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Dear Vice - I am Scumnation, Viceland troller and poet laureate of the thick

Poetry. It's not all about Carol Ann Duffy weaving tapestries of compact syllables with her incredible sensitivity and keen eye for overlooked truths, y'know.

Poetry. It's not all about Carol Ann Duffy weaving tapestries of compact syllables with her incredible sensitivity and keen eye for overlooked truths, y'know. It's also about regular Viceland comment abuse monkey Scumnation posting his own poems in corners of the internet so he may teach the world that life is shit, through the power of his art. Perhaps the reason Scumnation's been trolling our boards with his tedious semi-racist bilge for so long is that he's desperate for us to discover his hidden talent for verse. Well, troll no longer, friend. For as of today, Scummy can legitimately turn to his parents and say without fear of contradiction, "Mother, Father, I am a poet." Surely all over this town people will pull over in their Citroen vans to shake his hand once they read the Wasteland of early 21st century letters that is Underclass Heroes. Feast your mind on his work beneath and our critique, beneath. Oh and if you're unfamiliar with the guy, you've clearly never read the comments on this website.

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Underclass Heroes

by Danny Blair (aka Scumnation)

WILD

WILD

WILD BOYS

STANDING UNDER LAMPPOSTS

JUST LIFE IN A NORTHERN TOWN

YEP

JUST ANOTHER CRUEL SUMMER

BUT THE NEO CON

PUSHING FOR WAR

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

WANT THE WILD BOYS

TO TAKE A TOUR

BUT

BUT

BUT

THE CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION

GIVE OUT A TEENAGE WARNING

THEY DON'T FEAR RUBBER BULLETS

RAISING THEIR FISTS AND YELLING

OUT DEMONS OUT

JUST ONE RULE FOR YOU

BUT

BUT

BUT

A NATION OF YOUTH FIRED UP

WITH NOTHING TO LOSE

TAKE ON THE WORLD

BECOME OUT OF CONTROL

BREAK THE LAW

GIVING OUT ROUGH JUSTICE

STOMP

STOMP

STOMP

HEAR THE SOUND OF THE CROWD

STANDING IN THE ROAD

ON MY RADIO

THE SOUND OF CONFUSION

AS MOB RULES

UNCLE SAM

ELECTED ON ELECTION DAY

TELLING US

THE TIME HAS COME

TO KILL THE POOR

WHATEVER IT TAKES

THERE'LL BE NO HIDING PLACE

WE ARE ARMED AND READY

WITH EYES THAT SEE IN THE DARK

ATTACK

ATTACK

ATTACK

BOOM

BOOM

SHOOT

WIPE OUT

BITS

BITS

BITS OF KIDS

DEAD CITIES

FIELDS OF FIRE

TAKE TO THE MOUNTAINS

REGROUP

WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN

THE POWER IS YOURS

TELL THE CHILDREN

NEVER SURRENDER

LETS GO ALL THE WAY

LEAVE THEIR CITIES IN DUST

IN MY STREET

UP AVENUES AND ALLEYWAYS

LET'S ALL CHANT

IT'S NOW OR NEVER

ATTACK

ATTACK

ATTACK

BOOM

BOOM

SHOOT

BOOM

BOOM

SHOOT

STORMTROUPERS IN DRAG

RUSH IN

CREATURES OF THE NITE

COVER ME

SHOOT

SHOOT

BOOM

OUT COME THE FREAKS

SHOUTING OUT

RIP HER TO SHREDS

AFTER THE WAR

AFTER THE FIRE

AFTER THE GOLDRUSH

TELL WAR STORIES

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TO THE CHILDREN

HOW UNCLE SAM

CLAIMED ASYLUM IN JERUSALEM

Throw Yourself Over a Cliff Notes

UNDERCLASS HEROES

Vice's Poetry Analysis Department considers the many hidden depths in this cryptic masterpiece. Scumnation (b. 1985) is one of Britain's literary torch-bearers. Here, he returns to two of his great lifelong themes. Poverty is wrong, war is bad – often misrepresented as "war is wrong, poverty is bad". Like Siegfried Sassoon greasing his flanks as he goes over-the-top, the poet knows that living is itself a fragile gift. Scumnation has often been described as a "painter with words", a "Promethean poet of the psyche", and "exactly the sort of jumped-up pseudo-artistic dickweed with a borderline narcissistic personality disorder who really genuinely believes that people care what he says on the internet".

• The overall boringness of the poem cleverly echoes the overall boringness of "life in a northern town".

• "Stormtroupers in drag" – here the poet uses the Nazi as a symbol of evil. There is a feminisation of evil – evil comes to the poet in the form of a woman, just as in the garden of Eden, woman is the enabler of evil. The miss-spelling is an attempt to suggest that evil is seldom very good at spelling. This is a device much used by Tennyson in "The Chearge Of The Lite Brigayde".

• “Stomp stomp stomp” – the poet here again uses onomatopoeia to create meaning. There is also an allusion to Stompie Sepei – he ponders the name of the youth murdered by the Winnie Mandela Football Club, thereby emphasising the culpability of righteous revolutionary movements in their own atrocities. Black = white, wrong = right, truth = lies, he concludes.

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• "Wild boys" – here the poet emphasises the wildness of the boys. However, the play on Duran Duran emphasises the extent to which the boys are also highly-groomed, stylised pop products in an already over-stylised revolutionary marketplace.

• "After the Goldrush" – the poet not only harps on the broken spirit of his fellow revolutionaries, he also plays cleverly on Neil Young. The "Wild Boys" are now "After the Goldrush". Imagine, he suggests, Duran Duran meeting Neil Young. Would they get on, he ponders. Would they be able to slam a brewski and talk about football? And what if Bananarama joined them for a "Cruel Summer"? Would that improve matters? Or would the addition of girls mean a conversational mismatch between talking about football and talking about shopping [via Trainspotting]?

• "But but but" – the poet plays on the idea of "butts", to which he is secretly attracted. There should be no ifs, he relates, but lots of butts.

• "Bits bits bits of kids" – the poet here emphasises the reliance of today's youth on digital-technology – playing on the computer-terminology "bits". Essentially, the poet's unspoken question to the reader is: "What is your favourite GTA game?"

• In a witty, highly adroit piece of symbolism, the poet uses Uncle Sam to stand for America. America claims asylum in Jerusalem because America is ultimately struck low – forced to become an immigrant in the post-Lehman Brothers new world order. Scumnation has emphasised how much he loves immigrants in many of his previous works – Babes of the BNP Comments 235, 280, 347, 359, 362, 383, 411, 429, 435, 438, 443, 446, 453, 460, 464, 471, 476, etc.

GAVIN HAYNES