Tao Lin’s “Eleven Page Poem”

Tao Lin’s poem, “Eleven Page Poem” portrays a modern-day honesty that cuts firmly. By this I mean he does not hold back his sarcasm or thoughts, and he does not attempt to be polite. Politeness has no place in poetry. For example, Lin talks about masturbating throughout. Lines such as, “now I have to go do something to my penis,” and, “if this is to become a social situation i will be right back,” are so blatant and honest that I couldn’t help but chuckle while reading them. When he says he will be right back, I took that as he is going to masturbate, but there is a deeper meaning: he does not want to be around people. He wants to be completely alone with himself. I came to this conclusion based off his remark of feeling as though he is the only person alive at times.

I also love his misandry throughout the piece. He makes this clear when he says, “i have talked too much shit about human beings to go outside.” One of my favorite lines is, “i experience existential despair as a distinct sensation of wanting to lecture you on how i am better than you, without crushing your hopes and dreams.” Maybe I’m just a pretentious person (I can be) but I completely relate to this feeling. To further the humor in this narcisistic statement, he writes, “always remember that i am better than you, according to me.” What’s interesting about this line alongside the entire poem is that he never capitalizes “i.” I think this was an intentional artistic choice to describe the undertones of self-hatred that come along with hating mankind.