To borrow the title of one of Burnham’s songs, then, this is how the world works: the male genius who sings in his underwear and the absent woman who makes it possible. Self-fashioning as a woman—and trying to thread the needle of “acceptable” femininity, online and IRL—is an impossible task.

Burnham composes these poems with an almost musical meticulousness, showing a truly diverse range of poetic techniques, ranging from the familiar iambic pentameter to sibilant stanzas on the subject of stuttering. Autofiction satisfies the market need for relatable protagonists while appearing to offer a stylish new mode through which to deliver content. The layout of the poems and their pages often changes to fit in with the illustrations too, as some of the poems are reliant on the visual presentation of the words to get a joke or meaning across to the reader.In Egghead, Bo brings his brand of brainy, emotional comedy to the page in the form of off-kilter poems, thoughts, and more. I knew of poetry slams (which Harry Baker humorously defines as “a way of tricking people into coming to poetry nights” by putting “an exciting word like slam on the end”) but a Haiku Deathmatch was something I never knew existed. The assumption is that because they suffer, these author-narrators cannot be part of sick society’s cause, only ever a symptom. Burnham began writing poetry in a Los Angeles café during the production of his mockumentary series Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous. Use Crystal Marie Fleming’s book to educate yourself and see all the ways you and the people around you have been problematic in your life!

And I can’t help but wonder if “everything” includes her erasure: the way that Inside deletes Scafaria from the picture, the way it remains silent about the many forms of care and companionship that surely sustained Burnham while he made his film. This is an incredibly open ended question, so if you have any book that Inside conjured up for you I’d love to hear it. Burnham described his poems as "pretty literal", saying that Twitter had created a new "condensed, streamlined language" that forms a "new poetry" among his generation.Comedian and musician Bo Burnham released a stunning new comedy special, Inside, on Netflix on May 30. We pay respect to the Elders past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. Bo Burnham was a teenager living in his parents' attic in Massachusetts when he started posting funny songs to YouTube that immediately turned heads with their wise satire that belied his very young age. The Sunday Times 's Stephen Armstrong compared the book to the poetry of Spike Milligan or John Lennon.

All Eyes on Me,” the show’s next-to-last song, is a club anthem in which Burnham exhorts his absent audience to “Get your fuckin’ hands up/Get on out of your seats. For further reading, be sure to check out these comics about mental illness, these funny self-help books, these books about racism, and these environmental books. It’s easy to get caught up in the various swear word, sex imagery and the occasional bum or poo joke. Judd Apatow was an early champion of the young comedian, and Bo taped his first Comedy Central special at age 18, the youngest in history. I think it matters that most people waxing lyrical about Burnham’s rawness and supposed self-exposure are white men.His eccentric, often nonsensical (and Picasso-esque) artistic style matches the erratic subject matter of the book astoundingly well, despite hardly ever seeming coherent. Marjorie Worthington, The Story of “Me”: Contemporary American Autofiction (University of Nebraska Press, 2018), p. In addition to the live performance, the album includes two studio tracks- the singles "Words Words Words", and "Oh Bo". Browse audiobooks narrated by Bo Burnham, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.