Non-Classical Poetry, Part 2

Part 2 of my poetry post is on "Art is a Facebook status about your winter break" by b.e.fitzgerald as found here on Tumblr.

Once again, the full text:

I swear to every heaven ever imagined,
if I hear one more dead-eyed hipster
tell me that art is dead, I will personally summon Shakespeare
from the grave so he can tell them every reason
why he wishes he were born in a time where
he could have a damn Gmail account.
The day after I taught my mother how to send pictures over Iphone she texted
me a blurry image of our cocker spaniel ten times in a row.
Don't you dare try to tell me that that is not beautiful.
But whatever, go ahead and choose to stay in
your backwards-hoping-all-inclusive club
while the rest of us fall in love over Skype.
Send angry letters to state representatives,
as we record the years first sunrise so
we can remember what beginning feels like when
we are inches away from the trigger.
Lock yourself away in your Antoinette castle
while we eat cake and tweet to the whole universe that we did.
Hashtag you're a pretentious ass hole.
Van Gogh would have taken 20 selfies a day.
Sylvia Plath would have texted her lovers
nothing but heart eyed emojis when she ran out of words.
Andy Warhol would have had the worlds weirdest Vine account,
and we all would have checked it every morning while we
Snap Chat out coffee orders to the people
we wish were pressed against out lips instead of lattes.
This life is spilling over with 85 year olds
rewatching JFK's assassination and
7 year olds teaching themselves guitar over Youtube videos.
never again do I have to be afraid of forgetting
what my fathers voice sounds like.
No longer must we sneak into our families phonebook
to look up an eating disorder hotline for out best friend.
No more must I wonder what people in Australia sound like
or how grasshoppers procreate.
I will gleefully continue to take pictures of tulips
in public parks on my cellphone
and you will continue to scoff and that is okay.
But I hope, I pray, that one day you will realize how blessed
you are to say I love you in 164 different languages.


I love this one because its is so now. The entire premise is social media and communication through non-traditional means--Vine, Snapchat, YouTube. The narrator is railing against a culture that says this new communication is less valid than previous methods. Or maybe not. Hipsters connect through all these mediums. But seem to value the past ones more. But, to me, rejection of social media isn't necessarily limited to hipster-dom; it is also people who say selfies are stupid and narcissistic. Reality check, for hundreds of years, the wealthy commissioned paintings of themselves. If that isn't selfie culture, I don't know what it.

As a historian, I love the way the author includes Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath, and Andy Warhol. It is interesting to think what artists of the past would have thought of the ease with which we can communicate. In many ways, the rise of technology and such has lead to the democratization of art. Sure, Instagram and Facebook are filled to the gills with sunrises, sunsets, and cats, but isn't that wonderful? Why is people finding beauty in life bad? We all (at least in the wealthy countries) have been given the ability to be artists--an opportunity denied our ancestors.

"Hashtag you're a pretentious ass hole" is quite possibly my favorite single line. It's a phrase that many of us are tempted to say to people in reality. Hashtags are confusing, but they are generally used to collect information and make it easier to search sites like Twitter and Tumblr. Additionally, hashtags are starting to be used in conversations, out loud. Or maybe it's just me, but it is a little fun.

Ultimately, to me, this poem is about the increasing ease of communication. And how can that be a bad thing?