Amanda Palmer's 'A Poem for Dzhokhar' courts controversy

Amanda Palmer, perhaps best known as the former lead singer of The Dresden Dolls and wife of Neil Gaiman, has a considerable internet presence, so when she posted "A Poem for Dzhokhar" on her blog, people noticed.

The poem is an apparent attempt at humanizing Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Palmer writes long series of single-sentence thoughts she imagines Tsarnaev might think. The imagined thoughts range from the disturbing to the mundane to the tragic.

"you don’t know how precious your iphone battery time was until you’re hiding in the bottom of the boat."

"you don’t know why you let that guy go without shooting him dead and stuffing him in some bushes between cambridge and watertown."

"you don’t know how many vietnamese soft rolls to order."

"you don’t know how to separate from this partnership to escape and finally breathe."

But many people believe she was too sympathetic toward the 19-year-old currently in custody for last week's attacks at the Boston Marathon. Commenters quickly took Palmer to task for taking empathy too far, but supporters said the poem was just that -- and that in any case the content could apply to other situations.

Haiku for dzhokhar @amandapalmer We let you inYou killed our childrenNow die dzhokhar

— Rob Tam (@robtr2) April 22, 2013

I wonder how many fans of the @amandapalmer poem think terrorism is really just a lifestyle choice.

— GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) April 22, 2013

@amandapalmer @alfajones Do you feel empathy for the people who had family members murdered? Or just the psychopaths who's hate drove them?

— Fake Obama Follower (@maplebob23) April 22, 2013

Oh lord. I love Amanda Palmer's music, but girl's got to learn when to stop. This is hellaciously bad. amandapalmer.net/blog/20130421/

— Simone Rainey (@simrainey) April 22, 2013