC News, Sept. 11, 2008)


"Haiku"

These corporations.
Today it was AIG,
Important call, there.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)


"Befoulers of the Verbiage"

It was an unfair attack on the verbiage
That Senator McCain chose to use,
Because the fundamentals,
As he was having to explain afterwards,
He means our workforce.
He means the ingenuity of the American.
And of course that is strong,
And that is the foundation of our economy.
So that was an unfair attack there,
Again based on verbiage.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)


"Secret Conversation"

I asked President Karzai:

"Is that what you are seeking, also?
"That strategy that has worked in Iraq?
"That John McCain had pushed for?
"More troops?
"A counterinsurgency strategy?"

And he said, "Yes."

(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)


"Outside"

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I am a Washington outsider.
I mean,
Look at where you are.
I'm a Washington outsider.

I do not have those allegiances
To the power brokers,
To the lobbyists.
We need someone like that.

(To C. Gibson, ABC News, Sept. 11, 2008)

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Hart Seely is the author of Mrs. Goose Goes to Washington: Nursery Rhymes for the Political Barnyard.
Photograph of Sarah Palin by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images.
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