The Internet is rewiring our brains, according to Nicholas Carr’s July/August 2008 Atlantic Monthly article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”—I agree with Carr.
Carr’s thesis is that hypertext links, like the one in the previous sentence, which give us instant access to source material, have made us impatient readers. We no longer have the patience to drill into material. We prefer to read the synopsis. We want our reading to be short, to the point, dense—in other words, poetry.
Poetry is pretty much all short, dense to the point. If it’s any good it is.
Of course there are always overblown, vapid verses masquerading as poetry. Most sweet, sentimental crap appearing in newspaper memoria or greeting cards qualifies under this definition.
You are thinking, “But I don’t care a fig about poetry!”
Oh yeah? What about all the words to all that music on your ipod?
But back to Nicholas Carr (sort of): an article and discussion in “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” in Devtopics.com concludes that Carr’s article made its point by being too long to read.
How does this make poets the new novelists?
Because it makes poems the new novels.
I don’t know that I’d go so far are to say a haiku is a new novel; but on a certain level, it is.
If you have stayed with me this long, I know I have to conclude this extremely long essay now. Here it is:
Arbitrary
I decided to end it
but you locked my eyes
on all the arguments
when you smiled.
Yes, grass is good. And the new photo. I have an idea you are laughing almost as often as not.
You can change the background by clicking on the little ball in the left corner on the menu strip at the bottom of your screen, and clicking on “Change Theme” (or whatever it says).
Oh, nice!