And Still I Breathe

In this, the second decade of the twenty first century, the Internet became – more. More than a static repository of knowledge. More than a set of venues for buying and selling goods and services. It became a place where people lived.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, Reddit, Snapchat, WhatsApp ... Match, eHarmony, Tinder, Grindr ... if you haven't got a presence on these venues, then do you really exist?

The Internet shapes the way we work, play, love and hate. It feeds us news and lies in equal measure. It tells us how to live, what to buy, which way to vote. It has brought us hope. It has brought us Isis and Brexit and Trump. God? Monster? Whatever ...

I find writing poems about the Internet almost as difficult as writing poems about working in an office. The damn thing is too slippery to categorise, and we still have no idea how its powers will play out in our lives. And yet the effort has to be made ... and still we breathe.