I could spend this whole post discussing George Watsky’s
creativity, his humor, his tone; there’s so much in his poem upon which I could
comment. I’ve listened to a lot of Watsky’s spoken word poems, but I’d never
thought of analyzing his work. I’d never drawn a profound meaning from the
poem, “Drunk Text Message to God.” I listened to it three times; I read the
written poem; and I feel so stupid for not recognizing its depth before now.
Watsky didn’t win competitions like Brave
New Voices or Def Poetry for
being funny; he wasn’t invited to speak at over 150 universities for being
entertaining. Reading his poem a final time made me realize that Watsky
is trying to convey that your morals should be focused on you and making your
world better, not necessarily the values set by an institution. “Drunk Text
Message to God” is filled with religious and cultural allusions that force his
audience to draw connections between modern ideas and people to religious
ideology. Watsky points out the offensive nature of some holy ideas and
contrasts them with the idea that in his church you’d get “seventeen virgins in
a room to yourself where you go and play star fox together.” Instead of “bloody
crusades to the march of drum cores,” referencing the Holy Crusades of the
thirteenth century, Watsky is “starting a church that gets pissed off and
starts thumb wars.” The juxtaposition presented by these allusions depicts previous
decisions made by religious institutions as ludicrous. Instead of idolizing
these men, men who have made decisions Watsky portrays as irrational, as the
new church “you eat John Stewart & Steven Colbert shaped potato chips and
watch Chappelle show.” Playing on the cultural memory of these comedians,
famous for their starkly shared opinions, Watsky urges his audience to portray
these men as role models: Stewart & Colbert are unafraid to stand up for
what they believe is right, even if they are criticized for it. Watsky
acknowledges that this criticism is normal; the idea that you will be disliked
is scary, this “church makes you scared.” Watsky refers back to the original
metaphor of “the weight of the world is the weight of my sheets.” Ending with a
full circle, also my favorite section of the poem: “You’re lying in bed at
night… and the covers are like a tsunami of fear. Thinking about how you’re
getting older faster than your dreams are getting accomplished… Don’t fall
asleep yet. Contrary to popular belief that’s not where dreams get
accomplished.”
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| (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Watsky) |
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