Pop Culture & Poetry

The use of a pop-cultural icon such as Bruce Wayne made this poem intriguing and I was curious before I read the first line. The use of pop culture gave me the impression that this poem would be less literary but more easily entertaining. More "literary" poetry is less entertaining initially, because it yields its gold after mining through the difficult text. The use of a pop-culture icon in poetry seems to do the same thing pop culture itself does: provide easy access to entertainment. Maybe there are deeper ways to read and think about this poem, but what it does for me firstly is to amuse.

"Bruce Wayne" was entertaining as well as comical, because this kind of a twist on a familiar figure is so strange and surprising. The portrayal of Bruce Wayne as ordinary and even pathetic, was hilarious. Bruce Wayne of this universe is complex, deep, sophisticated, dignified, and heroic. Bruce Wayne of the Other Universe is a jilted alcoholic that stumbles into friends' cars "reeking of whiskey and cigarettes" to get more whiskey, and falls asleep on the sofa watching late-night talk shows. Most unbelievably, he weeps over having been "dumped again" -- a colloquialism that seems to trivialize the kinds of pain that this other Bruce Wayne suffers. The real Bruce Wayne of our universe sacrifices love for the greater good of man.

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