Vaccinated by butterfly2000 - WriteWords.org.uk

WriteWords

Vaccinated

by butterfly2000

Posted: 23 February 2011
Word Count: 130
Summary: ...when frustration at life takes you over

Font Size

Printable Version
Print Double spaced

It’s an information generation
too distracted to mistrust
the multi-media battlefield of news
contin-
u-
ally
thrust

into a population overfull on ennui
and lost to lust

hostages of subtle terrorism
government issued journalism

dumbed-down into escapism

Big Brother entertains as surveillance spies
the whites of our eyes
in digital definition
micro-vision

before pressing the button that ejaculates
bio-logic
-ally spreading seed

and chemically enhanced
computer-aided
disease

inoculating us against desires of sedition
and ensuring a smooth transition
to the condition of submission

while we’re all tested
for an allergy
to life

force-fed entertainment by intensive means
training our brains by touching screens, as
docu-soap mock-u-mentories diminish intelligence genes

and gaming’s coffers growing fat
on the brains they’re shrinking

as we are slowly vaccinated

against the pandemic of
thin-
king

Favourite this work

Favourite This Author

Comments by other Members

James Graham at 15:34 on 24 February 2011 Report this post

I like the tone of this. You’re dealing with serious stuff here, the stuff of political theory: the media foster passivity in society, neutralise dissent and revolt, and are a means of social control; ‘information’, which should be fodder for critical thought, is massive in quantity but seems to undermine thought; and the technological means of disseminating information are more important than the information itself. That’s how I understand the ideas behind your poem - but tell me if I’m wrong. The point I’m making really is that you turn this heavy stuff into a very accessible poem.

Word play helps the tone:

docu-soap mock-u-mentories diminish intelligence genes

- this is what poets are for, to describe these tedious telly creations - and all the many sources of ‘ennui’ - in lively language. There are other examples in the poem. Rhyme also helps - though this is a free-verse poem, there’s an almost jingling rhyme (middle as well as end rhyme) which carries the poem along. It adds up to a light, witty touch that would surely win readers over.

I’d put a question mark over the word ‘disease’. It’s a little hard to follow the sense of the lines

...surveillance spies
the whites of our eyes
in digital definition
micro-vision

before pressing the button that ejaculates
bio-logic
-ally spreading seed

and chemically enhanced
computer-aided
disease

inoculating us against desires of sedition

partly due to this word and partly the way the lines read as a sentence. It seems to say surveillance does two things: it ‘spies’, and then it presses a button that releases ‘disease’. Of course surveillance spies on us; but how does it do the other thing? I wonder if it would be better to separate thes two ideas grammatically:

surveillance spies
the whites of our eyes
in digital definition
micro-vision

Ejaculations
of bio-logic
-ally spreading seed

and chemically enhanced
computer-aided
disease

inoculate us against desires of sedition

Then you have ‘disease inoculating us’. I would have thought some sort of drug would inoculate, rather than disease. Maybe something like

and chemically enhanced
computer-aided
sedatives

inoculate us against desires of sedition

would make better sense. There are other choices - narcotics, dope, or old-fashioned words like nostrum or physic.

Let me know what you think.

James.

Read the WriteWords interview with James Graham