Ok, but, however, still . . .
 

I think this is rather nice. With all of my usual caveats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=jiyIcz7wUH0

It is, Sam. It is. Mind you, excise that bloody windmill.

I saw this the other day on TV. Not bad, as commercials go. But I could do without the hockey scenes. It's a particularly stupid sport. The sumo wrestling, however, can stay.

I'm sure that the copyright holders were richly compensated...but given all the plagiarism scandals in recent years, it's interesting that this ad quotes from a 1989 film without citing the source, or even indicating that it's a quotation.

Yeah, I thought it was a strange voice over, but didn't recognize the source until I read your post, then I immediately thought Dead Poets Robin Williams. When I went to look for the clip to check, I found there is a lot of hype about that.

They probably paid "someone" a whole lot of money, and by not referencing it they will get more media attention.

It looks nice and I'm envious of those I've seen using them but who can keep up with the technology changes. Not me. I have a laptop and a desktop and don't envision a smart phone or ipad until my tin Lizzies stop running.

"We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race."

When I first saw the TV ad that uses that line to launch a sales pitch, I had the same sort of hooray-with-the-usual-caveats response. Sex is routinely used to sell various products. Using poetry the same way amounts to an implicit acknowledgement that poetry is as awesome as sex.

(There's another ad, maybe also for the iPad, that starts by zooming in on a pencil while a voice-over enumerates things we can do with that implement. I may be remembering imperfectly, but I believe that writing a poem is the first activity the voice mentions.)

Sex is not at all awesome. Not if you're doing it right. Thinking about sex is awesome.

This does not refer to sex with the young Gwyneth Paltrow dressed as a man. That certainly seemed to be awesome.

Here's Josh Mehigan on, among other things, cultural ideas about the various implements with which poetry is composed: BAP. Perhaps only vaguely relevant, but worth reading for anyone who hasn't. Basically, people like the idea of poetry much more than they like actual poetry.

I found it to be shallow slop. And deeply cynical. Poetry commodified.

The exploitation of poetry is no better that exploitation of sex.

When it came on the second time I had to leave the room to keep my gorge from rising.

Nemo

Nemo, I think your gag-me-with-a-trope response is covered by Sam’s “but, however, still.”

I’ve often taken comfort in Oscar Wilde’s observation that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue. As I’ve said before, the United States doesn’t have a National Beer Month or a National Blowjob Month, because there’s no need to pretend that we like those things. But for some reason, we feel an obligation to fake orgasm for poetry, as for black history and women’s history. Good. Veterans (whom the country also doesn’t really care about but thinks it ought to) only get a hypocritical day. Poetry gets a whole hypocritical month.

When a zillion-dollar corporation decides to shake poetry instead of tits and asses in our faces to sell a product, of course that’s cynical commodification. OK, but, however, still.

Aren't you all actually thinking about what your verses will be? Admit it.
Mine is just a cynical couplet, probably, but however still...

"OK, but, however, still."

I shall not accommodate.

Nemo

After reading all the great replies here (there's a needle of a really good conceptual poem somewhere in this commentary haystack) I'm resisting looking at the link, which at this point would -- I'm almost certain -- only disappoint me, Gwyneth Paltrow notwithstanding.

Commodification is the Midas touch in reverse. Everything capitalism touches, it flattens into product. Poetry = bubble gum = God = radial tires. The alchemy of shit. Or think of a leper with a heart of gold running towards you in open embrace.

Speaking of Midas, I have a slow leak in my front passenger, no shit. Hopefully they can plug it.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Actually you got me thunkin Nemo which you have a bad habit of doing sometimes...

Isn't it fascinating how, the more they reach up the culture ladder to drag something down into the shitter, the less cynical they appear to some eyes? It's like an optical illusion: breathtaking cynicism is misconstrued for authentic cultural engagement when in fact it's just commodification in search of ever-higher topologies to flatten.

Fatuous consumers (flush with ideas of poetry, if not the actual books themselves) applaud this 'high reach'. There's something elevating (a narcissistic pick-up) imagining you're being moved towards a purchase decision by culture heroes and not a bunch of overextended shit-stirrers. However the telos is an unwavering ka-ching.

Hey, at least they didn't use young chicks in bikinis! That's progress, yes? Nah, just the same old steam-road rollers (compelled by their own variant-mantra to 'make it new') shifted to higher climes. Capitalism is on a flatland mission. Poetry is a stubborn Parnassus. But it is yielding. Robin Williams pitches in (Come on, how many humans in your neighborhood are spurning real estate licenses for poetry?); then there are the real spies in the house of love, Collins, Ryan et al, who are leveling from-within. They deserve the hottest aisle in Walmart.

In short Nemo, I'll buy your reflexive aversion on the chance it does yield whiter whites.

At least its metaphors aren't whales, children with balloons, kittens, or spry old folks.

Write a poem that includes at least one whale, at least one spry old person and a plethora of children with balloons.

There's nothing I hate more than portentious voice-overs, where the voice is artificial lowered and slowed to signal gravitas and meaningfullness, it's bullshit by the bucketful.
If you want to be moved by poetry on YouTube suggest you look at 'Inclinado En Las Tardes' (leaning into the afternoon) by Pablo Neruda, it is recited in spanish with English subtitles and has both visuals and music that compliment the poem. There is also: "poema 20" done by the same company as does 'Inclinado" and "If I Forget You' read well in translation by, of all people, Madonna.
The Youtube here sighted overwhelms the Whitman poem with too many images and a rhythm that has nothing to do with the poem. Better than the usual ads we are brainwashed with but still just a salesman trying to sell you something by making you feel good.