Slim Shady's Poetry

While Eminem’s title as a poet has not always been widely accepted, his talents as a rapper has given him enormous fame in the world of music. However, using conventional definitions of poetry, it is hard to describe slim Shady’s rhymes as anything but poetic. His work both utilizes multidimensional diction as well as figurative language to express complex and often profound ideas.

Still I would argue that Slim Shady’s work is also an example of a different and possibly new type of poetry. His music is simply aesthetically pleasing. Not in the sense that his lyrics try to convey beauty but rather in the fact that they do the exact opposite, and that is what makes his genre of rap new. Slim Shady’s music attempts to express the other side of the aesthetic spectrum, ugliness. The intense vulgarity of Eminem’s music provides its listeners an expression of aesthetic enjoyment that differs from the traditional poetic goal of capturing beauty. The language Eminem uses in his poem’s embodies the dark side of aesthetical poetry by conveying abhorrent and evil images.

Eminem’s 1999 album The Slim Shady LP is where one can find the greatest supply of these vulgar and crude expressions. Specifically, the song Role Model exemplifies the type of poetry Slim strives to create. Some lyrics from this song that capture the explicit nature of Slim’s work are:


I strangled you to death then I choked you again

Then broke your f**king legs till you bones poked through your skin

Hillary Clinton tried to slap me and call me a pervert

I ripped her f**king tonsils out and fed her sherbert


The repugnant images Slim illustrates in his music should be recognized as poetic not only because of the lyrical brilliance needed to create it, but because of the aesthetic meaning it is convies.