Silver Linings and Zoom in the Pandemic
I've never been a fan of technology; there's dozens of poems stored away on hard drives, social media sites, and the cloud to prove it.
That's why it was no small suprise that when the COVID-19 pandemic seized the world and essentially quarantined me on the other side of the globe, technology was the thing to liberate me.
In a figurative sense, of course. Both the pandemic and technology have dark consequences we are reminded about daily, but there has been a few consequential benefits, too.
For me, among the most significant has been the various Zoom meetings, conferences, and readings held by groups such as the S.D. Poetry Society.
Because of where I work (Saudi Arabia), my interaction with fellow English language poets has been limited. I'm not an academic. I work in a company that employs tens of thousands of engineers. And I only began writing poetry a fews years ago.
Still, thanks to technology, I have been able to find a community of welcoming poets and artists through various forums, readings, and brainstorming sessions. And while it may not have the traditional warmth of meeting in person, I've found participants eager to participate and comment and share. And the travel is much faster and less expensive.
I SING THE BAUD ELECTRICStanding still in the eye of isolation,we come together millions of pixelsat a time, conversations stifledonly by stuttering fiber opticsthat squeal and chirp and bendour speech beneath the weightof a sleepless search for meaninghere in the ether.I sing the baud electric,armies of images fantasticfilling unsuspecting cacheshidden from our shrinking ken,the love of algorithm and knowledgeplucked like fruit from trees,twisted stems righting wrongsderived by faulty memory.Bathed in a blanket of blue lightflickering, I call out in protocolto brothers real and imaginedthrough rhymeless songs,dirges and sonnets, balladsand odes wrapped in words warpedby a Hollywood Squares panel of the muted,no smell of liquor on their breathor faint judgment in their sighs.I sing the lyric eclectic,patchwork screens and open windowsreflecting off eyeglasses in dim morningsas recitations of typewritten wordsfall from trembling lips and offbare bouncing knees obscuredby a forgiving fish-eye lensand sturdy desk cover, a bodyof armor from which to bare my soulto shelves of dusty unread books,a half-working wireless printer,and 5 gigahertz of mechanical magnificence.Bound by borders closedto reduce the risk of infection, I am freedby the need for men, women, and childrento look into each other eyes,to hear another’s voice,to speak their heart’s desireinto something other than the void,and I crash the party with reckless abandon,answering a call to keep living even when couchedin slight delay, half-frozen frames, and friendswith names I knew long before meeting.
By Todd Williams
To watch Todd Williams read his poem "I Sing the Baud Electric"