The Anthology of Really Important Modern Poetry: Timeless Poems by Snooki, John Boehner, Kanye West, and Other Well-Versed Celebrities [Paperback]

Kathryn Petras (Author), Ross Petras (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 27, 2012

Required reading from great poets of our time. Drew Barrymore: “Upon Pondering Breasts.” Tom Cruise: “An Exegesis on Psychiatry.” Ann Coulter: “My Kind of Fun.” And Trump and Sheen and Snooki, John Boehner and Michelle Bachman, Miley and Ke$ha. Hugo Chavez. Even a Zen haiku by Emmitt Smith:

I think it’s his self-
confidence in himself that
makes him confident.

With their great gift for curating the inane public utterances of celebrities, politicians, and other self-important loudmouths, Kathryn and Ross Petras offer a timeless collection of “found” poetry—real quotes formatted as verse for hilarious and surprising effect. The quotes are inherently addictive and funny—but turning them into verse intensifies the effect, making the words even more ridiculous, parodies to revel in. And the Petrases take it one step further: organizing the poems by themes, introducing each work with a Norton Anthology mock seriousness, discussing “schools,” and larding the text with footnotes, The Anthology of Really Important Modern Poetry is pure deadpan pleasure. A whiff of Emily Dickinson in Ann Coulter? It’s literary treasure, right under our noses.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Kathryn and Ross Petras, sister and brother, are America’s foremost experts in celebrity stupidity, and authors most recently of The Stupidest Things Ever Said Book of All-Time Stupidest Top 10 Lists. Kathy lives in Manhattan.

Ross and Kathryn Petras, sister and brother, are America’s foremost experts in celebrity stupidity, and authors most recently of The Stupidest Things Ever Said Book of All-Time Stupidest Top 10 Lists. Ross lives with his family in Toronto.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (March 27, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076116782X
• ISBN-13: 978-0761167822
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,008,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm half of a brother and sister writing team. We were raised in suburbia, one of us wears glasses, one doesn't, and 50% of us is female. The other 50% is male -- and is taller than the other half.

We're the authors of the national bestselling "Stupidest" series - which includes the #1 bestselling page-a-day calendar "The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said" (now in its 18th year -- with over 4.5 million copies sold), "Jane's Guide to Dicks," "The Stupidest Things Ever Said Book of All-Time Stupidest Top 10 Lists" -- a collection of the stupidest of the stupidest, and the just published "Anthology of Really Important Modern Poetry." (Visit us at stupidest.com. We're also on Facebook (we're stupidest.com there too; clever, huh?) and on Buzzfeed (teamstupidest).

Our work has received the attention of personalities like David Brinkley and Howard Stern and publications including the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post and the London Times.

One or the other (or both!) has/have been a guest on hundreds of radio shows and tv shows, including Good Morning America (about menopause), CNN (about bad poetry) and Fox and Friends (about Paris Hilton).

Oh, and one of us was a Jeopardy contestant (but, sadly, came in third - and only won a designer watch . . .).

AND...one final note: We're always looking for more stupidity -- so if you have a quote or photo that's wonderfully stupid, send it to us at [e-mail] -- and let us know if you want credit if we use it in a calendar or book.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Out of the Cradle Endlessly Kvetching March 28, 2012

By Roochak

Format:Paperback

It's almost frightening how much Rep. Michele Bachman's "poem" on page 211 reads like an excerpt from an Ezra Pound Canto, and how much Sen. Joe Lieberman (p.131), in a hot air rhapsody on American history, actually manages to sound like an unhinged Marianne Moore. Maybe the Petras siblings, specialists in skewering public blowhards with their own words, are onto something here.

Scouring media interviews, public appearances, and leaked conversations for the work of 168 of our really important modern poets -- including Tom Cruise, Hugo Chavez, Donald Trump, Kanye West, Rahm Emanuel, Lars von Trier, and something called "Snooki" -- the Petrases, tongues firmly in cheek, annotate such literary masterworks as Jim Cramer's "Once I Was Somebody, Now I'm a Buffoon" ("The poet-financial pundit Jim Cramer here hearkens back to the incomparable lament of Dido in Virgil's Aeneid. He replaces the classic dactylic hexameter with his own innovative Cramerian Sporadic Kvetchameter"); Jack Abramoff's lamentation "On the Fickleness of Friendships" ("Neo-Beat poet (and former lobbyist convicted for conspiracy) Jack Abramoff turns an acid tongue on his former friend Newt Gingrich (who was, in effect, Kerouac to his Ginsberg) in this lament ripped from the heart. Written in the form of a blues riff, this is best read aloud over the sound of a wailing saxophone"); and Joey Gambina's "Why I Don't Kiss My Consigliere No More" ("In this radiant tercet, mobster Joey Gambina takes on the ramifications of an intrusive unconstitutional government").

I enjoyed this book for the hour or so that it took to read it.

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun book and conversation piece March 7, 2013

By M. Tague

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

While not a book that will keep you interested for very long, this anthology of dumb celebrity quotes (put on paper as if they were poetry) highlights some very amusing and out-of-touch musings from people like Kanye West (who really says some terribly stupid things in here) to Hillary Clinton. The reporting of this blather also says something about the way in which the general public is devoted to treating the words of the rich and famous like signs from the sky.

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious October 18, 2012

By datura2002 VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I was almost in tears after I picked this book up and started thumbing through it.

"Every time I look at something in this book, I can't stop laughing!" I said to a friend, between snorts.

She replied, "Every time I point out something in this book to someone else, they can't stop laughing either."