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Arts and Culture
Video

How YouTube Is Bringing Poetry Back

VIDEO: Why US Poet Laureate's words get big hits.

Allison Martell 26 Mar 2008TheTyee.ca

Allison Martell is a Toronto-based writer. She never used to watch television, but has been ruined by wireless broadband.
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'Poetry that ambushes people, like it's no big deal.'

On my best days, I'm a poet, and even on my worst I'm a poetry fan. But I was glad to find a YouTube channel featuring former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins' poems put to animation, because lately even my affinity for poetry has been tested by several open mic abominations -- like one where the performer simply listed numbers outloud, or another where the performer recited a single word over and over.

Made by the ad agency JWT for the Sundance Channel, the animations add to Collins' poems rather than distracting from them. I love "Forgetfulness" (above) because it captures my own frustration at reading books and then forgetting everything about them.

It's no surprise Collins' poems were some of the first on YouTube. The former U.S. poet laureate champions poetry as an accessible, populist art form, and as a natural part of our everyday lives. "I like poetry that ambushes people, like it's no big deal," said Collins. "You're cruising around YouTube, you know, and there's a poem."

A New York Times review of Collins' The Trouble with Poetry suggests that one of his strengths is an ability to make us feel that "we, as readers, are very nearly poets ourselves." It's a good fit with YouTube, where viewers are often filmmakers themselves. No surprise, then, that other animation-poetry blends are appearing. One recent featured video is this whimsical version of Roger McGough's "My First Day at School."

For better or worse, online readers are not left alone with a poem. In the comments underneath each animation, the analysis begins. Below "Forgetfulness," one viewer pleads: "can sum1 plz plz plz help me understand da ful meaning behind this poem...i need help understand it plz can sum1 help fanx." Next up: animated literary criticism?

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