Haiku

Emily (USA)

[Research poem] 

I'm learning more about the use of language than I thought I would.

For example, the spectrum of ways of using language starting with abstraction, then metaphor, then very concrete, direct language, moves from the impersonal to the very personal. In technical writing we might move between the specific and the generalized, but it's all pretty impersonal--there may be a range of implications, yet still an arms-length relationship to direct personal meaning. Technical writing is like a narrow monotone relative to the richer possibilities of expression possible by using language differently. Keeping this in mind could provide texture when writing, I can decide how I want the reader to react, and where I want their attention to be.

Here is my haiku from the Compress exercise, I summarized the main premise of the book Stolen Focus--Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari, trying to only use concrete language. I only partially succeeded, the last line could be changed into something more concrete, but then Hari's premise wouldn't really be recognizable, only the feeling of it would remain--but maybe that's the point of the exercise, to fully let go? I couldn't do it, so the last line is somewhat abstract, it was a fun exercise though! Really all the lines could be taken metaphorically, but according to the research in the book these can be taken literally as well.

Stolen Focus

joyful smiles cloud as
our organs are consumed by
the global greed-state