“Plain was the same as it ever was the same.
Plainly plain…
Samely same…
But then…someone lit the flame.
Plain rode away on lion’s mane.
Where plain met fruits with strangely names.
Such wonderful things they did contain.
A shot of life to a hungry vein.
The captive beast who broke the chain.
And there upon that fruited plane,
is where plain became what plain became.
So much more than more than plain.
Plain will never be the same.”
I can’t really disagree that it’s the best “[you’ve] heard all year” can I? Nuh-uh, you’ve heard better, I’d lamely argue. But I will say that I think it is bad. Without even addressing the rhyming, the entire poem is akin to a vague, half-realized mixed metaphor. It’s not textbook mixed metaphor of course, but fliting between amorphous and uninspired imagery leaves me cold.
Still, it’s nice to discuss poetry, thanks.
You know, I’ve heard that commercial in the background a hundred times, but I’ve never actually watched it. I always assumed it was a car commercial.
Ditto, I probably heard it at least 10 times before I actually watched it to see what the hell it was for.
I still don’t know what brand of yogurt it’s for, since they only show it on the yogurt cup at the end and it’s in some kind of funky font I can’t make out.
I’d rather parse it as “where plain met fruits with, strangely, names.” Highlights the banality of it. We added different fruits to our yogurt, isn’t that amazing?
While I realize I’m not in the demo for pre-flavored yogurt, I think ‘FAGE’ is a pretty awful marketing name for several reasons. Didn’t they previously go by ɸαγε and try to tell people how to pronounce it correctly?
Willem Dafoe makes it especially…engaging. I agree that it’s a good commercial…and sure… good poetry… I’ll go along wtih that.
I’d say there are one or two good lines in the poem (and some interesting images in the commercial itself) and a lot of annoying tautologies that make for easy rhymes and fill up space without saying anything. “A shot of life to a hungry vein/The captive beast who broke the chain” is pretty good. The rest of it is “plain” rhyming with “same” and “same” rhyming with “plain” over and over and there isn’t much else to it.