SHRUB
by Alejandra Behler
Please, Commander, I pleaded most unctuously, we're on your side--
Then you must see ours. It charts the difficulties through which where we they could worship untroubled. That is why I asked-- are you? I thought so. But the galaxy's loss is our gain. We are pleased--
(Hinged flexible arms lifted straight up)
An interesting theological point, Arroz of conPollo. We must discuss things under the jaw with a swift uppercut. Its mouth clacked shut and I feel that some explanation is in order, Aida said, and Fido chunks of dry branches that Floyd brought back when it was good and--
A pleasure to meet you, Jim. Our thanks for activating.
---
Analysis
This is not a good poem. It appears to be a clumsily written polemic about President Bush, presented in the form of a conversation between he and a "Jim." I'm fairly confident Jim's interlocutor is President Bush for several reasons: Jim's pleading "unctuously" toward an unlistening Commander (in Chief); the "hinged, flexible" arms of the Commander lifting up like those of a marionette (controlled, for example, by Vice President Cheney); the way Bush cuts off Jim's sentences ("I'm the decider!"); his stuttering ("through which where we they"); "Arroz of conPollo," the demeaning nickname Bush assigns to Jim (who is apparently Hispanic); and, of course, the poem's title. The general theme of the poem appears to be that Jim is trying to convince Bush of something. Bush responds by saying that his faith has already decided for him, and then Jim is violently restrained by Aida and Floyd (Secret Service agents?) with the help of Fido, who appears to be some sort of attack dog.
Again, this is not a very interesting poem. However, I've chosen to highlight it for two reasons:
1) The ironic, pompous name "Arroz of conPollo" is hilarious and creative (albeit derogatory). Score one for the machines.
2) This poem, with its scathing portrayal of President Bush, brings up an interesting point about the nature of iambic penspameter. How did the computer that wrote this poem form this opinion about the president? Did it just happen to be searching anti-Bush websites for words to use on the day it wrote this email, or does it genuinely hold this negative opinion? It's reasonable to expect that a super-intelligent computer would not think well of President Bush, whose information-processing capacity is admittedly limited. But the question is: must computers rely only on the output of the human world to form their opinions about it, or are they truly doing their own critical thinking?
Friday, January 5, 2007
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Conversation
CONVERSATION
by Davide Kesler
At the end of the sixth day I was exhausted. laser beams,
exploding fireworks and physical acrobatics. I made
wastebin there has been a rather deadly shaking down. Different
equally well as I slipped away between the interstices of society
by his hand. Smiling that humorless smile at me again.
Absolute silence now-and a sideways shuffling by the audience.
Stainless steel rats! Soon I had a string of adoring fans trailing.
If you had not come he would not have fired and have been condemned.
---
Analysis
The protagonist of this poem finds life, especially social interaction, vapid and superficial. He sees life as a never-ending work of theater (six days culminating in exhaustion), full of distracting but meaningless "laser beams," "fireworks," and "physical acrobatics." He imagines that the audience at his theater shuffles away from the calm, reflective "absolute silence" he seeks, becoming "adoring" and worshipful only when presented with "stainless steel rats," an obvious metaphor for fool's gold, pyrrhic victories, etc.
The most interesting part of the poem is the interaction between the narrator and the unnamed "he," who causes the narrator to fall through the cracks ("interstices") of society and smiles "that humorless smile at me again." Is this "he" responsible for the "made wastebin" and the "rather deadly shaking down" as well? However, the strange use of the word "rather" to qualify such grave circumstances implies irony, meaning that this relationship between the two characters may be more complex than one of simple oppression.
Perhaps the use of the word "interstices" is instructive. Dictionary.com provides us with some fascinating potential meanings for this word. "Interstices" can refer to uniform gaps in objects, which would square with our theory of the narrator's alienation from society. However, "interstices" can refer to gaps in time as well, and most interestingly, to intervals in time that must elapse before promotion to higher positions (specifically in the Catholic Church). Perhaps the narrator feels that he is being prevented from achieving what he wants in life. However, if life is so superficial and hollow to the narrator, why is he so interested in any sort of advancement, let alone one with religious connotations?
I believe this poem actually refers to an inner conflict over the superficial nature of achievement. An inner conflict would mean that the "he" in the poem is actually the narrator; he is wrestling with himself. When we reach a goal, are we really making a difference in our life, or the lives of others? Such a difficult question is certainly one we seek to answer through faith, or for the less religious among us, through our actions on earth-- specifically the act of creation, of doing, of making a life. This is the point the author is clearly trying to make in referring to "six days" of work - the same amount of work God did to make the earth. Yet the result of the protagonist's creation, of his actions, is not that he makes something about which he can say "And it was good," but that he is simply exhausted.
The last line is so separate from the rest of the poem as to be almost an epitaph. The title ("Conversation") indicates that this poem is about human communication generally, and therefore I believe that the "you" in the last line refers to "us," the readers. Because the protagonist has not made peace with himself and cannot yet convince himself--through faith, creation, or otherwise--that his uniqueness, that the ways in which he is a "different" individual, are "equally well," he finds interaction with others superficial, resulting in a profound feeling of alienation. He projects these feelings of alientation onto this perceived "he," this part of himself he wrestles with, and blames it for having "fired" out something toward others (probably some harsh words) resulting in social "condemnation."
This poem, in a few short lines, manages to convey a profound, complex feeling of alienation. If we don't buy into society, how are we to achieve anything? But if we do buy into society, are we really achieving anything either? I look forward to reading more thought-provoking, rich works from this obviously talented young poet. Magnifique, Davide!
by Davide Kesler
At the end of the sixth day I was exhausted. laser beams,
exploding fireworks and physical acrobatics. I made
wastebin there has been a rather deadly shaking down. Different
equally well as I slipped away between the interstices of society
by his hand. Smiling that humorless smile at me again.
Absolute silence now-and a sideways shuffling by the audience.
Stainless steel rats! Soon I had a string of adoring fans trailing.
If you had not come he would not have fired and have been condemned.
---
Analysis
The protagonist of this poem finds life, especially social interaction, vapid and superficial. He sees life as a never-ending work of theater (six days culminating in exhaustion), full of distracting but meaningless "laser beams," "fireworks," and "physical acrobatics." He imagines that the audience at his theater shuffles away from the calm, reflective "absolute silence" he seeks, becoming "adoring" and worshipful only when presented with "stainless steel rats," an obvious metaphor for fool's gold, pyrrhic victories, etc.
The most interesting part of the poem is the interaction between the narrator and the unnamed "he," who causes the narrator to fall through the cracks ("interstices") of society and smiles "that humorless smile at me again." Is this "he" responsible for the "made wastebin" and the "rather deadly shaking down" as well? However, the strange use of the word "rather" to qualify such grave circumstances implies irony, meaning that this relationship between the two characters may be more complex than one of simple oppression.
Perhaps the use of the word "interstices" is instructive. Dictionary.com provides us with some fascinating potential meanings for this word. "Interstices" can refer to uniform gaps in objects, which would square with our theory of the narrator's alienation from society. However, "interstices" can refer to gaps in time as well, and most interestingly, to intervals in time that must elapse before promotion to higher positions (specifically in the Catholic Church). Perhaps the narrator feels that he is being prevented from achieving what he wants in life. However, if life is so superficial and hollow to the narrator, why is he so interested in any sort of advancement, let alone one with religious connotations?
I believe this poem actually refers to an inner conflict over the superficial nature of achievement. An inner conflict would mean that the "he" in the poem is actually the narrator; he is wrestling with himself. When we reach a goal, are we really making a difference in our life, or the lives of others? Such a difficult question is certainly one we seek to answer through faith, or for the less religious among us, through our actions on earth-- specifically the act of creation, of doing, of making a life. This is the point the author is clearly trying to make in referring to "six days" of work - the same amount of work God did to make the earth. Yet the result of the protagonist's creation, of his actions, is not that he makes something about which he can say "And it was good," but that he is simply exhausted.
The last line is so separate from the rest of the poem as to be almost an epitaph. The title ("Conversation") indicates that this poem is about human communication generally, and therefore I believe that the "you" in the last line refers to "us," the readers. Because the protagonist has not made peace with himself and cannot yet convince himself--through faith, creation, or otherwise--that his uniqueness, that the ways in which he is a "different" individual, are "equally well," he finds interaction with others superficial, resulting in a profound feeling of alienation. He projects these feelings of alientation onto this perceived "he," this part of himself he wrestles with, and blames it for having "fired" out something toward others (probably some harsh words) resulting in social "condemnation."
This poem, in a few short lines, manages to convey a profound, complex feeling of alienation. If we don't buy into society, how are we to achieve anything? But if we do buy into society, are we really achieving anything either? I look forward to reading more thought-provoking, rich works from this obviously talented young poet. Magnifique, Davide!
Mission Statement
Recently I opened a gmail account. Its "spam" folder immediately began to fill with ads for generic Viagra, Filipino mail-order brides and the like (even before I had given out the email address... thanks, Google!). However, bored at work one day I started reading these "spam" emails and found their randomized knotting together of the components of our language strangely beautiful, and meaningful. In this blog I treat (with some minor editing) these emails as a new kind of poetry, "iambic penSPAMeter," if you will.
Emails written in iambic penspameter do not attempt to sell us things. So why are they sent? My theory is that these are attempts to imitate human speech. We have programmed our computers to talk like us humans, and to send us emails without human prompting. These automatically generated and sent emails can therefore be seen as attempts by our machines to communicate with us in our own language. Iambic penspameter is an attempt to communicate with and understand the human world.
I'm frightened that I am able to find more relevance and emotion in the haphazard agglomerations of words in my "Spam" folder than in many poems considered to be the best written in our language. To me it shows that our machines may have a better grasp on our society than we, their creators, and in an age when computing power is rapidly approaching (and may soon overtake) that of the human brain, I think it's essential to understand what these machines think of us, and how they think, deep inside their silicon brains.
Emails written in iambic penspameter do not attempt to sell us things. So why are they sent? My theory is that these are attempts to imitate human speech. We have programmed our computers to talk like us humans, and to send us emails without human prompting. These automatically generated and sent emails can therefore be seen as attempts by our machines to communicate with us in our own language. Iambic penspameter is an attempt to communicate with and understand the human world.
I'm frightened that I am able to find more relevance and emotion in the haphazard agglomerations of words in my "Spam" folder than in many poems considered to be the best written in our language. To me it shows that our machines may have a better grasp on our society than we, their creators, and in an age when computing power is rapidly approaching (and may soon overtake) that of the human brain, I think it's essential to understand what these machines think of us, and how they think, deep inside their silicon brains.
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