Slam+Poetry

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In case you hadn’t noticed, it has somehow become uncool to sound like you know what you’re talking about? Or believe strongly in what you’re saying? Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences? Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences—so-­‐called because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true, okay, as opposed to other things are, like, totally, you know, not— have been infected by a totally hip and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know? Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this; this is just like the word on the street, you know? It’s like what I’ve heard? I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">What has happened to our conviction? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Where are the limbs out on which we once walked? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Have they been, like, chopped down <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">with the rest of the rain forest? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Or do we have, like, nothing to say? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Has society become so, like, totally. . . <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">I mean absolutely. . . You know? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like. . . <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">whatever!

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">And so actually our disarticulation. . . ness <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">is just a clever sort of. . . thing <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">to disguise the fact that we’ve become <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">the most aggressively inarticulate generation <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">to come along since. . . <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">you know, a long, long time ago!

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">I challenge you: To speak with conviction.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">the determination with which you believe it. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,Times,serif; vertical-align: baseline;">You have to speak with it, too.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The overall meaning of the poem is that a lot of people use the words ‘like’ ‘whatever’ ‘you know’ without realising it. I chose this poem because I really could connect to it. I could do that because I say ‘like’ a lot without realising or meaning to say it. I also chose this poem because once I watched the first time I knew exactly what he was talking about and I thought it was a little funny. <range type="comment" id="281442">One poetic device I found in the poem was really repetitive with the words like, whatever and you know. I think he did that because those three word are very important to the poem. Another poetic device in this poem is <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Onomatopoeia <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. In the poem it doesn’t say <range type="comment" id="636753">it but when he is speaking the poem he <range type="comment" id="399630">says “H as this society become so filled with these conflicting feelings of nyeahe. ” <range type="comment" id="695317">Which means to me that society now has feelings that aren't good and you can’t really describe them, and that is said by the word nyeahe. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Good ideas, watch out for sentence structure. Proof read carefully. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">27/36