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   Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 11:24:19 JST Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

   All right am I going to do this? Maybe.

   Why the Niemöller "Poem" is Bad

   a thread

   1/173 (joking, but not really)

   (actually this is 0/18 at least for now)

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     Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 11:24:17 JST Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

     in reply to

     (5) I can't really bear to do a close reading of this, there is so little there. It wasn't intended as a poem and it barely functions as one. I will note that in what is referred to as the original German, the repetition is broken -- the first verse says "Nazis", and the others don't. This was taken out by whoever translated it for good (aesthetic reasons) to clean it up a little: making the repetition stronger, makes the idea more general for greater reader identification.

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     Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 11:24:17 JST Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

     in reply to

     (6) OK I've gone by the aesthetic part as quickly as I could. Next, textual variation. There's a well known part of criticism that goes through textual variations of works. For instance, Walk Whitman wrote different versions of various poems in _Leaves of Grass_, put them in different orders etc. The textual variations abound here because it never was intended as a poem in the first place.

     AnthonyJK-Admin repeated this.
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     Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 11:24:17 JST Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

     in reply to

     (7) But we can learn something from them. First, the order in the initial speech was probably: Communists, disabled people, Jews, occupied countries. First of these to get edited out were disabled people. Just not something people in a eugenics-influenced society reading it in English wanted to consider.

     Then, of course, Communists out. Not very sympathetic especially for an American audience. Socialists and trade unionists in.

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     Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 11:24:18 JST Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

     in reply to

     (1) OK it's a "poem", everyone knows it, everyone currently is wallowing in it, it's bad. Why the scare quotes around "poem"? Because it was not written to be or really intended to be a poem.

     I should write at the outset that although Niemöller was basically a Nazi, I firmly believe in a separation of artist from art. It's possible for a bad person to make good art or a good person to make bad art. Criticism of who he was is not why it's bad art.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came

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     Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 11:24:18 JST Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

     in reply to

     (2) So what is it? It's a speech that he gave lots of times and was gradually transformed by him and others into what it now is. The history of how people wanted to read it has everything to do with its final form.

     So first: why is it bad as an aesthetic artifact? I'll get to various other kinds of badness later.

     tl/dr: It's bad because it uses simple repetition for a sentimental effect.

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     Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 11:24:18 JST Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

     in reply to

     (3) Repetition is not in and of itself bad in poetry. There are plenty of good poems that use it.

     How is it used in this one? First they came for the X / And I did not speak out / Because I was not an X. For all of the variations of the English version of the poem (I'll get to the translation later) that is all the poem is for all of the verses but the last. You can see why people like it, it's very "accessible".

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     Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝ (richpuchalsky@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2025 11:24:18 JST Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝

     in reply to

     (4) When a strong pattern is established by repetition, it's the repetition-breaking moment that establishes the effect. What's the last verse, which breaks the pattern?

     Then they came for me! Oh no, not me! No one left -- to speak out for me! Wow the reader identification is great here, who has trouble identifying with a threat to -- me? (i.e. themselves)