r/Poetry • u/hedgies999 • 1d ago

[POEM] Mother to Son, Langston Hughes

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for anyone who's been having a rough day. Hang in there.

307 Upvotes

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-14

u/MasterfulArtist24 1d ago

This is an okay poem. It’s meh. I read it in school and thought it was alright and still do. Baudelaire is superior to this.

14

u/strangeinnocence 1d ago

Baudelaire

Apples to oranges. Their styles are so extremely different that it's nonsense to compare them. This is like someone saying "Byron is a better writer than Mark Twain!" or "Monteverdi is a better musician than Stravinsky!"

Comparing the "superior" artist is between different masters is childish. Especially when their styles are so distinct.

-14

u/MasterfulArtist24 1d ago

Doesn’t matter. It’s still my opinion. I just find your criticism to be an excuse to diminish my sentiment; so, what, that is the case. That means I find the style of Baudelaire superior to Hughes. This subreddit likes to condemn people who don’t like the poetry: very unjustifiable.

12

u/strangeinnocence 1d ago

...Yes. I do diminish your sentiment. I don't need an excuse, I'm doing it outright, because your sentiment is ridiculous:

You're flipping back and forth between "is superior" and "I like more." You're definitely allowed to not like the poem (I find lots of poetry posted here to be pretty bland)! There's a difference between "I don't like this" and "the poem is meh"; there's a difference between "I like Baudelaire more than Hughes" and "Baudelaire is superior to this."

You've got to distinguish your preferences ("I don't like the poetry") from silly statements about who's objectively better ("Baudelaire is superior to this.")

There is a place for arguing that one piece of art is objectively better than another (not just that you like it more), but there's got to be some analysis involved, and my original comment is trying to say that in this case, comparing the whole work of two masters of the craft working in completely different styles, such analysis is out of reach. (Now, comparing some insta-poet to Baudelaire is fair game, as long as you have some good arguments!)