On YouTube, there’s poetry – and then there’s poetry

Here’s a curiously affecting poem on solitude, performed by the author, Tanya Davis.

We could pick nits, here, and wish for fewer animated hearts and birds, but overall it seems like a quirky and good-natured adaptation of a poem to the YouTube medium. (Never mind that a piece on being alone is followed by credits that suggest the poet had company. Let’s just say she’s alone a lot of the time.)

As for me, I’d rather read a poem to myself, or hear it read, than watch a YouTube video – unless it’s a really, really good YouTube video, like this one featuring Robert Bly’s adaptation of a poem by Antonio Machado.

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