Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Ode to Marshall MacLuhan

Literary agnost from the empty plains of Winnipeg
Charged by criticism at Cambridge
To take the husk of English departments
Give birth to the new Muses
Media Studies
Cultural studies
Communication studies
Global studies

Married to your mechanical bride
Shine a light bulb on hot and cold running media
The genius scouts shone their spotlight on you

Your exile was natural
For years you wandered
Reduced to a soundbite on medias and messages
Casual viewin' head buried in the sand
Martyr and messiah of this critical age

Now you come into my classroom
Of kids whose heads are filled
With kanjied propaganda and Hello Kitty brainwashing
Open their lids slowly to the signs around them
Seeing for the first time messages
In TV and radio
In chopsticks and forks
In skirts and pants
In the worlds and words that bind them

Thank you

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