Electronically Yours

    Baud: the rate of speed at which information is
    sent between two computer devices,
    for example, modems.

 From 1200 plus, our baud
 declined. At under 300, a blank.
 EXIT. Or so I thought. But bits
 of you <alluring syllables, the
 burnt-in codes of half-unearned
 caresses "lost" when power died>
 were saved, it seems, to memory's
 soft disk. I found a file called
 HIDDEN FILES. Delete <Y/N>?

Commentary

Today I ran across this poem, which I had cut out of a magazine years ago (I don’t remember which magazine, possibly The New Yorker)).

I liked the way the poet used modern (at least at that date) computer terminology and images to describe the fragmentary memories that remain after a relationship has died.

I Googled for Gerald Jonas, and found references to a few science fiction stories and one other poem (Imaginary Numbers in a Real Garden), but no reference to this particular one.

http://isfdb.tamu.edu/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Gerald_Jonas

I also found reference to a poetry reading in 2001 which gave this mini-bio:

Gerald Jonas is a regular reviewer of science fiction for the New York Times, the author of six nonfiction books and a screenwriter of nationally televised documentaries. He worked at The New Yorker from 1963-1993.

http://www.mediarelations.ksu.edu/WEB/News/InView/100401writer.html

— Leslie Turek

Martin adds

While this is an interesting poem, it hasn’t dated too well - the combination of the modern theme and the fast-obsolete and already-forgotten jargon sets up a dissonance that detracts from the imagery of the poem - particularly jarring was the reference to “soft disks”.

It still fascinates me, though, to see the way in which poets (and alongside them, writers of science fiction, particularly cyberpunk) have evoked poetry from the rising tide of new phenomena, idioms and metaphors that accompany the information revolution. This week, I’ll be running a series of such poems - as usual, feel free to chime in on the theme.

— Martin

The Wondering Minstrels, poem #1418 · 3 January 2004

Guest poem submitted by Leslie Turek

Fair use

Show 1 commentHide comments

From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.

John K. Taber · 3 January 2004

If I may add to this:

I’ve been interested for years now in poems that incorporate the computer. Contemporary poets don’t usually condemn the machine, as liberal arts people did when I was a student. Machines have stopped being Blake’s “dark, Satanic mills” and are accepted as part of the landscape. Once in a while, even, machines are accepted too enthusiastically.

There is now a small body of poems involving computers, for example Bukowski’s

Hemingway never did this

I read that he lost a suitcase full of manuscripts on a train and that they never were recovered.
I can’t match the agony of this
but the other night I wrote a 3-page poem
upon this computer
and through my lack of diligence and
practice
and by playing around with commands
on the menu
I somehow managed to erase the poem
forever.
believe me, such a thing is difficult to do
even for a novice
but I somehow managed to do
it.

now I don’t think this 3-pager was immortal
but there were some crazy wild lines,
now gone forever.
it bothers more than a touch, it’s some-
thing like knocking over a good bottle of
wine.

and writing about it hardly makes a good
poem.
still, I htought somehow you’d like to
know?

if not, at least you’ve read this far
and there could be better work
down the line.

let’s hope so, for your sake
and
mine.

Let’s not quibble with Buk, and tell him about unerase commands, ok? The point is, the matter of fact use of the computer in a poem.

There was another I recall, can’t remember the poet, but it went something like “Green be thy screen!” It was the poet’s gratitude for the
convenience of the computer for her in writing poems. Again, as Martin observed, some of these poems quickly date. I’m old enough that green screens are strongly in my memory, but I daresay many readers today have never seen a monochrome monitor.

There is Brautigan’s “Machines of Amazing Grace.” I didn’t cotton to his poem because for me there is something chilling about benevolent machines watching over me.

Still, there is a bunch of poems, enough I think to make an anthology.

John K. Taber