Beyoncé has revealed that she may be human, rather than divine. For an upcoming spread for CR Fashion Book, a couture tome overseen by Carine Roitfeld, the former French Vogue editor and rival to Anna Wintour, Beyoncé decided to tell readers of her greatness through poetry. Unfortunately, the written word did not fully cooperate.
Beyoncé can do many things. Poetry is not one of them.
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
A verse:
Children I’ve met across the years —
they uplift me like pieces of moon,
and guide me, whispering in my ear
Moon, time, children, and distance all seem like concepts more apt for the likes of Shailene Woodley. Apparently, children and the orbit of the moon are very important to Beyoncé. But this metaphor feels a bit underwhelming for a woman who once sang about how she “sneezed on the beat and the beat got sicker.”
There’s more. In another verse, she explains how she sometimes needs to tap into her alter ego to sleep with her husband:
I learned at a very young age,
when I need to tap some extra strength,
to put my persona, Sasha, on stage.Though we’re different as blue and red,
I’m not afraid to draw from her
in performance, rifts, even in bed.
She also explains her music:
You call me a singer, but I’m called to transform,
to suck up the grief, anxiety, and loss
of those who hear me into my song’s form.
Grief, anxiety, and loss are not the types of feelings that come to mind when listening to her latest album, BEYONCÉ, in which most of the tracks feature Beyoncé boasting about her sexual exploits in song.
The poem, CR Fashion Book cryptically says, was “remixed” by poet Forrest Gander. That inevitably raises more questions, like: what did Beyoncé‘s original draft look like? In what way were these words about lunar children originally presented?
From what we know about Beyoncé‘s career, we know that she is perfect and is in complete control of every aspect of her life — even if that aspect is her sister attacking her husband in an elevator. How, then, did this not-great poem make it out of Beyoncé‘s tight grip and into a magazine? Is looking like a mediocre poet part of a bigger ploy to convince us that she’s human?
It wouldn’t hurt.
Read the entire poem at CR Fashion Book.
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