iPoem

[PrinceMyshkin]

iPoem

When our brains at last
become iBrains
and we walk around with iSmiles
on our iFaces, thinking our own
iThoughts, reliving our
iMemories
then the concepts of “I”
and “me” will be replaced
by iMe and iI!

[hack]

I like iI.
But I(i) hope there will be an upgrade available soon,
in the fall, perhaps. Should I start the queue?
I(i) would so like to be first. iYou would be so yesterday.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I like iI.
But I(i) hope there will be an upgrade available soon,
in the fall, perhaps. Should I start the queue?
I(i) would so like to be first. iYou would be so yesterday.

i have difficulty recognizing that "I" with which this response begins. Are you perhaps one of those obsolescent humans?

[cogs]

aye aye!
reliving our iMemories this is the saddest part. too bad that the 'i' doesn't mean awareness, but 'me me me'.

[billl]

Really, the danger these days is that there's getting to be less and less there when "netizens" use the word "me."

[MorpheusSandman]

I love it! This actually echoes the theme of an infuriating sonnet I've been working on for months ("working on" in the sense that I have most of the pieces but they refuse to fit together) about living in the digital age and everything being replaced by technology.

[cogs]

morpheus, kinda like an operating system... also, you could call it, 'the infuriating sonnet', and stick the pieces in one place.

[firefangled]

All made over as machines of loving grace.

Regression testing was poor and integration testing has failed.

Speaking of Frankenstein...

Truly black humor, Prince and well rendered.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I love it! This actually echoes the theme of an infuriating sonnet I've been working on for months ("working on" in the sense that I have most of the pieces but they refuse to fit together) about living in the digital age and everything being replaced by technology.

Best of iLuck with your iSonnet!

iJerry

[Sampson]

Prince, I'm glad this is the first poem I read on my long over due return to lit-net. It's certainly a thought provoking; I was wondering if iPoetry would ever take off. I like the way this short poem encapsulates the moment, socially speaking...

[Silas Thorne]

haha! Yes, certainly iThought provoking! The iWe will never die, since there is always a part of us somewhere that cannot be erased since we have lost some keys.

[PrinceMyshkin]

haha! Yes, certainly iThought provoking! The iWe will never die, since there is always a part of us somewhere that cannot be erased since we have lost some keys.

The iKey is iComing soon, alas...

@ Sampson: thanks for your comment as well.

[Bar22do]

haha! Yes, certainly iThought provoking! The iWe will never die, since there is always a part of us somewhere that cannot be erased since we have lost some keys.

and which is great, of course! maybe the keys are those to our child within where all wisdom lies and maintains us somehow even if locked in, radiating through...

A nice poem, iPrince.

[paperleaves]

I can't believe I haven't seen this yet--a thought-provoking poem, yet somewhat terrifying (again! I don't know why your last two have been so freakin powerful) and sobering. I am certain this could be published in some sort of magazine, you should try and get it published!


love
Kate

[~Sophia~]

I wonder if someone, somewhere, hand-wrote or pounded out on a typewriter a poem about the eventual loss of human personalities when "computers" first hit the market?

I'd venture to say, most of us would feel frustrated, out-of-touch and incomplete without one now. We certainly wouldn't have the same sized audience to read and immediately acknowledge our poems. Can you imagine Prince, if you couldn't post here everyday or if you couldn't get feedback 24/7! Haven't I read that you take your laptop to the cafe with you? Why knock the technology that gives you that freedom?

There is always a next and new generation of people, medical miracles, flowers, wheat and technology. I love the i world. It keeps me connected to everyone and everything much quicker and more reliably than carrier pigeon or snail mail. I personally think technology is a beautiful thing.

iliked the ipoem. ipeace out.

[PrinceMyshkin]

I wonder if someone, somewhere, hand-wrote or pounded out on a typewriter a poem about the eventual loss of human personalities when "computers" first hit the market?

I'd venture to say, most of us would feel frustrated, out-of-touch and incomplete without one now. We certainly wouldn't have the same sized audience to read and immediately acknowledge our poems. Can you imagine Prince, if you couldn't post here everyday or if you couldn't get feedback 24/7! Haven't I read that you take your laptop to the cafe with you? Why knock the technology that gives you that freedom?

Fact of the matter is, I don't do that. Rather, I hasten to the cafe every morning so see something other than the book I'm reading or this greyish-blue screen in front of me. I hunger for mammalian company and am somewhat dismayed when I enter the cafe and see the backs of a forest of laptops.

On PBS' "Frontline" last night they reported on the multi-tasking digitalheads who communicate with two or three fellow digitalheads on their Blackberries while checking out Twitter or MySpace or whatever and I felt a deep sadness for their loss of the particular pleasure to be had from being immersed in just one thing at a time.


There is always a next and new generation of people, medical miracles, flowers, wheat and technology. I love the i world. It keeps me connected to everyone and everything much quicker and more reliably than carrier pigeon or snail mail. I personally think technology is a beautiful thing.

iliked the ipoem. ipeace out.

Thanks for your point of view, but why'd you bother to go to Paris when you could have visited iParis instead?

[~Sophia~]

Because I could. And now I'll ask why you download music through the computer when you can go to a concert instead? Why do research for your poems on-line rather than going to the library and sifting through a myriad of books? Why post your poems here when you could schlep them around or send them to editors via snail mail in hopes of being published and read that way?

[PrinceMyshkin]

Because I could. And now I'll ask why you download music through the computer when you can go to a concert instead? Why do research for your poems on-line rather than going to the library and sifting through a myriad of books? Why post your poems here when you could schlep them around or send them to editors via snail mail in hopes of being published and read that way?

No, no, no - I LOVE my Vostro 1510 and all that I can access with it and if I weren't an ancient phart with roughly zero technological self-esteem I'd probably have a Blackberry or two, something clipped to one of my ears, an iPad or iPod. But still, do you not believe there's something special in giving oneself wholly to one thing at a time?

[~Sophia~]

I'd say your reasoning in this one is getting a bit weak and, I'd rather not give myself wholly to this discussion so, I'll end my side of it by saying... technology rocks. Without it you couldn't be on-line presenting your point of view within seconds of me posting mine. Bonsoir!

[firefangled]

This has been an interesting exchange between Prince and Sophia. It does seem, Prince, as though you are biting the hand that feeds you (electronically speaking).

I think you both have a point that is getting tangled up in the relative immaturity of our exposure to such amazing technology. Viewing planet Earth as an organism, it acquired a rudimentary neural net with the telephone, hearing with radio, sight with television. In the last thirty years its neural net has grown into a sophisticated nervous system, some of which has become autonomic.

We build outward from us using the same blueprint with which we were created. Earth is barely a teenager technologically. It is self-centered, selfish, prone to tantrums, anxious, and obsessed with a sense of isolation. As we eventually mature into adults who are giving, gracious, self-assured, and feel connected to our environment, we will grow into this amazing technology, able to balance human with electronic connections. It can't be rushed. In the meantime, there will be an over-fascination with our new eyes and ears and feelings. There will be fighting, alienation, prejudice, misdirection, and refusal to listen to reason as with all teenagers.

In the end, Richard Brautigan will have been so far ahead of his time:

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (circa 1967)

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

[billl]

There are definitely great things about technology! I really like posting and reading here (but this is as close as I get to dooing social networking). Criticizing the way that we sometimes let technology change us (so that we are a better fit for it, or better able to take advantage of its evolution) is good. We should use technology in ways that serve us and our evolution as a community and as individuals. But the corporations and developers behind it are interested in the evolution of the tech and the acquisition and processing of data in ways that people aren't discussing, for the most part.

Technology has its own imperatives (not to anthropomorphize, but just to say that certain areas of technological will progress quicker than others, often because they are just simpler or more convenient). Right now, we are in a period when networking is showing its power, more and more, every day. It is very compelling, and it is being capitalized on in many ways. But that doesn't mean it is our destiny, to be networked more and more completely, with us adapting more and more to the artificial and dehumanizing interfaces--even as those interfaces adapt more and more to us.

How many of us understand what is going on beneath the surface of all of this? There are some corporations and hackers that are interested to know, of course, but for most of us it all can look pretty nice. It is neat, tending websites and webpages. But there are plenty of examples where things are going wrong. Internet addiction, privacy issues (often unknown to the victims, or revealed in indirect and heavily-spun marketing language, small print, etc.), malware, banal updates being made and followed, and yes, rooms full of humans ignored, and temptations away from time with our own thoughts.

This poem and this discussion are just an example of critical thinking, which is what we need if we are going to protect our selves (sic) from what just happens to be easiest for tech to do, and from the tech-obsessed gurus shaping our environment.

Marshall McLuhan would be good to look into, for anyone who wants to think about this more, as would Jaron Lanier's much more current (and especially cautionary) new book You Are Not A Gadget.

[billl]

In the end, Richard Brautigan will have been so far ahead of his time:

All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (circa 1967)

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

I think it is important to remember that the poem is a perspective and a prediction (a very positive one, although it isn't clear why the machines would be so loving towards us, or why we would be so content with a tame return to a "nature" devoid--or perhaps just nearly-devoid--of creation and disagreements). I think humans have a role in all of this, and that we are not powerless in the face of some sort of "zeitgeist" in which we are cared for by forces beyond our understanding--forces desiring our simplicity and cooperation.

[PrinceMyshkin]

This has been an interesting exchange between Prince and Sophia. It does seem, Prince, as though you are biting the hand that feeds you (electronically speaking).

I think you both have a point that is getting tangled up in the relative immaturity of our exposure to such amazing technology. Viewing planet Earth as an organism, it acquired a rudimentary neural net with the telephone, hearing with radio, sight with television. In the last thirty years its neural net has grown into a sophisticated nervous system, some of which has become autonomic.

We build outward from us using the same blueprint with which we were created. Earth is barely a teenager technologically. It is self-centered, selfish, prone to tantrums, anxious, and obsessed with a sense of isolation. As we eventually mature into adults who are giving, gracious, self-assured, and feel connected to our environment, we will grow into this amazing technology, able to balance human with electronic connections. It can't be rushed. In the meantime, there will be an over-fascination with our new eyes and ears and feelings. There will be fighting, alienation, prejudice, misdirection, and refusal to listen to reason as with all teenagers.


Many thanks for the thoughtful remarks and the Brautigan poem. Perhaps my crankiness in the discussion with Sophia was as age-related as was the hopeful impatience of my adolescence.

I'm reminded of a much anthologized sci-fi story in which a spaceship, 'manned' by highly evolved robots engaged in exploring the universe reports back to their HQ in tones of amazement and alarm that they've come upon a planet (implicitly Earth) where there is "meat that thinks!"

[PrinceMyshkin]

There are definitely great things about technology! I really like posting and reading here (but this is as close as I get to dooing social networking). Criticizing the way that we sometimes let technology change us (so that we are a better fit for it, or better able to take advantage of its evolution) is good. We should use technology in ways that serve us and our evolution as a community and as individuals. But the corporations and developers behind it are interested in the evolution of the tech and the acquisition and processing of data in ways that people aren't discussing, for the most part.

Technology has its own imperatives (not to anthropomorphize, but just to say that certain areas of technological will progress quicker than others, often because they are just simpler or more convenient). Right now, we are in a period when networking is showing its power, more and more, every day. It is very compelling, and it is being capitalized on in many ways. But that doesn't mean it is our destiny, to be networked more and more completely, with us adapting more and more to the artificial and dehumanizing interfaces--even as those interfaces adapt more and more to us.

How many of us understand what is going on beneath the surface of all of this? There are some corporations and hackers that are interested to know, of course, but for most of us it all can look pretty nice. It is neat, tending websites and webpages. But there are plenty of examples where things are going wrong. Internet addiction, privacy issues (often unknown to the victims, or revealed in indirect and heavily-spun marketing language, small print, etc.), malware, banal updates being made and followed, and yes, rooms full of humans ignored, and temptations away from time with our own thoughts.

This poem and this discussion are just an example of critical thinking, which is what we need if we are going to protect our selves (sic) from what just happens to be easiest for tech to do, and from the tech-obsessed gurus shaping our environment.

Marshall McLuhan would be good to look into, for anyone who wants to think about this more, as would Jaron Lanier's much more current (and especially cautionary) new book You Are Not A Gadget.

Agreed, thank you. No doubt it was something of an advance, too, when our ancestors discovered that rocks could be lifted from the earth and assembled (or thrown). Nothing wrong with the technology; only in the way it was subsequently used.

With reference to the paucity of your social networking: are you sufficiently content with however much of it you do internetwise, or do you regret the absence of the old-fashioned kind. Do you think, I mean, that you are missing something?

[firefangled]

I think it is important to remember that the poem is a perspective and a prediction (a very positive one, although it isn't clear why the machines would be so loving towards us, or why we would be so content with a tame return to a "nature" devoid--or perhaps just nearly-devoid--of creation and disagreements). I think humans have a role in all of this, and that we are not powerless in the face of some sort of "zeitgeist" in which we are cared for by forces beyond our understanding--forces desiring our simplicity and cooperation.

Quoting the poem was not done to interpret it literally, but rather to say that we will move toward a greater synergy with technology. Right now I think there is an anxiety over all our gadgets, both to get them and use them, as well as to blame them for our lack of time and our faltering personal contact. We lack the balance that comes into play with practice and long-term use. Prince's poem reflected this dichotomy I think.

[MorpheusSandman]

It's always seemed to me that technological booms or any great epochal changes that suddenly hit humanity and profoundly effect cultures and societies are always met with a healthy dose of skepticism and angst by many (especially artists) even as they try to adapt and take advantage of those changes. Change makes even the most unflappable people nervous and it is rather amazing at what an alarming rate that culture has changed in the past 15 years. When I was 10 I had no internet, nobody had cell phones, there was no interconnectivity and if I wanted something I had to go get it in person, if I wanted to talk to someone I couldn't just pick up a keyboard. Now, especially with the internet lives have been completely changed and it's hard to imagine life before computers and internet (well, at least it is for those of us who were relatively young when the boom hit). I think those who are older, like Prince, are probably more sensitive to the radical change than others are.

To digress just a bit, one of my absolute favorite films is 2001: A Space Odyssey which is very much about the paradigm defining nature of man's technology. Moonwatcher sees the bone, uses the bone as a tool to kill animals and eat. Suddenly man has conquered their environment. Later, Moonwatcher turns the bone on his fellow man and commits murder. He slings the bone into the sky and in a cut we leap billions of years; from bone to nuclear space station, from tool to tool, from weapon to ultimate weapon. The moral is that man's tools have always had the paradoxical nature of having both the potential to help us survive and evolve while simultaneously possessing the threat to destroy us, overtake us, possess us, and turn us into slaves. A film like The Matrix depicts an age where machines have turned man into human batteries, and yet it's a film made with cutting edge technology. I think there NEEDS to be this paradoxical relationship between modern artists creating art with technology while often making art about their wariness about that technology and modern life; it seems to reflect the nature of the subject itself.

[Buh4Bee]

I like iI.
But I(i) hope there will be an upgrade available soon,
in the fall, perhaps. Should I start the queue?
I(i) would so like to be first. iYou would be so yesterday.

Hack, What a humorous response to Prince's cute poem.

I enjoyed the read.

[PrinceMyshkin]

It's always seemed to me that technological booms or any great epochal changes that suddenly hit humanity and profoundly effect cultures and societies are always met with a healthy dose of skepticism and angst by many (especially artists) even as they try to adapt and take advantage of those changes. Change makes even the most unflappable people nervous and it is rather amazing at what an alarming rate that culture has changed in the past 15 years. When I was 10 I had no internet, nobody had cell phones, there was no interconnectivity and if I wanted something I had to go get it in person, if I wanted to talk to someone I couldn't just pick up a keyboard. Now, especially with the internet lives have been completely changed and it's hard to imagine life before computers and internet (well, at least it is for those of us who were relatively young when the boom hit). I think those who are older, like Prince, are probably more sensitive to the radical change than others are.

To digress just a bit, one of my absolute favorite films is 2001: A Space Odyssey which is very much about the paradigm defining nature of man's technology. Moonwatcher sees the bone, uses the bone as a tool to kill animals and eat. Suddenly man has conquered their environment. Later, Moonwatcher turns the bone on his fellow man and commits murder. He slings the bone into the sky and in a cut we leap billions of years; from bone to nuclear space station, from tool to tool, from weapon to ultimate weapon. The moral is that man's tools have always had the paradoxical nature of having both the potential to help us survive and evolve while simultaneously possessing the threat to destroy us, overtake us, possess us, and turn us into slaves. A film like The Matrix depicts an age where machines have turned man into human batteries, and yet it's a film made with cutting edge technology. I think there NEEDS to be this paradoxical relationship between modern artists creating art with technology while often making art about their wariness about that technology and modern life; it seems to reflect the nature of the subject itself.

The thing is, Señor Morph, that if a short, satirical poem on the subject of technology can produce such a finely delineated response as yours, then I say Viva technologia!

And yet... I have an eight-years long internet/phone acquaintance with a very articulate woman I've never met, and yet I wouldn't say I know her as well as I feel I do the man in the Astrakhan with whom I had a ten-minute conversation (in Yiddish, by the way) this morning at my cafe. Look for my poem, "We," when I post it in a day or two.