Thomas Hart Benton, “Flood”
One of the great things about poets is that they understand and can articulate our pain–like being overwhelmed by e-mail.
Technically, this Wendell Berry poem is about mail, not e-mail, but the sentiment is the same. First he captures a fantasy I have had many times, especially this past week: hitting “Control A(ll)” and then “delete” on my e-mail. (Actually, for Berry in this 1980 poem, the fantasy is just dumping his snail mail into the trash. But the sentiment is the same.) Then he points out the guilt that would follow. Even simplification is not simple, he sadly concludes.
Here’s the poem:
Throwing Away the Mail
By Wendell Berry
Nothing is simple,
not even simplification.
Thus, throwing away
the mail, I exchange
the complexity of duty
for the simplicity of guilt.