Can't Get No Verse

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco vetoed legislation declaring this poem by James Ellis Richardson to be the official state poem after the state's poet laureate said it lacked sufficient literary merit:


I Love My Louisiana

I love my Louisiana
She's so colorful in her history
so majestic in her pride
with beauty unsurpassed
like any other of its kind.
She seems to be like a soulful mate
that stands here by my side.
This brings me special confidence
to know that she is mine.

I love my Louisiana
with all her charms and queenly ways,
yet she blushes when in bloom.
God's sunshine surely kissed her
for He blessed her cup so full.
You can even feel her radiance
on her rainy gloomy days
for you know that on the morrow
the sun will clear the haze.

I love my Louisiana.
I propose this toast toward her
with my meager pen in hand.
I somehow feel so primitive
to her majesty so grand.


Does Louisiana really care about or need literary merit? Any help would seem to do down there right now.