A couple of nights ago I returned to my apartment to find Zack Rosen (of CivicSpace fame) there for a visit. For some reason I was on a real tear about poetry and the soul-murder that can happen if art and poetry and removed from your life. I recited for him and my roommate Mary “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock†by T.S. Eliot. It had been a while since I had returned to that poem, and I found it so lyrical and intense I got very wound up and had a hard time falling asleep.
I think it might be the finest poem I have ever come across – although the sample size of my poetry experience is not as great as I’d like it to be, so I might some day find a finer one. Yesterday I sent the poem to Zack and told him to “find a small audience, or perhaps an empty room.†Then, read the poem outloud. Take it slow - do not rush through it - linger on the lines, on the way the words bounce and roll and slide into each other. Let your tongue enjoy the English language; that’s poetry.
It wasn't until late last night that I finally came across my daily Writer’s Almanac email. Besides Mike C's birthday -- which is today -- yesterday was the poet Wendell Berry's birthday. Wendell Berry is one of the great living American poets, and the Writer’s Almanac details this quote that made me laugh outloud:
In his essay, "Why I Am Not Going To Buy a Computer" (1987), he wrote, "...when somebody has used a computer to write work that is demonstrably better than Dante's, and when this better is demonstrably attributable to the use of a computer, then I will speak of computers with a more respectful tone of voice, though I still will not buy one."
I am both terrified and delighted by that quote. It returns us to something elemental about technology: it’s just tools and toys. The real work is still about people – our creativity, our clear thinking, our relationships. Good technology consulting is about careful evaluation, collaboration, and good thinking – not necessarily about good technology. Maybe I’m wrong – leave me a comment and tell me why. But in the mean time, here is one of my all-time favorite Wendell Berry poems, for his birthday. It’s those lines at the end, beginning with “Geese appear…†that bring me to back to Berry's poems:
"The Wild Geese"
Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over the fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
by Wendell Berry
Comments
wow...worth memorizing.
A friend once highlighted the irony of Berry's position -- his wife types everything he writes longhand, and some of us don't have such handy spouses.
For some of us the computer is as close to a secretary as we'll get.
Further, Berry criticizes the computer's utility from the context of the arts -- and we accept Berry's criticism because his artistic medium is words.
But how seriously would we take Jackson Pollock if he said, "When somebody has used a computer to paint something more beautiful than the Mona Lisa, and when that beautiful painting is demonstrably due to the use of the computer, then I still will not own one, but I will speak of it in more respectful tones."
We'd say, Pollock, you ass. The computer is about people and the problems they share, not paint. You know better, you splatterer!
Creating art does approach people and the problems they share, but it does not do so alone.