Poetry #1

1. This commercial uses Charles Bukowski’s poem The Laughing Heart.

2. The fact that a big corporation such as Levis is using this poem is ironic because the whole point of the poem is to not be influenced or submissive, but be strong and an individual. However, while this poem is playing the corporation’s goal is to actually bend your will and make you give in to their persuasion.

3. Bukowski has a reputation for being a harsh realist and often incorporating offensive themes into his poems like drugs sex and alcohol. The Laughing Heart seems to be uncharacteristically upbeat for Bukowski.

4. For question one I went on Google and typed in a couple of the lines I heard on the video. The first website that came up had the whole poem written out and I recognized various line from the clip. For question four I first typed in Bukowski’s reputation on Google and that seemed to result in many bias opinions from different authors so then I tried just Charles Bukowski and a biography on his life came up. I then checked to see if my answer was somewhat similar to what my peers posted on their blogs.

For question one I used http://milan-poetry.blogspot.com/2007/03/laughing-heart-charles-bukowski.html..

For question two I used http://bukowski.net/.