[Gregory Dowling]

The title of the thread comes from the last line of a poem by Joseph Harrison, “Trajectory”, which is in his Waywiser 2007 book, Identity Theft. Here’s the opening:

Where were we, back before the whole world changed?
The person jabbering in the street alone
xxxxWas certainly deranged,
xxxxNow he’s just on the phone.

It’s a very witty and exhilarating poem which takes all its imagery and metaphors from the new technology. What struck me on reading the poem was just how rare this is. I can’t think of many contemporary poems that use language, ideas or images from the technology that now governs so much of our lives. This obviously is not the case in contemporary cinema or contemporary novels.

Now I’m not saying that poetry has any kind of duty to be breathlessly up-to-date and with-it (to use a rather antiquated term). In fact, I can think of numerous examples where an over-anxious desire to be so has acted against the poet’s intentions: take these lines from Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall”:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxForward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Here Tennyson’s vagueness about the details of railway mechanics rather spoils the message he wants to convey. Another case in point might be that of the so-called Pylon Poets of the 1930s, rather too earnestly keen on dragging the latest technology into their works – like Soviet enthusiasts for the tractor.

However, having said all that, railways, telephones, and aeroplanes have all entered 20th-century poetry very successfully. If one thinks about it, one of Yeats’s most famous poems, “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”, was about very recent technology. And this is Yeats, of the Golden Dawn! It seems to me that the technology of our own age is not lacking in poetic possibilities, so I just wondered if anyone can come up with interesting examples.

Here are a few more lines from Joseph Harrison’s poem:

I can’t not go along. Lord knows I’ve tried
To keep myself from getting up to speed
xxxxOn this text-messaged ride.
xxxxIn word, if not, indeed,
In correspondence, then at least in verse
I’ve felt the antiquated urge to try. Way
xxxxBack before we let
Happen the things that hadn’t happened yet,
Who thought we’d choose vehicular suicide?
xxxxAnd now, caught in the net,
xxAttached, we tell ourselves we’re freed.

Here’s a stanza from The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth – 1986 – recounting the thoughts of John, a computer-programmer:

He tuned his thoughts to electronic
Circuitry. This soothed his mind.
He left irregular (moronic)
Sentimentality behind.
He thought of or-gates and of and-gates,
Of ROMs, of nor-gates, and of nand-gates,
Of nanoseconds, megabytes,
And bits and nibbles… but as flights
Of silhouetted birds move cawing
Across the pine-serrated sky,
Dragged from his cove, not knowing why,
He feels an urgent riptide drawing
Him far out, where, caught in the kelp
Of loneliness, he cries for help.

I love the way the very technical language contrasts ironically with the more “traditional” and powerful imagery taken from the natural world.

And here’s a sonnet from Greg Williamson’s book (another Waywiser one), A Most Marvelous Piece of Luck (2008):

Internet

Invented by Al Gore, the Internet
Is chiefly used to view pornography,
Meet homicidal strangers, day trade, bet
On offshore football, view pornography,

Peruse bar graphs of pop sensation Britney
Spear’s permutable décolleté,
And (oh, just pass the crack pipe, okay, Whitney?)
Chat about the life you e-ed away,

Until you download your last stolen file
And Exit Now, Log Off, to retrogress
In the Actual World’s Wide Web of spinneret-
Borne spiders, earthworms, bugs, and stay awhile
In your last known and permanent address,
Your home away from HOME
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxon the Internet.


Of course, it can be objected that the desire to absolutely up-to-date actually opens you to the risk of being dated. Thirty years from now, who will know who Britney Spears is? (But then again, in the age of Google, one could say that that’s not such a big problem.) However, it seems to me that Williamson here is making very inventive and enjoyable use of the new terminology, and finding original metaphors for one of the oldest themes of literature. The possibilities are there, for those who know how to make use of them.

So can anyone else point out other successful uses of the new technology in poetry? Where are the poems of Facebook, Spam, Twittering… ?

And if we can’t find them, maybe we might want to reflect on why poetry is not excited by the brave new world of Microsoft and Apple.

[Janice D. Soderling]

I think the reason the extract of Seth's 1986 poem still works is that it is based on logic. Integrated circuit logic is still relevant. But references that rely on obsolete software and hardware aren't.

I found a 1984 computer poem of mine the other day in an old Swedish literary journal and believe me, I was embarrassed by how ungracefully it had aged.

I also note how it dates a story to have someone "dial a number" or "pick up the receiver" or even "find a telephone booth". Where are telephone booths these days except in museums of technology. A little of that technological name-dropping goes a long way.

Interesting topic, Greg.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Interesting subject, Gregory.

What came to mind right off for me is Bill Coyle's "Airports: An Ode" (which I'm transcribing here without its indentations):

If the poetic line,
as seems to be the case, is
that there could not be any less
poetic places
than major airports, then I guess
I ought in all good conscience to resign
my membership in the great brotherhood,
since I can't help but think these places good.

Granted, the meals are bland
(though laughably expensive)
the travelers bored beyond belief
(though apprehensive);
granted, a soul might come to grief
(and many have) trying to understand
a given airport's kabalistic maze.
Still, these are places worthy of our praise,

worthy because in fact they are
a means by which we realize
the ancient dream of humankind:
not just to travel fast and far
but to ascend into the skies
and, living, leave the world behind.

And if terminals,
their faults being so apparent,
seem lowly means to that high end,
that's still no warrant
for purist bards to condescend.
Let them remember that within these walls,
among kitsch art and commerce, we await
translation to that other, higher state.

Let them remember, too,
that air travel, however
standardized it has grown, remains
a bold endeavor:
Safe though they are as houses, planes
crash upon take-off, plummet from the blue
or serve as flying bombs in an assault.
So let the poets leave off finding fault;

let them, as is meet and right,
recall how, in antiquity,
that engineer extraordinaire,
father of Icarus and flight,
arrived bereft in Italy.
What he did once we daily dare.


As much as I appreciate the craft in this piece, I confess that it leaves me cold. I'm not convinced. It seems rationalized and contrived. Then again, I dislike airports and planes. This poem does nothing to transform my experience of them.

I feel the same way about the Williamson piece: all the material is taken from the most superficial ego-consciousness of the poet. It's amusing in its own way, and that's about it.

[Jerome Betts]

In the (?) late 80s The Lady had a piece by Edmund Harwood on 'Word Processors', which included the irritating 'green firefly' of the cursor (still with us) and concluded:

To electronic poets I say this:
Your daisywheel may print a perfect text,
but my old portable with all its faults
does let me think, unblinked-at and unvexed.

Daisywheels? In the museum along with golfballs along with manual portables?

Interesting topic, Greg. Wonder if there were any typewriter poems?

[Janice D. Soderling]

This is the first poem I think of when I think Anne Sexton. Not about typewriters, but ...

That Day

This is the desk I sit at
and this is the desk where I love you too much
and this is the typewriter that sits before me
where yesterday only your body sat before me
with its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus,
with its tongue like a king making up rules as he goes,
with its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping milk,
with its tongue - both of us coiled in its slippery life.
That was yesterday, that day.

That was the day of your tongue,
your tongue that came from your lips,
two openers, half animals, half birds
caught in the doorway of your heart.
That was the day I followed the king's rules,
passing by your red veins and your blue veins,
my hands down the backbone, down the quick like a firepole,
hands between legs where you display your inner knowledge,
where diamond mines are buried and come forth to bury,
come forth more sudden than some reconstructed city.
It is complete within seconds, that monument.
The blood runs underground yet brings forth a tower.
A multitude should gather for such an edifice.
For a miracle one stands in line and throws confetti.
Surely The Press is here looking for headlines.
Surely someone should carry a banner on the sidewalk.
If a bridge is constructed doesn't the mayer cut a ribbon?
If a phenomenon arrives shouldn't the Magi come bearing gifts?
Yesterday was the day I bore gifts for your gift
and came from the valley to meet you on the pavement.
That was yesterday, that day.

That was the day of your face,
your face after love, close to the pillow, a lullaby.
Half asleep beside me letting the old fashioned rocker stop,
our breath became one, became a child-breath together,
while my fingers drew little o's on your shut eyes,
while my fingers drew little smiles on your mouth,
while I drew I LOVE YOU on your chest and its drummer
and whispered, "Wake up!" and you mumbled in your sleep,
"Sh. We're driving to Cape Cod. We're heading for the Bourne
Bridge. We're circling around the Bourne Circle." Bourne!
Then I knew you in your dream and prayed of our time
that I would be pierced and you would take root in me
and that I might bring forth your born, might bear
the you or the ghost of you in my little household.
Yesterday I did not want to be borrowed
but this is the typewriter that sits before me
and love is where yesterday is at.

[Janice D. Soderling]

I may not be the only fan of Robert W. Service. As a kid I could recite (and so could my dad) The Shooting of Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee.

My Typewriter

I used to think a pot of ink
Held magic in its fluid,
And I would ply a pen when I
Was hoary a a Druid;
But as I scratch my silver thatch
My battered old Corona
Calls out to me as plaintively
As dying Desdemona.

"For old time's sake give me a break:
To you I've been as loyal
As ever could an Underwood,
Or Remington or Royal.
The globe we've spanned together and
Two million words, maybe,
For you I've tapped - it's time you rapped
A rhyme or two for me.

"I've seen you sit and smoke and spit
With expletives profane,
Then tear with rage the virgin page
I tendered you in vain.
I've watched you glare in dull despair
Through hours of brooding thought,
Then with a shout bang gaily out
The 'word unique' you sought.

"I've heard you groan and grunt and moan
That rhyme's a wretched fetter;
That after all you're just a small
Fat-headed verse-begetter;
You'd balance me upon your knee
Like any lady friend,
Then with a sigh you'd lay me by
For weeks and weeks on end.

"I've known when you were mighty blue
And hammered me till dawn,
Dire poverty! But I would be
The last thing you would pawn.
Days debt-accurst! Then at its worst
The sky, behold, would clear;
A poem sold, the garret cold
Would leap to light and cheer.

"You've toted me by shore and sea
From Mexico to Maine;
From Old Cathay to Mandalay,
From Samarkand to Spain.
You've thumped me in the battle's din
And pounded me in peace;
By air and land you've lugged me and
Your shabby old valise.

"But now my keys no more with ease
To your two fingers yield;
With years of use my joints are loose,
With wear of flood and field.
And even you are slipping too:
You're puffy, stiff and grey:
Old Sport, we're done, our race is run -
Why not call it a day?"

Why not? You've been, poor old machine!
My tried and faithful friend.
With fingertip your keys I'll flip
Serenely to the end.
For even though you're stiff and slow,
No other will I buy.
And though each word be wan and blurred
I'll tap you till I die.

[Ed Shacklee]

Television

Hug me, mother of noise,
Find me a hiding place.
I am afraid of my voice.
I do not like my face.

xxx- Anne Stevenson

[Tim Love]

The title of the thread comes from the last line of a poem by Joseph Harrison

I read that the phrase came from John Updike.

I can’t think of many contemporary poems that use language, ideas or images from the technology that now governs so much of our lives.

It's rather odd. Even yearly anthologies can be lacking. Trying to be timeless, to write for posterity, is understandable, but not at the expense of insulating oneself from the present and things that we all share. I'm surprised how few cell-phones appear in poems, given that people use them hours a day. Here's my haiku contribution

"Lonely Hearts"

Seeking Formalist.
Must be SA, must have used
iPad in a sonnet.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Apropos the topic of this thread, I've been remembering a passage from an essay I wrote on Edwin Muir, published in the Hudson Review several years ago.

I still agree with what Muir says, although I don't believe this means that the terminology of technological innovations can't fit into poetry somehow. I don't think Muir would either:

Muir was consistent in his romantic contempt for the modern idea of progress; he warned that, in a culture overdetermined by technological development, outward changes happen so fast that our primal identity becomes “indistinct. . . . The imagination cannot pierce to it as easily as it once could.” The constant metamorphosis of outer life brought about by technology obscures the essentials of human experience, which are remarkably consistent over time. In an essay called “The Poetic Imagination,” published in Essays on Literature and Society (1949), Muir made a distinction between technological and human progress:

Applied science shows us a world of consistent, mechanical progress. Machines give birth to ever new generations of machines, and the new machines are always better and more efficient than the old, and begin where the old left off. . . . But in the world of human beings all is different. . . . Every human being has to begin at the beginning, as his forebears did, with the same difficulties and pleasures, the same temptations, the same problem of good and evil, the same inclination to ask what life means.

For me, that bit about essential human identity becoming "indistinct" in the constant flux of technological change is key.

[Maryann Corbett]

It's terrible to have only the vaguest memory of a poem that might be pertinent here. Mary Jo Salter has a book entitled A Phone Call to the Future, and I think it's the title poem of that volume I'm remembering. As I recall it, the poem dredges up memories of old technologies (like the rotary phone) that have become so obsolete they've slipped from daily consciousness. She makes use, I think, of the surprise of recalling them and of the reader's recognition of how much has changed in such a circumscribed set of habits.

Does anybody have that poem, or a link to it?