in the heyday of letterwriting and modern post (london/paris, 18th/19th/early 20thC eg.) when letters could be exchanged three times a day, i think it was very common to have a borderline-2022 anxiety and neurosis about letter communication. Louis XIV wielded a lot of political power by controlling the post, famously employing servants to open and read hundreds of letters and relay to him the movements of his enemies. In proust, charles swan holds unopened letters up to the light to spy on their contents, waits at home all day for letters, sneaks over his lover's window late at night to listen for her infidelity when her letter claims she's unwell, and the narrator later develops iPhone-levels of paranoia relating to letters, phone calls (his bourgeois family has one of the first telephones in paris), and the gamut of epistolary communicating...
The brevity of the poem matches the anxiousness of the poem. Are you there? Do you think of me too? I imagine it is the desire to be known, to be loved that causes the need to check. I liked this poem very much, Torben.
Well composed and important reminder. I find it curious that this technology has so overtaken my brain that it is nearly impossible to recall how we kept in touch, not just before cell phones became ubiquitous, but before texting did. I now text people to see if they want to chat - in the guise of ‘do you have time to’. Sad distancing of human contact, ironically while the instrument of possible contact is literally in hand.
Thank you for another thoughtful poem - maybe I will change my cell phone usage as a result- just have to check a few things first😁
in the heyday of letterwriting and modern post (london/paris, 18th/19th/early 20thC eg.) when letters could be exchanged three times a day, i think it was very common to have a borderline-2022 anxiety and neurosis about letter communication. Louis XIV wielded a lot of political power by controlling the post, famously employing servants to open and read hundreds of letters and relay to him the movements of his enemies. In proust, charles swan holds unopened letters up to the light to spy on their contents, waits at home all day for letters, sneaks over his lover's window late at night to listen for her infidelity when her letter claims she's unwell, and the narrator later develops iPhone-levels of paranoia relating to letters, phone calls (his bourgeois family has one of the first telephones in paris), and the gamut of epistolary communicating...
The brevity of the poem matches the anxiousness of the poem. Are you there? Do you think of me too? I imagine it is the desire to be known, to be loved that causes the need to check. I liked this poem very much, Torben.
love the 'well' / 'role' rhyme
Well composed and important reminder. I find it curious that this technology has so overtaken my brain that it is nearly impossible to recall how we kept in touch, not just before cell phones became ubiquitous, but before texting did. I now text people to see if they want to chat - in the guise of ‘do you have time to’. Sad distancing of human contact, ironically while the instrument of possible contact is literally in hand.
Thank you for another thoughtful poem - maybe I will change my cell phone usage as a result- just have to check a few things first😁