Britney Spears, American poet
January 14, 2001
By Olav Rokne
Take One

I think it was Carl von Clausewitz who said "If you say something often enough it becomes true." He was a smart guy-- and those words ring true today (even if I'm wrong and he didn't say them.)  Take Jim Morrison for example. One day someone started calling him "the American Poet." It's not like they consulted with Robert Frost or Edgar Allen Poe. It’s not like they thought about his relative merits compared to Robert Louis Stevenson—it was just announced one day (specifically the first of March 1972) that Jim Morrison was "the American Poet" like there hadn't been one before or since. It was said often enough. It was true. Britney Spears is the poet laureate of our generation. There. It's been said, and soon it will be true.  It’s not like the phrase ‘poet laureate’ has any meaning—it’s a patronage position that the British monarchy bestows on a poet, regardless of their skill or relevance—and if can be irrelevant, then why not proclaim Britney to the role? I set out on a quest to legitimize my opinion by speaking to the people who would know best.

“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” said Mr. Lagace, my high school English teacher, “Did you learn anything in my class?”

“I learned that every once in a while a generation can have a voice,” I replied, “and I believe that (sad as this may be) the person who expresses the feelings of my generation the best is Britney.” As I left the school, he desperately searched for a way to retroactively lower my grade 12 English mark.

I asked a pale girl all dressed in black her opinion. “If that’s the case,” said Danielle McDonald (as I found out was her name), “then we are a pretty pathetic generation, aren’t we?”
"Honestly," I replied, "many people of our generation are stuck in meaningless, dead end retail jobs mindlessly whiling away the hours, dehumanized by our jobs. Why do we do this? Money, the means by which man enslaves his brother… we all know that’s the real subtext behind Briney’s hit ‘I’m a slave 2 you’. Who wasn’t touched by the song 'E-Mail my heart'? Certainly not those of us who have experienced an internet romance".

  “Your arguments have no weight,” said Dr. David Hyttenrauch, who teaches English at MRC, “You are setting up a straw man argument simply so that people can shoot you down.” He then paused and thought a moment. “You may actually be on the right track though, as poetry has been subsumed into popular music—though a better choice might be Sting or Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.”