Watch "Flow Like Poe"

[ysabetwordsmith]

 dialecticdreamer sent me this hilarious video using rap music and Edgar Allan Poe to explain the mechanics of poetry. Do not watch with your mouth full.  Not library safe.  Not work safe if your employer has a stick up his ass.

Now imagine that the poetry mavens in Shiv's prison made something like this.  Because this?  Is how you get prison inmates hooked on poetry.  Guys I used to teach would have loved  this thing.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

... well, that's one way to lay some education on you!

[johnpalmer]

It reminds me a bit about a how I'd read a dozen different explanations of the "passive voice" and just didn't understand WTF they were talking about. And then, in "When Gravity Fails" the main character Marid makes a joke "The passive voice is to be avoided" and I was like "NOW I get it!"

And I did. The concept was clear to me - I could see how "mistakes were made" hides that PEOPLE make mistakes, that "X is to be avoided" has nowhere near the meaning and strength of "avoid X", and that there *were* places to use it... the common military usage of "mistakes were made" is a way of saying "I have *NO* idea who did what wrong, and there's no clear evidence to implicate anyone - but it's clear that a well disciplined fighting force acting properly would not have done this."

(It's also, obviously, a way to avoid angering General Asshole who really thinks Captain D. Amnfool is a brilliant up-and-comer, and therefore couldn't be at fault.) (Re-reading, I realize that's a sexual double entendre. I'll let it stand.)

Anyway: yeah, don't explain, *illustrate*. And then explain.

(My instincts say the video should be shown on day one, and then dissected in small bits throughout the next few classes. Because dissecting it all at once after showing it would probably ruin the replayability.)

Yes...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Well done. :D

I actually mention the passive exonerative in "Redwork" where it's part of Shiv's reflexive tendency to avoid blame.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

LOLOLOLOL!!! What got me wasn't the dance moves or the rap ... it was the *music* what I finally realised was playing... and also a certain game reference...

But, yeah. What's next month's theme? :)

Okay...

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

June 7 will be "All Creatures Great and Small."