Yep, James Franco's Poetry Is Pretty Bizarre

There’s always something interesting going on with James Franco, whether it’s angering crazy world leaders or taking bizarre half nude pictures for his Instagram followers. Never a dull moment! Now, we can add this to the list: Apparently, James Franco has released pieces of poetry from his previously-released debut collection, Directing Herbert White — because, yes, in addition to an actor, director, producer, writer, professor, artist, and singer, he is also a poet — and, true-to-form for him, be they’re quite eccentric.

To say the least — from an odd poem dedicated to the late actor Heath Ledger to another in the voice of Lindsay Lohan (seriously) — Franco definitely won’t be reaching Nikki Giovanni, Walt Whitman, Maya Angelou or E.E. Cummings level anytime soon. Sorry, not sorry. But they're still worth a read...for the weird aspect. In a snippet posted by The Telegraph , Franco wrote about his experience with Ledger:

There had been a time

When we were up for the same roles,

10 Things I Hate about You

(Based on The Taming of the Shrew),

And The Patriot –

Funny, you were Australian and so was Mel –

You were the knight in A Knight’s Tale…

Sounds a bitter does it not? I understand using poetry as a form of expression, but most of this seems like a diss to The Dark Knight actor, and there are definitely some competitive-meets-jealous vibes there. Though this is obviously just a small part of Franco’s poetry collection, focusing on his own accomplishments, or life in general, may have made more sense.

Not to mention, his strange poem in the voice of actress Lohan, stating, “Fame raped me/ And I raped it, if you know what I’m saying,” is somewhat off-putting. I’d rather hear poems about Franco himself so that we could actually get a better look into that seemingly complex mind of his. Now, all I know is that he still likes to talk about Lohan despite the awkward sex list incident and his semi-creepy fictional short story about hooking up with her.

At least The Telegraph's review is entertaining: As Pedestrian points out, it basically states that the book is an "artistic hand grenade," and was only published because Franco is a celebrity. Ouch.