By: Andrew Uyeno
Ever wonder what it’s like to be a modern day poet? Poetry is actually incredibly popular these days, except most of us call it rap. That’s maybe why spoken word poet George Watsky found it quite easy to transition into hip hop. He’s made a name for himself for his fast raps and lyrically deep songs. Now he’s made the leap and put together a book of personal essays. And to promote the book “How To Ruin Everything,” he enacted an excerpt from it and turned it into a short film. The ten-minute long video depicts what his time was like as a traveling spoken word poet. Watsky shows what the poetry circuit is like in American colleges. It shows a side of poetry we don’t usually see; the tale of a struggling artist going from town to town trying to make a pay cheque.
Watsky takes you with him as he travels small town United States bringing his poetry to school after school. The video talks about a lot more than just poetry: it touches on how everything starts to show similarities no matter where you go.
Watsky also touches on other topics such as the popularity of celebrity gossip. “Celebrity gossip is like sports or the weather; cheap Elmer’s glue for people who can’t figure out another way to bond,” he says. He’s right, though, celebrity gossip surrounds us and is easier to talk about than having those deep conversations that actually mean something. Watsky isn’t really preaching anything specific in this video. It’s a collection of the observations that he made while traveling the country – but it’s what he’s done with those observations that matters.
