Poetry #1

1. The commercial "borrows" the poem The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski.
2. The use of this poem by a corporation could be considered ironic because the poem is all about not being tied down by this world and being free to live your own life, while Levi's is advertising a material product, highly contradicting the non-materialistic poem.
3. The poem does reflect the reputation of Bukowski, especially in his later life. The first part of his life was spent being abused and criticized by not only his peers, but his family as well. He worked his way out of his "dank submission" (the life he lived in abuse from his father as well as being bullied by his peers) into a life of his own, one where he took chances both romantically and in his writing career. He lived his life in a way that would make him happy, escaping his prior state of darkness.
4. For #1, I listened to the first words of the poem and typed in, "Your life is your life," into the Google search box. I then clicked the first source that came up, because it seemed to be a reliable poetry source, (thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com) which gave me the entire poem with the title and the author. As for #3, I looked up "Charles Bukowski" and first read up on his information/life on Wikipedia. I then clicked on what I felt to be a more reliable link, bukowski.net. Both these links combined gave me the information I needed to answer #3.