THE POEM BOOK

#nobel prize in literature 2016, announced 13/11/16. 
The Nobel Prize no longer has a right to call this prize a prize for Literature.

Great songs are terrific, but as Poetry, songwriting is in the domain of bad poetry. This is not a judgement about the worth of the medium of songwriting but about the compromises songwriting commits in order to appeal as 'songs. Are Bob Dylan's songs a far cut above the 'lowly status' of songwriting or has the Nobel Committee folks gone mad? This question is irrelevant. The Nobel Prize is not about the art of the art in question but rather progressive ideas found in The Enlightenment (European) tradition. In any case, taking the view that Bob Dylan's songs is not 'Literature' merely exposes a bias for 'Literature' as 'Literature'.

In a world about to vote Trump as leader of the so-called 'free world', 2016 USA is the most politically contentious country right now in that 'free world'. Back in 2008, the USA, about to vote in a person of African descent - a Black American - was the most politically 'earth-shaking' nation in the West. What the Nobel Prize demonstrates in each respective year (2008 and now, 2016) is not faith but lack of faith in the US: in American progressive enlightenment and, more importantly for us here at TPB, American Letters. The Nobel Prize Literature committee has pulled a kind of stunt, an extension of a long history of European snobbery of American Letters.

And they are probably right. On both counts.

For a nation often at war, no one in the US stood out as a 'tried and tested' champion of peace during the illegal war on Iraq and a man yet to have office or effect any direct impact or action was given a peace prize. Today, the extent of American letters, from Roth to present-day MFAers, is a wasteland of overly edited middle of the road market driven product unconcerned with language and resistance: with the refusal.

Are the Nobel Prize folks guilty of Enlightenment prejudices where the USA is concerned? Or do their so-called 'unconventional choices' expose their reactionary, traditionalist (populist) currents?

In 1973, when Lê Đức Thọ, a tried and tested man of peace and Vietnamese revolutionary, was chosen for the 1973 Peace Prize for his role in the Paris Peace Accords, he declined, stating that there was no actual peace in Vietnam. Obama accepted and has only perpetrated more wars. For the literary arts, when Jean-Paul Sartre was awarded the Literature Prize, he refused, stating, "A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honourable form." We doubt Bob Dylan will do same.

Congratulations to Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan's writing (memoir) is actually poor. As for his songs, but for the use of politics, the lines aren't that great. The Nobel Prize no longer has a right to call this prize a prize for Literature. 

We have pasted a couple lyrics to his songs for those interested. The Nobel Prize is privately funded.

- The Poem BookJournal

BOB DYLAN
The Times They Are A-Changin'

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

_________

TPB's notes: from the album: "The Times They Are A-Changin'" (1964)  Source: http://www.azlyrics.com/d/dylan.html

BOB DYLAN
Subterranean Homesick Blues

Johny's in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in a trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he's got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
A man in a coon-skin cap
In a pig pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten.

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin' that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone's tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the DA
Look out kid
Don't matter what you did
Walk on your tip toes
Don't tie no bows
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Wash the plain clothes
You don't need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.

Get sick, get well
Hang around an ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything's gonna sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write Braille
Get jailed, jump bail Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You're gonna get hit
But losers, cheaters
Six-time users
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool is
Lookin' for a new fool
Don't follow leaders
Watch the parkin' meters.

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles.

_________

TPB's notes: from the album: "Bringing All Back Home" (1965) Source: http://www.azlyrics.com/d/dylan.html

BOB DYLAN
Come Rain Or Come Shine

I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved you
Come rain or come shine
High as a mountain and deep as a river
Come rain or come shine

I guess when you met me
It was just one of those things
But don't ever bet me
'Cause I'm gon' be true if you let me

You're gonna love me like nobody's loved me
Come rain or come shine
Happy together, unhappy together
And won't that be fine?

Days may be cloudy or sunny
We're in or we're out of the money
But I'm with you always
I'm with you rain or shine

_________

TPB's notes: from the album: "Fallen Angels" (2016) Source: http://www.azlyrics.com/d/dylan.html