Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

To say that artistic self-assertion is a hallmark of immaturity in rap, as Adam Kirsch does, and that it is an adolescent art form implicitly in need of tutelage, is to grossly misunderstand the trope of self-aggrandizement in hip-hop lyricism. Braggadocio leads to an exploration of language and self in the world, a momentary stay against confusion that has as much to do with truth and beauty as any lines published in Poetry magazine in the past decade. I’d go so far as to claim that this self-reflexivity is more mature than some of the obfuscated investigations of self and world that masquerade as poetry today.