Bo Burnham creates a bridge between dark poetry and comedy. The standup comedian, musician, and now also poet’s composes poems with a deep emotional theme but present it in a comedic tone. In his book “Egghead: Or, You Can’t Survive on Ideas Alone”, he brings topics from farts to deaths. Readers will laugh and think, “why did I just laugh?”
One of the poems that reflects his way of writing wholly is this poem below. Enjoy the dark comedy of Burham’s poetry.
Hanged – Bo Burnham
I hung myself today. Hanged? Whatever,
the point is I hanged myself today and I’m still hanging.
I feel fine. Just bored. I keep hoping that someone will come home and cut me down but then I keep remembering that if I knew someone like that I wouldn’t be up here. Bit ironic, right? Or is that not ironic? I read somewhere that, like, anything funny is,
in some way, ironic. But I don’t know if it’s funny or not. I don’t think my brain owns “funny”, you know?
I feel taller. I like that.
I’ve never been away from my shadow for this long. It had always clung to my feet, parting momentarily for a quick dive into the swimming pool. But never for five hours. I like it. There’s three feet of space between my two and the floor.
I wanted something this morning. I may be stuck. But at least I’m three feet closer to it.
