Poems on technology

You may not associate poetry with technology. But many poems and songs have been written about people's relationship with technology and machines. This lesson invites you to explore a few selected poems and song lyrics. You may find that you want to explore more poems and songs by one or more of these writers in preparation for an individual oral or HL Essay.

  1. Get into 5 groups. Assign each group a text from below (Texts 1-5). In your group, draw a 'see, think, wonder' diagram, like the one below, on a large piece of paper. Read your group's poem or song and discuss it, using the three questions from the diagram. Record your answers on the table and present your poem or song and your 'see, think, wonder' diagram to your classmates.   

  2. See Think Wonder
    What do see, when you read this poem? What images come to mind? What does this poem make you think about? What kinds of ideas come to mind? What do you still wonder? What questions do you have? What would you like to know in order to understand this poem better?




    (MODERN MACHINERY)

    We were taken from the ore-bed and the mine,   
       We were melted in the furnace and the pit—   
    We were cast and wrought and hammered to design,   
       We were cut and filed and tooled and gauged to fit.   
    Some water, coal, and oil is all we ask,
       And a thousandth of an inch to give us play:   
    And now, if you will set us to our task,
       We will serve you four and twenty hours a day!

          We can pull and haul and push and lift and drive,   
          We can print and plough and weave and heat and light,
          We can run and race and swim and fly and dive,   
          We can see and hear and count and read and write!

    Would you call a friend from half across the world?
       If you’ll let us have his name and town and state,
    You shall see and hear your crackling question hurled
       Across the arch of heaven while you wait.   
    Has he answered? Does he need you at his side?
       You can start this very evening if you choose,   
    And take the Western Ocean in the stride
       Of seventy thousand horses and some screws!

          The boat-express is waiting your command!   
          You will find the Mauretania at the quay,
          Till her captain turns the lever ’neath his hand,   
          And the monstrous nine-decked city goes to sea.

    Do you wish to make the mountains bare their head   
       And lay their new-cut forests at your feet?   
    Do you want to turn a river in its bed,
       Or plant a barren wilderness with wheat?
    Shall we pipe aloft and bring you water down
       From the never-failing cisterns of the snows,   
    To work the mills and tramways in your town,
       And irrigate your orchards as it flows?

          It is easy! Give us dynamite and drills!
          Watch the iron-shouldered rocks lie down and quake   
          As the thirsty desert-level floods and fills,
          And the valley we have dammed becomes a lake.

    But remember, please, the Law by which we live,   
       We are not built to comprehend a lie,
    We can neither love nor pity nor forgive.
       If you make a slip in handling us you die!   
    We are greater than the Peoples or the Kings—
       Be humble, as you crawl beneath our rods!-
    Our touch can alter all created things,
       We are everything on earth—except The Gods!

          Though our smoke may hide the Heavens from your eyes,
          It will vanish and the stars will shine again,
          Because, for all our power and weight and size,   
          We are nothing more than children of your brain!

    Ground Control to Major Tom
    Ground Control to Major Tom
    Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
    Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six)
    Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three)
    Check ignition and may God's love be with you (two, one, liftoff)
    This is Ground Control to Major Tom
    You've really made the grade
    And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
    Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare
    "This is Major Tom to Ground Control
    I'm stepping through the door
    And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
    And the stars look very different today
    For here
    Am I sitting in a tin can
    Far above the world
    Planet Earth is blue
    And there's nothing I can do
    Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
    I'm feeling very still
    And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
    Tell my wife I love her very much she knows
    Ground Control to Major Tom
    Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
    Can you hear me, Major Tom?
    Can you hear me, Major Tom?
    Can you hear me, Major Tom?
    Can you "Here am I floating 'round my tin can
    Far above the moon
    Planet Earth is blue
    And there's nothing I can do"

    I'll tell you the story of Jimmy Jet--
    And you know what I tell you is true.
    He loved to watch his TV set
    Almost as much as you.

    He watched all day, he watched all night
    Till he grew pale and lean,
    From 'The Early Show' to 'The Late Show'
    And all the shows in between.

    He watched till his eyes were frozen wide,
    And his bottom grew into his chair.
    And his chin turned into a tuning dial,
    And antennae grew out of his hair.

    And his brains turned into TV tubes,
    And his face to a TV screen.
    And two knobs saying 'vert.' and 'horiz.'
    Grew where his ears had been.

    And he grew a plug that looked like a tail
    So we plugged in little Jim.
    And now instead of him watching TV
    We all sit around and watch him.

    It was a slow day
    And the sun was beating
    On the soldiers by the side of the road
    There was a bright light
    A shattering of shop windows
    The bomb in the baby carriage
    Was wired to the radio

    These are the days of miracle and wonder
    This is the long distance call
    The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
    The way we look to us all

    The way we look to a distant constellation
    That's dying in a corner of the sky
    These are the days of miracle and wonder
    And don't cry, baby, don't cry
    Don't cry

    It was a dry wind
    And it swept across the desert
    And it curled into the circle of birth
    And the dead sand
    Falling on the children
    The mothers and the fathers
    And the automatic earth

    These are the days of miracle and wonder
    This is the long distance call
    The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
    The way we look to us all, oh yeah

    The way we look to a distant constellation
    That's dying in a corner of the sky
    These are the days of miracle and wonder
    And don't cry baby, don't cry
    Don't cry

    It's a turn-around jump shot
    It's everybody jump start
    It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
    Medicine is magical and magical is art
    Think of the boy in the bubble
    And the baby with the baboon heart

    And I believe
    These are the days of lasers in the jungle
    Lasers in the jungle somewhere
    Staccato signals of constant information
    A loose affiliation of millionaires
    And billionaires and baby

    These are the days of miracle and wonder
    This is the long distance call
    The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
    The way we look to us all, oh yeah

    The way we look to a distant constellation
    That's dying in a corner of the sky
    These are the days of miracle and wonder
    And don't cry baby, don't cry
    Don't cry, don't cry

    with clear-cased woofers for heads,
    no eyes. They see us as a bat sees
    a mosquito—a fleshy echo,
    a morsel of sound. You've heard
    their intergalactic tour busses
    purring at our stratosphere's curb.
    They await counterintelligence
    transmissions from our laptops
    and our blue teeth, await word
    of humanity's critical mass,
    our ripening. How many times
    have we dreamed it this way:
    the Age of the Machines,
    postindustrial terrors whose
    tempered paws—five welded fingers
    —wrench back our roofs,
    siderophilic tongues seeking blood,
    licking the crumbs of us from our beds.
    O, great nation, it won't be pretty.
    What land will we now barter
    for our lives ? A treaty inked
    in advance of the metal ones' footfall.
    Give them Gary. Give them Detroit,
    Pittsburgh, Braddock—those forgotten
    nurseries of girders and axels.
    Tell the machines we honor their dead,
    distant cousins. Tell them
    we tendered those cities to repose
    out of respect for welded steel's
    bygone era. Tell them Ford
    and Carnegie were giant men, that war
    glazed their palms with gold.
    Tell them we soft beings mourn
    manufacture's death as our own.

  3. After listening to each group present their poem or song, get into new groups, based on the poem or song lyrics that you would like to explore in more depth. In your new group discuss how the meaning of your text is constructed through the author's use of imagery, narrative technique, structure or any other stylistic devices you would like to explore. Do an online search to find out more about the poet and the poem. As a group make poster on your poem or song lyrics, with the text in the middle of the poster and interesting 'shout outs' in the margins. Present your poster and hang it in you room. 

  4. After the poster presentations, make a list of global issues that are related to technology. Look at the 'see, think, wonder' diagrams and the posters to inform your list.

  5. Looking at your list of global issues, discuss how they relate to and deepen your understanding of the seven concepts from this course: representation, transformation, creativity, communication, culture, perspective and identity.
Assessment

Take one of the poets who are featured in this lesson and find more poems by him or her. What kinds of global issues are present in more poems by this poet? Can you find a non-literary body of work elsewhere (on this site) to pair with your poet to explore a global issue of choice in your individual oral?

Last modified: Thursday, 18 June 2020, 9:10 AM