Robert Pickering "Bo" Burnham is an American poet, actor, comedian, musician and singer-songwriter. Bo Burnham was born on 21st August 1990. His writing of satirical and comedic songs using a politically incorrect slant has made him receive fame worldwide, mostly due to YouTube where his songs has been viewed many times. Burnham graduated in 2008 from St. John’s Preparatory School. In his time in school, he was involved in all the campus ministry and theatre program. He received lots of recognition from his teachers, with the assistant principle, claiming that he was destined to make himself a name.
Burhman’s music, poems and performances were focused on major topics such as religion, human sexuality, race, gender and sex. In his description of his on-stage persona, he sees himself as a more arrogant figure, which is a more stuck-up version of his normal self. Burhman has expressed his great desire to respect and honor the culture and perspective of different cultures, more so hip-hop music (Burnham and Bone 131). Burhman has progressed his popularity in poetry to more mainstream venues and audiences. However, some comics and poets have considered how he ascended through YouTube as illegitimate.
Bo Burnham has always known that he wanted to be on stage. During his time in school, especially after doing an athletic phase that turned out to be awkward, Burnham dedicated his time in the school theater, where he continued nurturing his love for having onstage performances. During this time, he received rare views from some of his relatives. Burnham was nicknamed the theater queer, with this nickname gaining additional validity after his decision to attend a Catholic High School for boys.
Though Bo Burnham found most of his fame on the internet, he has turned to the old media of doing things. Recently, Burnham has published some of his poems, just like Shel Silverstein. However, most of his poems cannot be read by children, which is unlike Sliversteins poems and books. In his publications, Burnham speaks about the difficulties and challenges he faces writing poetry and performing them for a generation that is always on the internet. Burnham’s poems are focused on the generation that is always on their phones, who seeks at gaining attention from broadcasting themselves online (Burnham 134). However, he claims that he has respect for the hunger the young people have for density and information. In his writing of the poems, Bo Burnham aims at making material that is worth every second of the people reading them. The attention span in poetry is slightly smaller, which means that he has to make it good to avoid losing his audience.
In an interview in which he was asked how social media had influenced his poetry, Burnham claimed that he did not consider himself a poet. However, he admitted his stuff being pretty literal in the notion that the themes are pretty simple to understand, which can be found on the surface of his poetry. Burnham admitted to the social media playing a role in poetry nowadays, with the streamlined and condensed Twitter language playing a great role. In the interview, Burnham claimed that he is easily bored, which makes him use the new and frenetic mindset, mainly because he believes he belongs to the modern social media poetry just like people in his generation(Burnham 134).
One of the greatest poems collection by Bo Burnham is the book the EggHead: or one cannot survive on ideas alone, which is a poem collection book with drawings. This poem brought him to the award winning brainy brand wordplay, which was used to discuss writing, thoughts and poems. In this poem, Bo Burnham writes about everything, from bald barbers to painful breakups. This poem makes the reader laugh. However, despite the hilarious bit of his poetry, they also display surprisingly mature insights.
In his latest performances, Burnham has moved his poetry to more theatrical presentation, which is surrounded by stage theatrical set pieces that alternate with his poems. In these poems, Burnham uses the was a voice-of-God technique as a narrator voice, which is aided by taped music loops and lighting effects. Burnham is very good at offering live stage performances in his poems, with a good example being a terrific piece he offered that resulted in a fan besieging him with her voices. As the poem unfurled, Burnham took control, where he started directing the voices using his finger points. He sampled these voices and mixed them in a scratch piece that was dizzying (Burnham 134). A good use of voice can be shown in two of his poems, which are derived from the Egghead. The first poem is “A Dog’s poem.”
Roses are grey,
Violets are another shade of grey
Let’s go chase cars!And “Incomparable”:You’re incomparable like a
Shit.
Like a
In these two poems, Burnham shows his perfect selection of words. One great moment in his young career was when he performed the poem “Chameleon”. During this performance, the audience screamed the last time, which made him blush. Most of the audience in that performance were young people in their early 30’s and late 20’s, who had hard copies of his poetry book, Egghead. At this time, the book cost 22 dollars per copy. This was one of the high moments of his life as a poet. Getting many young books buy the hard copy book from the internet-bred following showed him that he had a great fan base. At this time, his book had hit the best seller list in the Ney York Times, something that he announced when he was on stage.
In his poetry, Burnham has done some poem that is heavy on themes. His last show had a song and a poem by the title Words, Words, Words, which was not about pyrotechnics but just wordplay. In this poem, it looks like the author was concentrating on having some substantial themes (Burnham and Bone 131). However, he does not try to preach or say much. Most of his poems have used voice covers and props, which have been used to interact with the audience. The light cues and the backing lights open up the poetry world for him, where he can develop a dialogue using his poems and connect with the audience.
Bo Burnham has great writing techniques. His first clip on YouTube was the gay clip, where he claimed that his whole family thought he was gay. The clip suggests that his collection of absurdist poetry shows his mocking and self-aware streak. At different times, Burnham is always moving and astute, which makes him accompany his writings with line drawings. His great writing techniques see him select the best pictures and drawings to use on his poetic writings. The writing of the Egghead shows his distinctive and comedic voice. The collection of poetry shows the poems, thoughts and the off-kilter writings of a young poet.
In his on-stage performances, Burnham shows a sense of self-belief, which is captivating to his audience. His stage dominance despite being young has played a great role in boosting his career. Burnham poetry provides the reader with an alternative form of poetry, which is different from the normal poetry. Burnham uses creative and logical elements in his poetry, which helps in defining his personality in two entities. He captures the two personas using poetry and dialogue, where they co-exist draws to the petty arguments used in his poetry (Burnham and Bone 131). He combines his poetry with audio-visual presentation. Burnham shows his brilliance by managing to give the audience his desired concept. His ability to combine poetry with comedy puts him above other poets. In most of his comic poems, he usually delivers his poems using comedy, where he combines impeccable showmanship with musical talent and sharp wit.
Burnham uses some hyperbole and parody in his poetry. This does not happen in one song, but on different poems which show his knowledge in writing poetry. Though Bo Burnham found most of his fame on the internet, he has turned to the old media of doing things. Recently, Burnham has published some of his poems in hard copies. Burnham’s poems are focused on the generation that is always on their phones, who seeks at gaining attention from broadcasting themselves online.
Works Cited
Burnham, Bo, and Chance Bone. Egghead. 2013.Print.
Burnham, Peter. Research Methods in Politics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Print.
