In James Franco’s defense, Yahoo! News specifically asked him to write the poem, and in Yahoo! News’s defense, they also commissioned poems from Pulitzer Prize winners James Tate and Paul Muldoon. But those are really all the excuses that you can make for “Obama in Asheville,†Franco’s latest odd and rambling piece of writing, which he reads aloud — from a dimly lit bedroom — in the video below. There is a line about burritos. Katie Holmes gets a shout-out. Here, just watch.
If you would rather read and analyze this important work, the full text is here.