I was a teenager, and I remember it well. Robin Williams as a teacher of uptight prep school boys, breaking the mold and standing on his desk to challenge them with Walt Whitman:<\/p>\n
I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,<\/a><\/p>\n I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.<\/a><\/p>\n Sound your barbaric Yawp! Cut loose from civilization! Sound your song of yourself over the world.<\/p>\n The verse contains it’s own contradiction. YAWPs may be barbaric, but you know what is categorically not barbaric?<\/p>\n Rooftops.<\/p>\n Whitman and Williams were talking to a similar crowd: the housed and bloused. Those who understand and comply with society’s expectation.<\/p>\n I do not count myself among them. I would embrace a bit of taming. I am a foreigner to this civilization.<\/p>\n I am the barbarian coming to the rooftops. I do not sound my Yawp defiantly.<\/p>\n I sound it because it is the only sound I’ve got. \u00a0It’s not what the people under the rooftops want, I don’t think. It is not what was expected and cross-referenced.<\/p>\n My voice is a tide-tumbled piece broken out from the school of hard-knocks, dropping in where it lands, not invited and little\u00a0regarded.<\/p>\n It’s barbaric. It’s my voice.\u00a0It might not get much better than what it is now.<\/p>\n It’s mine though. I like the way it bounces back at me off the rooftops.<\/p>\n I’ll keep sounding it.<\/p>\n yawp<\/p>\n yawp<\/p>\n yawp<\/p>\n You try it. It feels good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was a teenager, and I remember it well. Robin Williams as a teacher of uptight prep school boys, breaking the mold and standing on his desk to challenge them with Walt Whitman: I too am not a bit tamed, … Continue reading