The Poetry of Pop Culture

April is National Poetry Month, and I’m always surprised this month to hear people talk about how much they never read poetry or don’t even understand what it’s all about. In the same breath, most of these folks will talk about how they’d much rather sit down and enjoy a good movie or their favorite TV show, and that always makes me smile. Take it from somebody who is both an English professor and an entertainment reporter: there is plenty of poetry in our pop culture, including your favorite movies and series.

To help you understand, I need to put the professor hat on for a minute. Growing up, most people internalize the idea that poetry has to rhyme and have a very fixed meter, but that’s not the case at all. The poet Dana Gioia gives what is perhaps the best and most succinct definition of this special literary form: “Poetry is a special way of speaking, different from ordinary speech, that invites and rewards a special way of listening.”

You can probably see where I’m going with this: most of our favorite lines of dialogue from films and TV shows resonate with us because they instantly stand out from the rest of the script and make us feel a certain kind of way. One of my favorites comes at the end of the original Blade Runner when the runaway replicant Roy Batty gives his now-famous “tears in the rain” speech:” it instantly stands out from the rest of the text, and that’s largely because Rutger Hauer himself helped write it. These lines also force us to confront our own mortality and the tragic impermanence of memory.

For a more recent example, look no further than the hit Disney+ show WandaVision. In that show, a character asked a rhetorical question that set the internet on fire: “What is grief, if not love persevering?” For a franchise mostly about tights and flights, this dialogue instantly seemed elevated into something more poetic and profound, inviting audiences to ponder how we, much like Wanda herself, may have transformed our grief into something that made our waking hours into nightmares of heartache.

I could go on with the great movie quotes, including the ones that ride the line between poetic and inspirational (as an 80’s kid, I’ve always been partial to Yoda’s “do or do not, there is no try” bit of wisdom). Hopefully, though, you get the idea: into every truly great script, there are lines that do more than move the plot and animate the characters. These are the lines written to move and elevate those of us watching, and they become the kind of poetry spoken of in hushed tones by movie lovers everywhere.

Of course, I wouldn’t be much of an English professor if I didn’t encourage you to check out a few poems for National Poetry Month…even if you hated classical poems by Shakespeare or Whitman in school, I’m willing to bet you’ll vibe with someone more down-to-earth like Charles Bukowski. If you don’t crack a book, though, you should still pay closer attention next time you watch your favorite movies and TV shows. When you hear a line of dialogue that puts goosebumps on your skin and makes you want to sit down and process what you’ve just heard, you’ve just experienced poetry, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.