[R. S. Gwynn]

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

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

[John Whitworth]

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

[Richard Meyer]

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.

[Julie Steiner]

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.

[Janice D. Soderling]

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.

[Chris O'Carroll]

"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.)

[John Whitworth]

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.

[Chris Childers]

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.

[R. Nemo Hill]

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

[Chris O'Carroll]

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.