This case study considers the development of poetical discourse in viral communication and how this discourse becomes viral. It investigates which actors engage in this poetical discourse and examines the discourse’s discursive practices, confi guration and intermedial effectiveness to determine how this particular fi eld of discourse is shaped aesthetically and poetically. The article specifi cally studies the recent phenomenon of viral political poetry on YouTube to question whether this poetico-political discourse exhibits deliberative qualities in the sense of Jürgen Habermas’s concept of public opinion. This case study examines a discourse in which the largest and most complex poetic discussions are tied to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. Central to the study is Anastasija Dmitruk’s poem “Nikogda my ne budem brat’iami” [“We Will never Be Brothers”], initially posted on her Facebook page. The political discourse around Dmitruk’s poem on YouTube is shown to serve as a platform for public discussion which to a degree fulfi lls the key criteria for forming public opinion: discursivity and confi guration. Aesthetic devices, including self-referentiality, allow the discourse’s participants to both elucidate their differing positions and to provide them with complexity, multidimensionality, and polydirectionality.