If Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau were alive today, they would most likely find it absolutely reprehensible to see the way many of us are treating the earth. There is value to spending time alone in nature, and yet, these few pockets of solitude and silence have continued to shrink and diminish. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the existence of global warming and its impact on human survival. However, many people either feel too distressed thinking about it, or are sick of hearing about the ‘doom and gloom’ of humanity and choose to ignore it. I believe one of the biggest reasons as to why people ignore climate change has to do with the delivery of the information. People don’t want to hear the ‘facts and figures.’ If the numbers don’t mean much when it comes to climate change, what will convince people? The approach to climate change conversations needs a revitalization, which is why the digital artifact I am about to analyze shows the power and compelling message of poetry. Richard Williams, better known by his stage name Prince Ea, is an American spoken word poet, artist, rapper and filmmaker. His poems often tackle controversial topics including the U.S. public school system, the brevity of human life, and environmentalism. He posts his videos to his YouTube channel, a public video sharing platform, where a global audience can have access to his work. Prince Ea uses poetry to fulfill the need for discussion on topics like environmentalism. He chooses poetry because it is the way he can best showcase his talents as a poet and filmmaker to help raise awareness about this issue. When it comes to approaching environmentalism, I believe that this spoken word poem effectively spreads awareness to the general public by using the rhetorical canons of Invention, Style, and Delivery.
AUDIENCE
To begin, we should first understand who the primary and secondary audiences will be for this poem. Being that his poem is posted to YouTube, the main audience is the global public. YouTube was a good platform to use for this project because anyone has access to YouTube and can view videos from anywhere in the world. His message will spread farther than if he were to simply post it to his website alone. However, the specific audience most likely targets lovers of poetry primarily and environmentalists second.
Primary Audience: The primary audience for this digital artifact is most likely lovers of poetry. People who aren’t fans of poetry might not know who Prince Ea is, unless they stumble upon him by accident through another social medium, such as Facebook. Poetry lovers know that poems can be a powerful platform for discussing controversial topics. Spoken word poetry’s purpose is most often to convey such messages through the delivery of the poem and the rise and fall of the speaker’s voice inflection.
Secondary Audience: The secondary audience is most likely environmentalists because of the poem’s topic. An environmentalist such as Al Gore might choose to look at facts and figures and use the appeal of logos to convey his message (as seen in his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.”) However, some environmentalists might want to look for alternative ways to convey their message. Poetry is a creative form that targets a different sort of audience who might be more willing to try a non-conventional way of approaching the topic.
Invention
In “The Digital Writer” by Sean Morey (2017), he says: “…any use of rhetoric seeks not to uncover some universal state of being but is rather used toward the particular context and circumstances surrounding the issue, including its application toward concepts of morality and immorality” (p. 11). The main purpose of rhetoric is to persuade a reader and it is also used to uncover universal truths. Morey draws the idea of using rhetoric as a means to seek truths from Plato, who often spoke about the philosophical side of rhetoric. Invention includes the three appeals of rhetoric: ethos, pathos, logos. Prince Ea’s video mainly uses ethos and pathos as means of persuasion. In order for a persuasive message to be truly effective, “persuasion…goes beyond convincing by actually moving people to action through feelings” (Downs, 2017 p. 472). Ethos, the appeal to credibility, is seen through his delivery and through the professionalism of the filming. Viewers can tell the quality of the video by the camera angles, the clarity of the recording, and the lighting. His speech and voice again are trademarks of a true spoken word poet. He takes appropriate pauses and puts emphasis on specific words/phrases and they do not feel out of place. His body language says that he is comfortable in front of a camera and that this is something he has experience with.
Pathos, the emotional rhetorical appeal, is the primary appeal used in his video. Instead of approaching the topic of climate change and why we should care about the environment, he does not present his message in a serious ‘doom & gloom’ way, but instead, he does it in a serious ‘inspiring/take a stand’ way. In other words, he appeals to our emotions by giving us concrete strikingly visual examples of people who are directly affected by climate change.
He wears a dust mask when he talks about the people of Bangladesh who are forced to breathe polluted air every single day. The mask reminds people who live in first world countries that we are privileged and this privilege allows us to forget what is happening to people in other countries. The mask forces us to feel even a glimmer of guilt when we consider our abuse of the environment.
However, some might find this method ineffective instead of more effective. For example, logos might work better for certain people who prefer the concrete facts. The emotional appeal might be too ‘sappy’ or ‘too distressing.’ (Think Sarah McLachlan animal rescue commercials). To successfully achieve the emotional appeal, the piece has to touch that sweet spot of balance. Prince Ea’s video uses pathos to make viewers take a hard look at their contribution to environmental damage, but does not overuse it.
Style
The rhetorical canon of Style refers to the elements of design such as “color, motion, interactivity, font choice, appropriate use of multimedia, etc.” (Eyman, 2015 p. 65). The spoken word poem has a distinct style, because spoken word poetry is a unique art-form in itself. In the video, he incorporates a style of animation that appears block-like and indistinct in structure along with significant phrases that he wants to emphasize. For example, in the screenshot below, one of his lines, “We didn’t realize how special the earth was; like a marriage gone wrong, we didn’t know what we had until it was gone” is also paired with an image of him blowing broken pieces of what used to be our earth into the wind.
The blocky animation of the broken bits of earth are blown away at the moment he says the word ‘gone,’ which enhances the impact of his statement.
Another image he uses incorporates the same blocky animation of trees. He says, “I’m guessing you probably know it as the Amazon Desert, right? Well believe it or not, it was once called the Amazon Rainforest and there were billions of trees there, all of them gorgeous, and…oh…you don’t know much about trees, do you.
Calling the Amazon Rainforest the Amazon Desert is a hugely impactful statement for people of our generation. We accept that trees are a part of our life and never give it a second thought that someday, something as large as the Amazon Rainforest could very well be a desert by the time we are long gone from this earth.
The lack of color also contributes to Prince Ea’s style because it symbolizes things that are no longer present. The trees are not green because they only exist in memory at this point in time. The blocky animation fits the theme better than concrete images that would be more distinctly shaped because it alludes to a vagueness that surrounds these things called trees and environment. In this futuristic world that he is describing, he is recalling what he knows from memory, recreating the images again from the building blocks of nature.
Furthermore, he uses text extractions in a bold font that varies in size from the poem to enhance the message. An example of this is pictured below in the screenshot where he concludes with “Equally Extinct” in large, bold letters behind him on the horizon. The size and placement of the letters on the horizon line is intimidating, thus representing that the future he is describing is just on the horizon and could happen in our lifetimes. The inclusion of text and the size of the text creates a powerful impact that pairs with his message. As Morey (2017) says, “The design of a composition…can be as important as the content of its message” (p. 26). All of these features combined create an impactful statement than with words alone.
Delivery
Prince Ea’s delivery definitely is a huge factor in spreading his message. The form of spoken word poetry is emotionally powerful. The pauses, breaths, and facial expressions he makes help enhance his performance. His delivery is successful because the tone of his voice is earnest and compelling, while at the same time, not condescending or insulting. He is imploring without sounding judgmental or desperate. In this way, Eyman (2015) quotes Lanham (2006) who says delivery means “‘communicating the message in such a way that it would be accepted and attended to rather than refused, ignored, or thrown in the wastepaper basket unread’” (Eyman, 2015 p. 74). Prince Ea’s delivery makes viewers want to listen to him and even if they don’t agree, the spoken word poem is at the very least, entertaining.
The sound of his voice is not the only captivating part of this poem; he also incorporates background music for added effect. The music is the soft, gentle sound of bells — slow, rhythmic and sad. The quiet gentleness of the music enhances his message because he wants to convey the seriousness of the situation and that what is happening to our earth is indeed a tragedy.
There is also one section of the poem, about 3:37, where he says “you know what, cut the beat.” The background music stops while he says, “I’m not sorry. This future, I do not accept it, because an error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. We can redirect this.” By cutting out the background music, viewers and listeners can focus entirely on what he is saying and not be distracted by images, or other background sounds. The tone of the poem then shifts after he says this line to a more positive, hopeful future where he believes by looking at the root of the problem, we can correct it. The music comes back in and gradually crescendos to match the intensity of his words.
In the book, “Writer/Designer,” the visual mode can be used “to communicate representations of how something looks or how someone is feeling, to instruct, to persuade, and to entertain, among other things” (Arola, L. K., Sheppard, J., & Ball, C. (2014). Prince Ea also uses body language to help tell his story. The hand motions are pleading and sincere. Sometimes he has open palms to show his plea and other times his hands are in fists that show his frustration, but the message he communicates with his hands is effective at displaying his sincerity. There is always something to look at, while at the same time listening to his message, whether it be Prince Ea himself, the dead log on the ground at his feet, the animation, or the snippets of text surrounding him, there is always visual stimulation to engage the viewer without it being overwhelming to the eyes. 
To create a lasting impact on the viewer, the ending must be strong, therefore the concluding line is: “To save nature is to save us, because whatever you’re fighting for, racism or poverty, feminism, gay rights, or any type of equality, it won’t matter in the least because if we don’t work together to save the environment, we will be equally…extinct.”
Conclusion
Overall, the spoken word poem is an effective way of communicating the significance of environmentalism because it draws the viewer in using the rhetorical canons of Invention, Style, and Delivery. The appeal to pathos plays on our emotions when we watch the animations of animals leaving their homes and forests being cut down, and Prince Ea’s reputation as an artist appeals to the ethos of the piece. The visual/gestural and aural components that fall under Style and Delivery interweave to create a well-balanced multimodal artifact. Controversial issues such as environmentalism are often difficult topics to discuss, however they need to be discussed because our survival as a species depends on it. The video, by presenting the issue as a multimodal composition, gives the message a 3-D sort of effect. The use of poetry as a platform for controversial topics is creative, unique, and ultimately, memorable.
Other Links:
- Website: http://princeea.com/
- YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDgUAAHgsV2fFZQm2fIWBnA
- “Why I Think This World Should End” (related video)
Fair Use Statement: This digital text contains source material taken without the expressed consent of the original creators of the content. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107.
Purpose and Character of Use: The content of this blog post is for academic use ONLY; I do not intend to recreate or distribute this work as my own. The outside sources I incorporated are only mean to enhance the context of the analysis and are for solely academic purposes.
Nature of Copyrighted Work: The work is for public display on YouTube. The screenshots that are interwoven throughout the text were taken to showcase specific parts of the video that I was analyzing. They are not displayed for any other purposes.
Amount Used: I took diligent and deliberate screenshots of specific parts of the video to further enhance my analysis.
Impact on Market: I believe this work provides a unique and creative perspective on a difficult topic and targets an audience that is not easily persuaded by facts and figures alone. I have included links to Prince Ea’s website and YouTube channel for further discovery, as well as another impactful video related to humanity and this world’s future.
REFERENCES:
- Arola, L. K., Sheppard, J., & Ball, C. (2014). Writer/Designer. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
- Downs, D. (2017). Writing About Writing: A College Reader. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
- Eyman, D. (2015). Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, Practice. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
- Morey, S. (2017). The Digital Writer. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press.
Read By the Sun, Write By the Moon 