Stuck out and poisoned the poem from the start. And weren't the conservative spouting profane blasphemies and defiling this hallowed place just recently?
it makes me wonder if, when she says "this sacred scene we must redeem," she instead means the convention itself. i think she might be saying like... "by coming here, we're making a promise of unity, and we have to go make good on that promise." which is just a really lame thing for those words to mean. does she realize that this convention isn't church?
"America good guys. We are good guys. We are blue. They are red. If you think about it It is kind of like Star Wars We must win the real wars" Poetic GENIUS
Sounds like something from Dogmeat General Example: From afar, Mount Tai looks blackish, Narrow on top and wide at the bottom. If you flipped it upside down, It would be narrow at the bottom and wide on top.
It annoys me that inaugurations, and now the DNC, are the few times that poetry is even part of popular culture, and this is the quality of poetry that is read.
its kind of weird because I like poetry slams, and this sounds like the person that gets up there just because there is a mic, and there is always that person.
Maybe, but only because it seems that people are shutting off their brains when listening to it, and thus need it spelled out exactly what it means. It's definitely not "rah, rah America." Yes, it's about voting, but it's not because America is so great. It's because we face an existential threat. I'll once again paste the first three lines: We gather at this hallowed place because we believe in the American dream. We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the earth and if our earth shall perish from this country.
@@CarrotConsumerpokemon go to the polls was actually a pretty effective meme, though it didnt make hilary popular, it is memorable and funny. And if you wanna be really generous, it calls out the politically apathetic for choosing bread and circuses. I think it will have a greater legacy than this poem because it's short and sweet and focused. So i agree genuinely. We need more cringey vote encouraging memes.
I find it obnoxious when people make use of the aesthetic of poetry to create the appearance of depth and power without using it to say anything, rather than using that aesthetic to amplify (or provide structure for) something they want to say. It feels like an insult to the very concept of poetry, to be honest, like serving shitty beer out of a champagne flute.
I think that's a great analogy but I did recently try drinking a shitty beer out of a champagne flute and was surprised how much it elevated the drinking experience. Turns out champagne flutes are really good at bringing out subtle aromas. Would still be pissed if someone handed me a champagne flute and it turned out to be Coors Light
Rap, poetry or song is always at it's worst when you can detect that, at time of writing, the author was going: "Ooh that word rhymes, let's squeeze that one in!"
Amanda Gorman is such a great poet; Though her DNC poem doesn’t show it. One just wants to scream, “Amanda, that dream Is a nightmare for most, don’t you know it?”
this lin manuel miranda cadence coupled with the rhymes like "this air are we aware" sounds like those videos that are like what english sounds like to non speakers
the beginning of the poem, its emblematic of the democratic party's strategy though, isnt it? life-or-death rhetoric followed by meek suggestions for improvement or intervention.
We have introduced a bill to sanction coca cola for allowing their product to end up in the void-renders' vending machines! We officially call upon Susy, Steve's friend, to perhaps shake their heads, if they'd like, at the beings set to consume space itself and unravel all of reality, fulfilling their dark promise to the mad god S'Reak'alach and ending all of reality! also we're selling 30 billion in cluster munitions and facial recognition software to the void-renders, but we'll uh build a school or something idk
Thats so true, its why they had a guy on singing the praises of Reagan during the DNC. Meanwhile in the actual US I went to a movie yesterday to see alien and the crowd audibly boo'd at the end of the ad for the Raegan biopic.
This was basically, "If this election goes the right way, we will all be in Heaven, but if the election goes the wrong way, this country will destroy the world. " That obviously isn't a good thing. In fact, it seems like a poorly made or outright evil system, yet her poem doesn't seem to advocate for changing that system; it only (possibly) advocates for bringing more love into it.
I've been hearing "vote for us or everything you love will disappear" a lot in these last months and that's such a bad sign. They're literally bringing nothing to the table. They think the only way to mobilize the people is to convince them that they'll die if Trump wins.
between that line, kamala saying she will make sure we have the "most lethal" army in the world and her also saying she will never stop funding israel...Gee, how could ANYONE not think America has the world's best interests at heart? 😢
Amanda Gorman is conclusive proof that purely political poetry in service of powerful institutions can never be more than the polite yapping of a well-kept lapdog. Loud but empty, piercing but familiar, grating but incapable of offense.
This feels like a poem written/presented by someone who has a lot of experience with speeches but who's only exposure to poetry has been the lyrics of Hamilton
I think the issue, to some level, is that it annoys every side of the spectrum. To a conservative, the poem is coded with progressiveness. To a progressive, the poem is too vague to be agreeable. To the one who doesn’t care too much about deeper meaning, and just wants a fiery DNC speech, the poem makes you think too much, and you either have to be left confused or realise that there really isn’t much substance or coherence to it.
But there is. The message is clear. We have to stand together and vote together to save our country from those who will destroy it. It will be difficult because we are all so different, but we can come together and save ourselves. It's a message against Project 2025 and Trumpism. It's also, you know. Poetry. It's supposed to be full of imagery and metaphor, and be abstract. It's not going to be some actual plan of action or anything like that. I'm progressive, and I was satisfied. I judge it as it is, and not what I think it should be. Not only did I think the message was good, but the rhythm, rhyme, and delivery were all pleasing. Her outfit even helped the aesthetic. I didn't expect her to come up there and talk policy--you know, how to actually do things. That's not what poetry is for.
to a leftist, the Democrats' stance on Palestine throws everything else they've said in the last half century into sharp relief. The poem is wildly hypocritical.
@@giddycadet Well, that’s never stopped the Olympics of world peace. Or the World Bank from developing third world countries through foreign investments (from extraction companies)
It uses the sort of vague terminology of "hate" and "love" to mystify current issues. If the problem in our nation is simply rightwing hatred, Democrats can offer love in the form of likeable candidates who don't rant about everyone and act like bullies. Problem solved. They don't need to stop corporate power mongering, or police violence, or transphobia, or the use of our bombs to kill Palestinian civilians, because those are matters of power, and that's a harder thing for the DNC to grapple with than "being more loving." Ultimately, it's a hard pill to swallow while moderately liberal power brokers try to reach across the aisle to the fascists who want to seize power from them.
I have a weakness for earnest performance art, like spoken poetry. By weakness I mean that the amount of fear and second-hand embarrassment I have felt every time has taken years off my life. I'm at 1:00 and I've read 5 comments, and I don't think I can finish this.
I hate it when the earth perishes from the country, not that I'm sure what it means but I very much would be opposed to that scenario taking place, assuming it makes sense conceptually for that to be possible
she was the youth poet laureate who wrote biden's inaugural poem, and comparing the two poems leaves me feeling a little sick. from 2020 to now this facade of concern liberals had about the project of the united states in the wake of the summer police brutality protests is just gone. "america good, rah rah, please vote and don't think about it too much"
I mean, that's not what it was, at all. The first few lines make it clear that it's about how MAGA and Trumpism are an existential threat to democracy, and that we take on an almost sacred duty to stop that from happening: We gather at this hallowed place because we believe in the American dream. We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the earth and if our earth shall perish from this country.
@@Dogtrio I mean, that's not what she said. Just like she didn't say "America good rah rah." So much of the hatred for this poem seems to be due to inaccurate summaries.
@@ZipplyZane " It falls to us to ensure that we do not fall for a people that cannot stand together, cannot stand at all. We are one family regardless of religion, class, or color for what defines a patriot is not just our love of liberty, but our love for one another. This is loud in our country's call because while we all love freedom, it is love that frees us all. Empathy emancipates, making us greater than hate or vanity. That is the American promise, powerful and pure. Divided we cannot endure but united we can endeavor to humanize our democracy and endear democracy to humanity. And make no mistake, cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote, but tomorrow is not written by our odds of hardship, but by the audacity of our hope by the vitality of our vote. Only now, approaching this rare air are we aware that perhaps the American dream is no dream at all, but instead a dare to dream together. Like a million roots tethered, branching up humbly, making one tree. This is our country from many, one, from battles won, our freedoms sung, our kingdom come has just begun. We redeem this sacred scene ready for our journey from it. Together we must birth this early republic and achieve an unearthly summit. Let us not just believe in the American dream. Let us be worthy of it. " America good, trump bad, chaos if the democrats don't win, heaven if they do, but we have to be worthy, to be better basically, but all within the system because remember America is great. Very summarized a bit caricatural but am I necessarily wrong on the basics of the poem? I don't think so
This seems to be a deeply theological poem. The idea of the emancipatory power of love is an old on, and the language builds up that tone. Things are hallowed and sacred and worthy. In tandem with (I think) are deliberate allusions to Lincoln’s speeches (what with the references to division and capability of standing together), it makes this poem almost feel like it could’ve been taken from an evangelical abolitionist of the 19th century. That I think is the cultural resonances she is drawing upon. She’s trying to draw a connection between this election and the most dramatic division that had ever struck American history.
@@jeniferjoseph9200 I don't think it really is generous. I think it's kinda cringey to imply this romantic comparison between Harris and Lincoln, personally
@@jeniferjoseph9200 I don’t think it’s a stretch at all. She directly quotes lines from Lincoln’s speeches multiple times - including his famous “house divided” line which is Lincoln quoting the New Testament. Lincoln was invoking the teachings of Jesus to explain why America can’t exist as half slave and half free, which wasn’t an uncommon strategy for arguing against slavery. Many of the most prominent abolitionists approached the issue from a deeply religious perspective. Repeatedly quoting Lincoln’s speeches is clearly meant to draw a parallel between our current divisions and those America experienced at the time of the Civil War. She also uses a lot of religious language in the poem to describe America’s destiny and what we must do to redeem our country, which I feel furthers this connection to the civil war since this was also a common rhetorical method used by abolitionists to argue against slavery.
@@jeniferjoseph9200 You're allowed to read generously. People might try and dunk on you for being insufficiently cynical in responding to art, but I don't think the call to read ungenerously is a coherent interpretive stance; it doesn't have to be a slippery slope to a kind of 'good vibes only' relativism. It's also fine to let all kinds of artworks pass you by, but if you have a critique, why not make it specific?
This poem and a lot of the speeches at the DNC were kind of the epitome of a lot of American politics; dancing around material issues and full of empty platitudes.
Democratic conventions prove blueMAGA is real. It just believes in fewer bad things than redMAGA. The vast majority of attendees are cultish devotees to the party, leadership, candidates, militarism, nationalism, jingoism etc.
I mean I'm no fan of it either but you chopped off the word "together". Which might not make the line good but at least prevents it from being a Simpsons parody of itself.
the clumsiest part for me is "the american dream isn't a dream, it's a DARE... to dream together." so it is a dream kinda? this line just trips all over itself and isn't even that profound lol
Ahh so Amanda Gorman is also the poet that did Joe Biden's inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb. She uses a lot of the same imagery and themes there, including references to Christianity and loosely to the US as providence. Even the kinda weird bit about love. But the inauguration poem lands that imagery much better/neater (if still kinda nebulous in meaning). Some highlights: ... "And yes we are far from polished far from pristine but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge a union with purpose To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and conditions of man." ... "*Scripture* tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree And no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to our own time Then victory won’t lie in the blade But in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promised glade, The hill we climb." ... "If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright."
Whenever I hear "America is amazing we must save it" I feel really weird. A nation built on genocide and enslavement, and is continuing to do so, being praised will always ring hollow.
Rejecting the premise that a country deserves to exist no matter what is challenging when it repeatedly uses violence against people that disagree. The threat behind "you don't love our country?!" has been made unambiguous, it has the same dynamic as any shitty abusive relationship.
It feels like a criminal is trying to gaslight everyone into believing that he's either innocent or that his crimes are justified enough to not imprison him, like he's actually good in some odd and dishonest way.
Agreed, and those phrases are also just self-contradictory. If America is truly amazing, why would we need to save it? If we need to save it, then in the present moment, how is it so amazing? The only way it makes sense is if you interpret it as "America, the concept, the way it used to be is amazing" and oh hey we're glorifying our barbaric past again
But what about the shrapnel,@@capnbarky2682? Is it also necessary to complete the variant? Does it need to grow in accordance with the sins this Joel is going to take on in Big Joel‘s stead?
"it doesnt feel like it matches the tone that much of the rest of the poem the rest of the poem is like everybody get out and vote unite come on guys" - little joel
I think the "earth will perish from this country" line is referring to the environmental impact of the US. Trump and other republican leaders have expressed that they don't care about climate change enough. Trump backed out of the Paris agreement. She's saying that if they win then then condition of the planet will not longer be important to America.
Having a Palestinian American representing the noncommitted delegates give a pre-vetted speech = too extreme. Having a middling and overconfident poet give an overconfident first draft of a middling poem = perfect. Thanks DNC.
Why would they let a Palestinian give a speech when majority of Democrats don’t give a shit and there are chances he will criticise them. Like, why would they lmao.
I have to calm down whenever i see bad poetry. Most people do not know enough to identify horrible poetry, and that's not me being a snob. Its just like anything that's a hobby or a special interest to someone. You get to be able to identify when something sucks ass. And this poem sucks ass, but that doesnt stop people from liking it. And that's just something i have to be ok with.
I’m not interested/knowledgeable in poetry enough to articulate why but I am interested/knowledgeable enough to know that this poem was not very good😂😂 yeah pretty disappointing honestly …
I dunno… I don’t know much about wine… But I enjoy a good drinkable wine, and the few occassions that I’ve had great wine I think “oh wow, this is interesting, this is good, I don’t know how to describe it, but I know it’s something”… And I also know that a bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz might have chocolate flavouring added to it which lets people knock it back without vomitting, but that the people who think “Yellow Tail is fancy” are fucking mental.
joel if you're concerned about looking old with glasses on may I suggest square rimmed glasses, round glasses combine with that hair and beard to make "grandpa energy" while square rimmed glasses would combine with that hair and beard to make "young unshaven/uncombed seattle hipster" energy
Her poem kinda sums up the liberal messaging: "The world is literally ending and we are on the brink of calamity. The solution is to go vote" They can acknowledge that the world is burning, the country is becoming economically unlivable for most people, maybe they can even acknowledge that we're advancing genocide and submission abroad, oppression and tyranny at home. But their political framework has only equipped them with one solution for all of these issues. Don't agitate, don't pressure people to respect international law, don't boycott, don't rally behind a third-party candidate, don't question whether our current economic and political system even has the capacity to meet the current moment. Just vote for the same people who are already in charge so the other guys who were in charge before that, and have broadly the same financial and sociopolitical backers and incentives, don't win and ruin everything 💙💙
Idk about you, but as bad as neoliberals are I personally wouldn't want the most powerful and influential country of the world in the hands of fascists. Just vote blue this time and you could do your revolutionary stuff under a government that will not try to destroy its democracy
@@nicovelardita8619”do your revolutionary stuff” is such a funny way to phrase this because it shows your whole ass that you are A-okay with the status quo while also having no interest in potential change yourself lol. Just a vague idea of “revolutionary stuff.”
@@chriss780 noone is arguing that point. the current Republican party is still a far worse choice for Palestine. vote blue, it's not gonna fix the world but it'll stop a crazy fascist bully from being president and that's good enough to care about.
@@____toomuch____ OK but if there's no imagery then there needs to be something else. Some modicum of specificity. A poem full of empty platitudes and references to Barack Obama's book title is a bad poem.
She's a speaker at the DNC, not exactly an amateur hobbyist. Criticism is warranted and it's not like these people are harassing her, I doubt she's reading the comments of a Little Joel video
7:06 she says "the audacity of our hope." For any who forgot, that's the title of Barack Obama's book-"The Audacity of Hope." The Dems are riding Obama so hard.
Well yeah, they really want to try and go back to the 2008 Obama mood. Back then people were actually excited to vote Dem (which is why 2008 was such a big win), and Obama is still remembered relatively fondly by normie voters, which is why Barack and Michelle Obama are two of the only national political figures with net approval scores above zero. As a strategy it makes sense to try to just hammer home a "remember when Obama" message and hope people don't think about it too much until the clock runs out.
My most generous possible take of this poem is that she set's up these catastrophic stakes at the beginning, and then proceeds to ignore those stakes by covering them up with simplistic political jargon and social naivete. So, it could be that she's intentionally making a fairly incisive point about how we ignore the real problems to coddle ourselves in environments and with people and language that make us feel warm and comfy and safe. I don't know if this is actually what she intended, but if it were, that would be interesting, at best, and still not really a very good poem.
I like your analysis, and if you strip away the hermeneutics of authorial intent, your analysis reads the poem in maybe its most interesting light, which I like as an interpretive stance. Sometimes an author can make a great work that actually ends up saying something they weren't able to consciously think, like the actual meaning is too traumatic for them, but the art proceeds regardless. That might be too psychoanalytic for some, but I think it can be really productive.
I think the thing that gets me is the way it keeps referencing better political oratory. Like, “we must all stand together or we will not stand at all” is just a worse version of both “we must all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately” and “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It just makes me think of how much I'd rather be listening to someone just reading out a list of sick Franklin and Lincoln quotes.
"on earth as it is in heaven give us this day pur daily votes and forgive us our war crimes as we forgive those who try to seek refuge here (unsuccessfully)" lmao what the fuck is this
I don’t interpret “the earth shall perish from this country” as saying America will destroy the world, but moreso something something poetic about Mother Earth being alive in our nation. Like, whether the earth will continue to be part of us and our priorities.
The Earth was never part of the U.S.’s priorities. However, fossil fuels and the exploitation of the environment definitely have been. Welcome to capitalism.
Poetry is really unique in how much misplaced confidence people have jumping into it. You wouldn't go up on stage like "I'm gonna do a violin solo" if you barely knew the violin's front from its back. But people do that with poetry all the time.
This poem(and Joel's explanation)really summed up the DNC in general. It's insanely "performative". In that we pretend that the whole DNC(and America in general) is about "love, acceptance, helping one's neighbor, ect. while they actively shut out Palestinian protesters or anyone that has a grievance. Also, it is very childish. It's just, so rhyme-y. 😂
hey actually why does one country's election have the ability to jeopardize the planet? i kinda think that's bad. maybe we should try to fix that or something.
the double 'fall' reminds me of that line of dialogue in the live action avatar the last airbender movie where Sow-ka says 'teacher' and 'teach' like 17 times in one sentence
This is not a poem, it's banal nationalism. Political propaganda. Bureaucratic copy. The reason you can't interrogate its metaphors and symbolism is because they're completely empty. The idea that America is unified on empathy and love is on its face so preposterous - and in the context of what is essentially an informercial for genocide and police militarization, it is pure evil. Just an abomination.
ah shit i can't watch that. no way. the america perpetual hype cheer squad is one thing, but doing it carefully as an intellectual exercise makes my skin want to turn inside out a little bit
fr fr. Someone brought up the parallels Gorman is drawing to Lincoln’s “house divided” speech and, like, undoubtedly she’s a smart and thoughtful poet but I don’t care how well-constructed a piece of art is. If it’s ultimately just asking me to buy into America(tm), it sucks. It just sucks to me, sorry.
i find people reading their poems and prose in this way to be unbearably cringe regardless of what they’re saying. it’s way too intense and is the opposite of sing songy. it’s ear grating.
I think she has a lot of potential, but I too react rather strongly to a tone that performatively conveys “I. AM READING. A POEM.” The same way some actors act as though one of the main objectives of the work is to exalt the person expressing the words, instead of the words themselves and the meaning they possess. I know it’s a style, and that’s fine, but it just feels very showy to me.
absolutely, it's so far up its own ass, every phrase delivered with this self-congratulatory gravity as if revealing some profound insight, the pause for emphasis after every basic baby rhyme, clearly impressed with her own technical prowess. profound cringe
I think good poetry uses words and its formal aspects to express things which are hard to express / to make you consider things in entirely new ways. It pushes language to its limit to create a feeling or idea which is more than the sum of its parts, and wouldn't be possible to capture in straightforward prose. It's not just playing little rhetorical tricks and making rhymes. It's economical, every decision is purposeful, and at its best it can feel like it transcends language altogether. I think Amanda Gorman's other poems are much better than this one. This one felt like maybe she'd been commissioned restrictively to include certain words, phrases, ideas etc, so she basically had to make a speech that everyone could easily understand but rework it in a poetic way. I'm sure if she had free reign, she might write something more knotty/nuanced/beautiful.
5:36 this kind of reflective point wondering about the intention behind whatever is being analysed is something I feel often gets completely forgotten about in so many analysis videos/video essays/etc. Not saying it always needs to be a main focus or anything, but it’s nice hearing Little Joel mention it because it shows us that he is genuinely thinking about what he’s talking about.
I have never heard any poem that Amanda Gorman has said that has actually resonated with me. She feels like the exact kind of poet that makes me dislike poetry. Where it not what the words you choose its just all about inflection and tone and it makes for shitty poetry.
whats funny is the inflection and tone is the worst part of this for me. like it couldve been okay but she did this weird stilted reading with bizarre pauses/pacing
@@rotisseriepossum Same, because it gives the feeling like she thinks "this shit is fucking deep and needs this cadence and inflection" and it just makes her seem honestly kind of vapid.
she's honestly very bad at structuring her thoughts poetically . which is why i do not understand her success . reading her poems on the page it becomes obvious that she is uncomfortable with the formal constraints of the medium . its like she just thinks writing poetry is rhyming while writing about a thing you care about . which it absolutely is not .
little joel I think the reason she says “kingdom come” is due to the fact that it kind of rhymes with “begun”, like how “kingdom come” is rhymed with “done” in the Lord’s Prayer in the same iambic tetrameter as her line and so “our kingdom come has just begun” probably popped into her head fully formed like that, metrically, when she was associatively generating -un words, and then she wrote it down and read it
Gotta love all the religious imagery. Totally a normal and healthy thing to do that in no way contributed to why the other guy got elected last time or why there's such a high rate of religion-driven terrorism in the country.
Hearing your commentary alongside it, the poem seems to be a perfect encapsulation of the US's self- image in its own public discourse: "we're not perfect, but we're getting better... because we are the divinely ordained city on a hill...and so it's our duty to be active and engaged in our democracy... by voting, and voting HARD... because how will the rest of the world continue on without us, without democracy? Why they'd fall into authoritarian and factionalism!...which we struggle with too, we're not perf...."
This poem I think is a pretty good example of something Walter Benjamin talks about in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. He talks about how fascism will allow for the aesthetic of progressiveness or rebellion, but doesn’t actually let it happen, which I think is exactly what the vague progressive language of this poem does. Ultimately the Democratic Party isn’t actually going to let her say something actually critical about the country but will allow for the aesthetic of it. Also her being black definitely adds to that, them seeming like they’re uplifting marginalized voices or whatever.
“we gather at this hallowed place” and she’s talking about the United Conference Center in Chicago, Illinois
she said "hollowed". she is a mole person. open your eyes. look closer than ehat you see. peace.
Stuck out and poisoned the poem from the start. And weren't the conservative spouting profane blasphemies and defiling this hallowed place just recently?
it makes me wonder if, when she says "this sacred scene we must redeem," she instead means the convention itself. i think she might be saying like... "by coming here, we're making a promise of unity, and we have to go make good on that promise." which is just a really lame thing for those words to mean. does she realize that this convention isn't church?
@@comp.lex4 should have referenced a sacred moment or gathering or something then. There's nothing hallowed about a conference center.
The Madhouse on Madison IS a hallowed place if ur a Chicago sports fan, to be fair
"America good guys.
We are good guys.
We are blue. They are red.
If you think about it
It is kind of like Star Wars
We must win the real wars"
Poetic GENIUS
We have to
Pokemon Go
To the polls
- Musashi Miyamoto
Sounds like something from Dogmeat General
Example:
From afar, Mount Tai looks blackish,
Narrow on top and wide at the bottom.
If you flipped it upside down,
It would be narrow at the bottom and wide on top.
well it's factually correct. a little long to fit on a bumper sticker though
I love you dogmeat general poetry
@@OccuredJakub12 That's like a half haiku lmao
Gonna be harsh, this poem gives "waited till the last minute to do the assignment" vibes, which I find quite relatable
I think it's more a "no filters to any idea that comes to my mind" vibe
I think it was less of a "last minute" vibe and more of a "first draft" vibe
It was written because she needed to write a poem, not because she was inspired in any way
It has a "asked Chat GPT" vibe.
It annoys me that inaugurations, and now the DNC, are the few times that poetry is even part of popular culture, and this is the quality of poetry that is read.
Only the poetry of the wealthy matters today, and they have no soul which is required for poetry lmao
The whole genre of rap is an attempt at some kind of poetry to me. Just overtly performative rather than expressive.
"rap isn't expressive" is actually a crazy thing to suggest @billygoatguy3960
@@billygoatguy3960 bait used to be believable
Well said
An example of “poems that should have just been a speech”
its kind of weird because I like poetry slams, and this sounds like the person that gets up there just because there is a mic, and there is always that person.
More (or less?) specifically... any and all DNC speeches.
Just tell people to Pokémon go to the polls and save us all the trouble.
Maybe, but only because it seems that people are shutting off their brains when listening to it, and thus need it spelled out exactly what it means.
It's definitely not "rah, rah America." Yes, it's about voting, but it's not because America is so great. It's because we face an existential threat.
I'll once again paste the first three lines:
We gather at this hallowed place because we believe in the American dream.
We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the earth
and if our earth shall perish from this country.
@@CarrotConsumerpokemon go to the polls was actually a pretty effective meme, though it didnt make hilary popular, it is memorable and funny. And if you wanna be really generous, it calls out the politically apathetic for choosing bread and circuses.
I think it will have a greater legacy than this poem because it's short and sweet and focused. So i agree genuinely. We need more cringey vote encouraging memes.
I find it obnoxious when people make use of the aesthetic of poetry to create the appearance of depth and power without using it to say anything, rather than using that aesthetic to amplify (or provide structure for) something they want to say. It feels like an insult to the very concept of poetry, to be honest, like serving shitty beer out of a champagne flute.
I think that's a great analogy but I did recently try drinking a shitty beer out of a champagne flute and was surprised how much it elevated the drinking experience. Turns out champagne flutes are really good at bringing out subtle aromas. Would still be pissed if someone handed me a champagne flute and it turned out to be Coors Light
@@samb4331I feel like you put this in words better than anyone else
YES this right here
@@samb4331you are correct AND op is correct
It's the DNC dude what are you expecting for a jen0side convention
This is not a poem. This is what lynn manuel miranda thinks in the shower.
Nah don't insult my boy like that
goddam this is so spot on lmaooo
Why is this so damn accurate, this does feel like it was cut from Hamilton 😅
That's still a poem.
@@evanbelcherLin Manuel Miranda defenders in 2024? 😭
Rap, poetry or song is always at it's worst when you can detect that, at time of writing, the author was going:
"Ooh that word rhymes, let's squeeze that one in!"
you can tell when people created the rhyme first and then structured the rest of the sentence around it!! I hate it
unless you're ghostface killah writing supreme clientele then it's fire asf but not everybody can be as fly as ghost
"That's a fucking bar" Amanda thought.
It was not a bar
Morpheus Orpheus walruses
@@RickJaeger kamala eating coconorpheus by the sea shorpheus
"For what is the program of the bourgeois parties? A bad poem on springtime, filled to bursting with metaphors."
-Walter Benjamin
Kick ass !
Woah
Holy shit my vote has so much fucking vitality
@@consensuslphisk hrrrrnnnngggghhh im going to VOTE so fucking hard right now
i feed my vote bear vile supplements holy shit it's so strong
Amanda Gorman is such a great poet;
Though her DNC poem doesn’t show it.
One just wants to scream,
“Amanda, that dream
Is a nightmare for most, don’t you know it?”
bars
For real, though. I've heard good poetry from her, which made this all the more disappointing. 🫤
Honestly, right now I'm giving you the job if I only have two options.
slow down Willian Shakey
this lin manuel miranda cadence coupled with the rhymes like "this air are we aware" sounds like those videos that are like what english sounds like to non speakers
least fisherman coded little joel appearance
His next upload will have a little bucket hat with fish hooks poking through it for quick access
Least fisherman is my favorite bird
the beginning of the poem, its emblematic of the democratic party's strategy though, isnt it? life-or-death rhetoric followed by meek suggestions for improvement or intervention.
The party, correct?
We have introduced a bill to sanction coca cola for allowing their product to end up in the void-renders' vending machines! We officially call upon Susy, Steve's friend, to perhaps shake their heads, if they'd like, at the beings set to consume space itself and unravel all of reality, fulfilling their dark promise to the mad god S'Reak'alach and ending all of reality!
also we're selling 30 billion in cluster munitions and facial recognition software to the void-renders, but we'll uh build a school or something idk
Was just thinking the same thing
@@maazkalim yes, sorry if that wasnt clear
edited to make that clearer
Thats so true, its why they had a guy on singing the praises of Reagan during the DNC. Meanwhile in the actual US I went to a movie yesterday to see alien and the crowd audibly boo'd at the end of the ad for the Raegan biopic.
This poem sounds like something i wrote for a 7th grade creative writing assignment
Right tho
I don't think Joel looks old, I think Joel looks good.
This is one good looking Joel
Joel the poetry critic, I think the world needs more poetry critics. Thank you dapper Joel.
thats what im sayin the swag is real
I think both can be true at once
He’s looking old and good …it’s a poetry critic at a lit mag aesthetic and I’m here for it
English department grad student completely unaware of his own undeniable riz
This was basically, "If this election goes the right way, we will all be in Heaven, but if the election goes the wrong way, this country will destroy the world. " That obviously isn't a good thing. In fact, it seems like a poorly made or outright evil system, yet her poem doesn't seem to advocate for changing that system; it only (possibly) advocates for bringing more love into it.
I've been hearing "vote for us or everything you love will disappear" a lot in these last months and that's such a bad sign. They're literally bringing nothing to the table. They think the only way to mobilize the people is to convince them that they'll die if Trump wins.
Ya she’s got the vibe of that lady who said if she was Putin’s mom she’d love him properly & he wouldn’t suck so much now lol.
It's a lie... the system isn't poorly made or evil.
between that line, kamala saying she will make sure we have the "most lethal" army in the world and her also saying she will never stop funding israel...Gee, how could ANYONE not think America has the world's best interests at heart? 😢
@@lukeshooyes it is, both
My vote is so fertile today
so virile and potent. the ballot is positively throbbing.
My vote is so fucking fecund it's kind of exhausting
@@prismarinestars7471 this comment sickens me
@@jimmybean420please don't say that.
@@Veryglupo I'm sorry Luigi
Amanda Gorman is conclusive proof that purely political poetry in service of powerful institutions can never be more than the polite yapping of a well-kept lapdog. Loud but empty, piercing but familiar, grating but incapable of offense.
This feels like a poem written/presented by someone who has a lot of experience with speeches but who's only exposure to poetry has been the lyrics of Hamilton
every day I stray farther and farther from ever giving Hamilton a chance
Some people
Wear glasses
And look like different people
But when Joel
Wears glasses
The Joel
only intensifies.
still a better poem than hers
Rupi what are you doing here
Right away, calling the DNC convention at the United Center, a "hallowed place" is crazy glazing.
I think the issue, to some level, is that it annoys every side of the spectrum. To a conservative, the poem is coded with progressiveness. To a progressive, the poem is too vague to be agreeable. To the one who doesn’t care too much about deeper meaning, and just wants a fiery DNC speech, the poem makes you think too much, and you either have to be left confused or realise that there really isn’t much substance or coherence to it.
Eh, it sounds profound enough for someone to wisely nod along. That’s all the DNC expects
But there is. The message is clear. We have to stand together and vote together to save our country from those who will destroy it. It will be difficult because we are all so different, but we can come together and save ourselves. It's a message against Project 2025 and Trumpism.
It's also, you know. Poetry. It's supposed to be full of imagery and metaphor, and be abstract. It's not going to be some actual plan of action or anything like that.
I'm progressive, and I was satisfied. I judge it as it is, and not what I think it should be. Not only did I think the message was good, but the rhythm, rhyme, and delivery were all pleasing. Her outfit even helped the aesthetic.
I didn't expect her to come up there and talk policy--you know, how to actually do things. That's not what poetry is for.
to a leftist, the Democrats' stance on Palestine throws everything else they've said in the last half century into sharp relief. The poem is wildly hypocritical.
@@giddycadet Well, that’s never stopped the Olympics of world peace. Or the World Bank from developing third world countries through foreign investments (from extraction companies)
It uses the sort of vague terminology of "hate" and "love" to mystify current issues. If the problem in our nation is simply rightwing hatred, Democrats can offer love in the form of likeable candidates who don't rant about everyone and act like bullies. Problem solved.
They don't need to stop corporate power mongering, or police violence, or transphobia, or the use of our bombs to kill Palestinian civilians, because those are matters of power, and that's a harder thing for the DNC to grapple with than "being more loving."
Ultimately, it's a hard pill to swallow while moderately liberal power brokers try to reach across the aisle to the fascists who want to seize power from them.
3:20 lemme stop you right there… class does divide us. It always has
"We should not be divided by class but united by nation" is literal fascist narrative.
yeah 100% the worst line for me, like the fact she would place class in the same bucket as "race or creed" or whatever is beyond telling
to say that at a democratic convention, like does she know what party she's speaking for? 😅
Rolled my eyes so hard at the line "the American dream is not a dream at all, but a dare, to dream together"
who is this strange 50 year old lovable oddball reviewing poems. perhaps it's the appearance of the elusive old joel.
Aged joel
Papa Joel.
the elusive third joel
@@CarrotConsumerDaddy Joel
He's for the boys 🥰🥰🥰
I have a weakness for earnest performance art, like spoken poetry. By weakness I mean that the amount of fear and second-hand embarrassment I have felt every time has taken years off my life. I'm at 1:00 and I've read 5 comments, and I don't think I can finish this.
giving me horrible flashbacks to that time i wrote a slam poem about the cambodian genocide when i was fifteen
@@jedisalsohere 😭
@@jedisalsohere at least you were 15, I don't think whoever wrote this poem is lol
Wow I also paused at exactly 1:00 for the exact same reason.
@@jedisalsohere that poem was probably better. Amanda's poetry is in service of the powerful.
the poem really loves doing that “a/b b/a” rhetorical thing and it just feels inapplicable most of the time.
uh oh guys we might remove the world from the country!!!!!!!
@@giddycadet or shall we remove the country from the world....
I think it’s called antimetabole
@@FerHivoreantimetabole is what it's called, I think
I hate it when the earth perishes from the country, not that I'm sure what it means but I very much would be opposed to that scenario taking place, assuming it makes sense conceptually for that to be possible
she was the youth poet laureate who wrote biden's inaugural poem, and comparing the two poems leaves me feeling a little sick. from 2020 to now this facade of concern liberals had about the project of the united states in the wake of the summer police brutality protests is just gone. "america good, rah rah, please vote and don't think about it too much"
I mean, that's not what it was, at all. The first few lines make it clear that it's about how MAGA and Trumpism are an existential threat to democracy, and that we take on an almost sacred duty to stop that from happening:
We gather at this hallowed place because we believe in the American dream.
We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the earth
and if our earth shall perish from this country.
It really is disheartening to see neolibs say "everything is messed up, but our system is great"
@@Dogtrio I mean, that's not what she said. Just like she didn't say "America good rah rah."
So much of the hatred for this poem seems to be due to inaccurate summaries.
@@ZipplyZane She isn't gonna suck you off man
@@ZipplyZane " It falls to us to ensure that we do not fall for a people that cannot stand together, cannot stand at all.
We are one family regardless of religion, class, or color
for what defines a patriot is not just our love of liberty, but our love for one another.
This is loud in our country's call because while we all love freedom, it is love that frees us all.
Empathy emancipates, making us greater than hate or vanity. That is the American promise, powerful and pure.
Divided we cannot endure but united we can endeavor to humanize our democracy and endear democracy to humanity.
And make no mistake, cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote,
but tomorrow is not written by our odds of hardship, but by the audacity of our hope by the vitality of our vote.
Only now, approaching this rare air are we aware that perhaps the American dream is no dream at all, but instead a dare to dream together.
Like a million roots tethered, branching up humbly, making one tree.
This is our country from many, one, from battles won,
our freedoms sung, our kingdom come has just begun.
We redeem this sacred scene ready for our journey from it.
Together we must birth this early republic and achieve an unearthly summit.
Let us not just believe in the American dream. Let us be worthy of it. "
America good, trump bad, chaos if the democrats don't win, heaven if they do, but we have to be worthy, to be better basically, but all within the system because remember America is great. Very summarized a bit caricatural but am I necessarily wrong on the basics of the poem? I don't think so
Didn't realise I was subscribed to Noam Chompsky
chompskyhonk
the gnome that went to space?
Joam lompsky
Definitely felt like he was doing Noam's voice there in the beginning lol.
That's Om Nom Nom Chompsky to you
he has become old joel
Papa Joel
Oel.
Destroyer of worlds
He's j-old
Punished Joel
This seems to be a deeply theological poem. The idea of the emancipatory power of love is an old on, and the language builds up that tone. Things are hallowed and sacred and worthy. In tandem with (I think) are deliberate allusions to Lincoln’s speeches (what with the references to division and capability of standing together), it makes this poem almost feel like it could’ve been taken from an evangelical abolitionist of the 19th century.
That I think is the cultural resonances she is drawing upon. She’s trying to draw a connection between this election and the most dramatic division that had ever struck American history.
That’s a generous read
@jeniferjoseph9200 maybe some of that, but it's hardly a stretch to say that the "house divided" line was a deliberate reference to abraham lincoln
@@jeniferjoseph9200 I don't think it really is generous. I think it's kinda cringey to imply this romantic comparison between Harris and Lincoln, personally
@@jeniferjoseph9200 I don’t think it’s a stretch at all. She directly quotes lines from Lincoln’s speeches multiple times - including his famous “house divided” line which is Lincoln quoting the New Testament. Lincoln was invoking the teachings of Jesus to explain why America can’t exist as half slave and half free, which wasn’t an uncommon strategy for arguing against slavery. Many of the most prominent abolitionists approached the issue from a deeply religious perspective. Repeatedly quoting Lincoln’s speeches is clearly meant to draw a parallel between our current divisions and those America experienced at the time of the Civil War. She also uses a lot of religious language in the poem to describe America’s destiny and what we must do to redeem our country, which I feel furthers this connection to the civil war since this was also a common rhetorical method used by abolitionists to argue against slavery.
@@jeniferjoseph9200 You're allowed to read generously. People might try and dunk on you for being insufficiently cynical in responding to art, but I don't think the call to read ungenerously is a coherent interpretive stance; it doesn't have to be a slippery slope to a kind of 'good vibes only' relativism. It's also fine to let all kinds of artworks pass you by, but if you have a critique, why not make it specific?
In the poem she says we are NOT divided by class. Which I think it a stupid thing to say about the USA.
This poem and a lot of the speeches at the DNC were kind of the epitome of a lot of American politics; dancing around material issues and full of empty platitudes.
Democratic conventions prove blueMAGA is real. It just believes in fewer bad things than redMAGA. The vast majority of attendees are cultish devotees to the party, leadership, candidates, militarism, nationalism, jingoism etc.
You didnt even mention the worst line "the american dream isn't a dream, but a dare... to dream"
"The American dream is a threat to all Americans"
I mean I'm no fan of it either but you chopped off the word "together". Which might not make the line good but at least prevents it from being a Simpsons parody of itself.
@@hughcaldwell1034 still a laughably bad line
the clumsiest part for me is "the american dream isn't a dream, it's a DARE... to dream together." so it is a dream kinda? this line just trips all over itself and isn't even that profound lol
Maybe you're subconsciously trying to become Joel Marx
Marx exists as Joel's "Tyler Durden"
little trotsky
@@egonne2316 Trotsky is a pretty good lookalike. For some reason my mind went to Emile Zola.
This poem would *kill* for a 5th grade history presentation alternative project.
Ahh so Amanda Gorman is also the poet that did Joe Biden's inauguration poem, The Hill We Climb. She uses a lot of the same imagery and themes there, including references to Christianity and loosely to the US as providence. Even the kinda weird bit about love. But the inauguration poem lands that imagery much better/neater (if still kinda nebulous in meaning). Some highlights:
...
"And yes we are far from polished
far from pristine
but that doesn’t mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge a union with purpose
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters and
conditions of man."
...
"*Scripture* tells us to envision
that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree
And no one shall make them afraid.
If we’re to live up to our own time
Then victory won’t lie in the blade
But in all the bridges we’ve made.
That is the promised glade,
The hill we climb."
...
"If we merge mercy with might,
and might with right,
then love becomes our legacy
and change our children’s birthright."
"our kingdom come has just begun."
She's just so hyped for Kingdom Come Deliverance 2!
You are really giving pre-war Viennese intellectual with those glasses.
It's the glasses and that glorious beard = True intellectual
Weird to me it just looks like a lumberjack with bad vision, where did you get intellectual from
Fr he is in his Frankfurt school bag
Big Joel looks like the grad student who gets mistaken for the professor
Whenever I hear "America is amazing we must save it" I feel really weird. A nation built on genocide and enslavement, and is continuing to do so, being praised will always ring hollow.
Plus it feels very close ideologically to Trump’s “Make America Great Again slogan”, so it feels kind of weird in this context
Rejecting the premise that a country deserves to exist no matter what is challenging when it repeatedly uses violence against people that disagree. The threat behind "you don't love our country?!" has been made unambiguous, it has the same dynamic as any shitty abusive relationship.
It feels like a criminal is trying to gaslight everyone into believing that he's either innocent or that his crimes are justified enough to not imprison him, like he's actually good in some odd and dishonest way.
Agreed, and those phrases are also just self-contradictory. If America is truly amazing, why would we need to save it? If we need to save it, then in the present moment, how is it so amazing? The only way it makes sense is if you interpret it as "America, the concept, the way it used to be is amazing" and oh hey we're glorifying our barbaric past again
yeah it should be “we can make america better” not “this is good we should stay right here”
New Joel variant unlocked,Old Joel.
All we need now is Big Old Joel
Joel with an eye patch aka Punished Joel
Can't wait for Bald Joel
But what about the shrapnel,@@capnbarky2682? Is it also necessary to complete the variant? Does it need to grow in accordance with the sins this Joel is going to take on in Big Joel‘s stead?
He's the Old Joel, he wants normal poems!
It takes a stroke of genius to rhyme "one" with "won"
🗣️"...America's reflection of me, that's what a mirror does" 🪞
I hate our inability to undo this poem's existence.
"it doesnt feel like it matches the tone
that much of the rest of the poem
the rest
of the poem is like everybody get out and vote
unite
come on guys"
- little joel
I think the "earth will perish from this country" line is referring to the environmental impact of the US. Trump and other republican leaders have expressed that they don't care about climate change enough. Trump backed out of the Paris agreement. She's saying that if they win then then condition of the planet will not longer be important to America.
Does the US pollute any less when dems are in power though?
Having a Palestinian American representing the noncommitted delegates give a pre-vetted speech = too extreme. Having a middling and overconfident poet give an overconfident first draft of a middling poem = perfect. Thanks DNC.
😂👏 well said
Why would they let a Palestinian give a speech when majority of Democrats don’t give a shit and there are chances he will criticise them. Like, why would they lmao.
Being mediocre is the best representation of the Democrats I can think of.
The weird rhymes and repetition made me feel like I was watching a YTP.
Someone needs to make a YTP of it asap
dont worry im already calling tall bart (im not)
I have to calm down whenever i see bad poetry. Most people do not know enough to identify horrible poetry, and that's not me being a snob. Its just like anything that's a hobby or a special interest to someone. You get to be able to identify when something sucks ass. And this poem sucks ass, but that doesnt stop people from liking it. And that's just something i have to be ok with.
She started talking and I actually didn't realize that was part of the poem
I’m not interested/knowledgeable in poetry enough to articulate why but I am interested/knowledgeable enough to know that this poem was not very good😂😂 yeah pretty disappointing honestly …
jumpscares you with rupi kaur
I dunno… I don’t know much about wine… But I enjoy a good drinkable wine, and the few occassions that I’ve had great wine I think “oh wow, this is interesting, this is good, I don’t know how to describe it, but I know it’s something”… And I also know that a bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz might have chocolate flavouring added to it which lets people knock it back without vomitting, but that the people who think “Yellow Tail is fancy” are fucking mental.
@@Liliputian07 NOOOOOOOO
joel if you're concerned about looking old with glasses on may I suggest square rimmed glasses, round glasses combine with that hair and beard to make "grandpa energy" while square rimmed glasses would combine with that hair and beard to make "young unshaven/uncombed seattle hipster" energy
he would look like mike jabroni
I agree with you, but I personally like the grampa energy because it gives philosophy teacher and I'm a big fan
@@elfpi55-bigB0O85Jabronify Little Joel 😤
@@lagartijamuerta A Little Vinesauce Joel if you will.
little old joel
You don't look 50, you look like a Lit Professor
Me reading “🔥lit🔥professor”
Before “📚lit📚 professor”
Litty ah prof 💯
@@gracegrapes4307Porque no los dos?
Trump = earth destroyed Kamala = heaven 😊
This poem is a CIA psyop.
Trunp=onika Kamala=burger
Yeah, cause we'd be dead.
Lol would have been a shorter poem, at least. 😂
still a little long for the bumper stickers but yes a definite improvement
The glasses enable Joel to focus clearly on the subject at hand.
Joelstoyevsky
Her poem kinda sums up the liberal messaging: "The world is literally ending and we are on the brink of calamity. The solution is to go vote"
They can acknowledge that the world is burning, the country is becoming economically unlivable for most people, maybe they can even acknowledge that we're advancing genocide and submission abroad, oppression and tyranny at home. But their political framework has only equipped them with one solution for all of these issues. Don't agitate, don't pressure people to respect international law, don't boycott, don't rally behind a third-party candidate, don't question whether our current economic and political system even has the capacity to meet the current moment. Just vote for the same people who are already in charge so the other guys who were in charge before that, and have broadly the same financial and sociopolitical backers and incentives, don't win and ruin everything 💙💙
Counterpoint: this is a poem performed at the DNC, the whole purpose of which is to convince people to vote.
Idk about you, but as bad as neoliberals are I personally wouldn't want the most powerful and influential country of the world in the hands of fascists.
Just vote blue this time and you could do your revolutionary stuff under a government that will not try to destroy its democracy
@@nicovelardita8619 How is the Genocide of Palestinians, the worst genocide in the 21st century, not fascistic to you?
@@nicovelardita8619”do your revolutionary stuff” is such a funny way to phrase this because it shows your whole ass that you are A-okay with the status quo while also having no interest in potential change yourself lol. Just a vague idea of “revolutionary stuff.”
@@chriss780 noone is arguing that point. the current Republican party is still a far worse choice for Palestine. vote blue, it's not gonna fix the world but it'll stop a crazy fascist bully from being president and that's good enough to care about.
Your reading of those first lines is so absolutely raw and I wish the poem was living up to it
I would love to see you just talk about your favorite poems for hours.
It is literally a series od abstract concepts with almost no visual metaphors. There is nothing for the mind to latch onto. awful
this is not a good poem but poetry doesnt need imagery to be good
You used big words so I shall differ and say you must be right because idk why I dislike it.
@toomuch sure but this one really needed some visual imagery
@@____toomuch____ OK but if there's no imagery then there needs to be something else. Some modicum of specificity. A poem full of empty platitudes and references to Barack Obama's book title is a bad poem.
I think you’re giving her way too much credit. This is a pastiche of motivational platitudes.
Very modern day Cornell West feel
Maybe that was the assignment
Dude she's a young woman doing her thing and speaking for her cause. Let her be.
She's a speaker at the DNC, not exactly an amateur hobbyist. Criticism is warranted and it's not like these people are harassing her, I doubt she's reading the comments of a Little Joel video
@@anthonymartensen3164 she'll be OK on her own without your breathless defense, Anthony
7:06 she says "the audacity of our hope." For any who forgot, that's the title of Barack Obama's book-"The Audacity of Hope." The Dems are riding Obama so hard.
It was also in his famous 2004 DNC speech, which just adds to the feeling of imitation too
Part of Kamala's popularity is probably the fact that she's Obama's vice president's vice president
Well yeah, they really want to try and go back to the 2008 Obama mood. Back then people were actually excited to vote Dem (which is why 2008 was such a big win), and Obama is still remembered relatively fondly by normie voters, which is why Barack and Michelle Obama are two of the only national political figures with net approval scores above zero.
As a strategy it makes sense to try to just hammer home a "remember when Obama" message and hope people don't think about it too much until the clock runs out.
Obamastalgia
My most generous possible take of this poem is that she set's up these catastrophic stakes at the beginning, and then proceeds to ignore those stakes by covering them up with simplistic political jargon and social naivete. So, it could be that she's intentionally making a fairly incisive point about how we ignore the real problems to coddle ourselves in environments and with people and language that make us feel warm and comfy and safe.
I don't know if this is actually what she intended, but if it were, that would be interesting, at best, and still not really a very good poem.
I like your analysis, and if you strip away the hermeneutics of authorial intent, your analysis reads the poem in maybe its most interesting light, which I like as an interpretive stance. Sometimes an author can make a great work that actually ends up saying something they weren't able to consciously think, like the actual meaning is too traumatic for them, but the art proceeds regardless. That might be too psychoanalytic for some, but I think it can be really productive.
I think the thing that gets me is the way it keeps referencing better political oratory. Like, “we must all stand together or we will not stand at all” is just a worse version of both “we must all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately” and “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It just makes me think of how much I'd rather be listening to someone just reading out a list of sick Franklin and Lincoln quotes.
And JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country "
i fear your size joel
The absolute uncertainty of the size of Joel is something to be feared
"on earth as it is in heaven give us this day pur daily votes and forgive us our war crimes as we forgive those who try to seek refuge here (unsuccessfully)"
lmao what the fuck is this
she didnt say that
@@iamthekingof1omillionsunsetsthe DNC and Harris did
did she mean hollowed or hallowed though
hollowed. she is an agent of the mole people.
I don’t interpret “the earth shall perish from this country” as saying America will destroy the world, but moreso something something poetic about Mother Earth being alive in our nation. Like, whether the earth will continue to be part of us and our priorities.
The Earth was never part of the U.S.’s priorities. However, fossil fuels and the exploitation of the environment definitely have been. Welcome to capitalism.
Poetry is really unique in how much misplaced confidence people have jumping into it. You wouldn't go up on stage like "I'm gonna do a violin solo" if you barely knew the violin's front from its back. But people do that with poetry all the time.
This poem(and Joel's explanation)really summed up the DNC in general. It's insanely "performative". In that we pretend that the whole DNC(and America in general) is about "love, acceptance, helping one's neighbor, ect. while they actively shut out Palestinian protesters or anyone that has a grievance. Also, it is very childish. It's just, so rhyme-y. 😂
Politics in general is incredibly performative.
I honestly think that modern politics has the main goal to lower the IQ of the average voter. I'm certainly not wiser after hearing this poem
hey actually why does one country's election have the ability to jeopardize the planet? i kinda think that's bad. maybe we should try to fix that or something.
that's the plan
I mean, theoretically, multiple countries' elections can do that, because multiple countries with elections have nukes.
@@kingcrimson4133 That’s why every democrat keeps screaming Vote blue no matter who and basically nothing else right?
my vote is so vital. my vote is coming so hard.
i can feel my vote coming inside me 😫
hey nice glasses, you've gone straight to English teacher with this look and I'm here for it lmao
the double 'fall' reminds me of that line of dialogue in the live action avatar the last airbender movie where Sow-ka says 'teacher' and 'teach' like 17 times in one sentence
I do think America is most likely to be responsible for the end of humanity if that happens in my lifetime. Not necessarily this election though.
This is not a poem, it's banal nationalism. Political propaganda. Bureaucratic copy. The reason you can't interrogate its metaphors and symbolism is because they're completely empty.
The idea that America is unified on empathy and love is on its face so preposterous - and in the context of what is essentially an informercial for genocide and police militarization, it is pure evil. Just an abomination.
The glasses make him look like a high school literature professor, which is exactly the role he plays in this video (“remove it in the second draft”)
It has a very strong christian vibe, which I find interesting.
Who's her diction teacher, William Shatner?
It’s actually wild how not good this poem is, because Amanda Gordon isn’t a bad poet? She’s written much better imo
no, she's definitely a bad poet
dude come on!! How didnt you get that Imagine Dragons reference DUUDEEEEEE
THIS IS MY KINGDOM COME!!!!
THIS IS MY KINGDOM COME!!!!
ah shit i can't watch that. no way. the america perpetual hype cheer squad is one thing, but doing it carefully as an intellectual exercise makes my skin want to turn inside out a little bit
fr fr. Someone brought up the parallels Gorman is drawing to Lincoln’s “house divided” speech and, like, undoubtedly she’s a smart and thoughtful poet but I don’t care how well-constructed a piece of art is. If it’s ultimately just asking me to buy into America(tm), it sucks. It just sucks to me, sorry.
This sounds like the unironic version of "next to of course god america i"
i find people reading their poems and prose in this way to be unbearably cringe regardless of what they’re saying. it’s way too intense and is the opposite of sing songy. it’s ear grating.
I think she has a lot of potential, but I too react rather strongly to a tone that performatively conveys “I. AM READING. A POEM.” The same way some actors act as though one of the main objectives of the work is to exalt the person expressing the words, instead of the words themselves and the meaning they possess. I know it’s a style, and that’s fine, but it just feels very showy to me.
absolutely, it's so far up its own ass, every phrase delivered with this self-congratulatory gravity as if revealing some profound insight, the pause for emphasis after every basic baby rhyme, clearly impressed with her own technical prowess. profound cringe
Yeah I hate it.
I recently found you on TH-cam and I have to say I love you. I love your perspective on things.
I think good poetry uses words and its formal aspects to express things which are hard to express / to make you consider things in entirely new ways. It pushes language to its limit to create a feeling or idea which is more than the sum of its parts, and wouldn't be possible to capture in straightforward prose. It's not just playing little rhetorical tricks and making rhymes. It's economical, every decision is purposeful, and at its best it can feel like it transcends language altogether. I think Amanda Gorman's other poems are much better than this one.
This one felt like maybe she'd been commissioned restrictively to include certain words, phrases, ideas etc, so she basically had to make a speech that everyone could easily understand but rework it in a poetic way. I'm sure if she had free reign, she might write something more knotty/nuanced/beautiful.
5:36 this kind of reflective point wondering about the intention behind whatever is being analysed is something I feel often gets completely forgotten about in so many analysis videos/video essays/etc. Not saying it always needs to be a main focus or anything, but it’s nice hearing Little Joel mention it because it shows us that he is genuinely thinking about what he’s talking about.
I have never heard any poem that Amanda Gorman has said that has actually resonated with me. She feels like the exact kind of poet that makes me dislike poetry. Where it not what the words you choose its just all about inflection and tone and it makes for shitty poetry.
whats funny is the inflection and tone is the worst part of this for me. like it couldve been okay but she did this weird stilted reading with bizarre pauses/pacing
@@rotisseriepossum Same, because it gives the feeling like she thinks "this shit is fucking deep and needs this cadence and inflection" and it just makes her seem honestly kind of vapid.
she's honestly very bad at structuring her thoughts poetically . which is why i do not understand her success . reading her poems on the page it becomes obvious that she is uncomfortable with the formal constraints of the medium . its like she just thinks writing poetry is rhyming while writing about a thing you care about . which it absolutely is not .
Seriously the WAY she reads it is worse than WHAT she's reading. Or...it makes the meh poem worse through the reading? Either way, cant stand it.
I feel so validated rn!!!!!! I said I hated this poem after I heard her read it and my family thought I was crazy!!
What if rappers sounded this proud and satisfied with every rhymed word they spoke
Little Joel is looking exceptionally wise today
little joel I think the reason she says “kingdom come” is due to the fact that it kind of rhymes with “begun”, like how “kingdom come” is rhymed with “done” in the Lord’s Prayer in the same iambic tetrameter as her line and so “our kingdom come has just begun” probably popped into her head fully formed like that, metrically, when she was associatively generating -un words, and then she wrote it down and read it
Happy 50th!! So little for his age
Gotta love all the religious imagery. Totally a normal and healthy thing to do that in no way contributed to why the other guy got elected last time or why there's such a high rate of religion-driven terrorism in the country.
yeah “kingdom come” made me as an atheist feel wildly uncomfortable-i was like “oh no the christian nationalism is spreading”
@@chesspiece4257 As an atheist I thought she was referring to the upcoming game "kingdom come deliverance 2"
Who needs trump when the democrats are already adopting all the narratives of the evangelical right
you look like an adorable old man at the post office, I would 100% want to be friends on sight.
This poem was just a world salad of ideas. Not all of them can be winners.
Hearing your commentary alongside it, the poem seems to be a perfect encapsulation of the US's self- image in its own public discourse: "we're not perfect, but we're getting better... because we are the divinely ordained city on a hill...and so it's our duty to be active and engaged in our democracy... by voting, and voting HARD... because how will the rest of the world continue on without us, without democracy? Why they'd fall into authoritarian and factionalism!...which we struggle with too, we're not perf...."
They had time for this shit but not to hear from a Palestinian representative? Cool.
Yeah, and if you bring up the destruction they are backing, they tell you that you must want Trump to win.
They sure as hell haven’t earned my vote.
This poem I think is a pretty good example of something Walter Benjamin talks about in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. He talks about how fascism will allow for the aesthetic of progressiveness or rebellion, but doesn’t actually let it happen, which I think is exactly what the vague progressive language of this poem does. Ultimately the Democratic Party isn’t actually going to let her say something actually critical about the country but will allow for the aesthetic of it. Also her being black definitely adds to that, them seeming like they’re uplifting marginalized voices or whatever.