Against Information: A Review
There are many things in “every-day” life that we commonly take for granted. Many of these things are small details in the our ever-changing world. As we, humans, are constantly working to simplify our lives to include a greater level of convenience, we ultimately make matters more complicated. We overlook precious wonders of mystery and complexity that are found in nature and humanity as we pound for progress, ruin land, and attempt to make our race more “civilized.” But what of technology is civil? What is cultivated by progress? And where do we go and what do we learn when we have become certain of everything?
John Lane’s “Against Information” is an honorable crusade that examines technology as it affects social, educational, intellectual, personal, and other issues of life. A quote from Ezra Pound opens the collection of 34 poems. Reading “The Age demanded . . . ,” the quote serves as a warm-up exercise for our brains and prepares us to accept the poems that follow as insight to and mockery of our cruse down the information paved highway. In part V. Certainty of the title poem, the narrator claims he spells “. . . all the words with exploding vowels to enrich the blood/ for travel and uncertainty” as he opens our minds and our imaginations with humor, compassion and wit (14).
In order to invite us to examine our own lives in perspective, Lane introduces himself. As narrator, Lane shows us who he is and what his relationship is with his poetry. In a poem titled The Bottom Line, he writes, “. . . Amortize/ the loan for the life I have chosen: poetry, passion./ There is no bottom line to my speech of the heart” (28). As there is sometimes no correct answers to the mysteries of life, there must be no absolute in art such as poetry that springs from life and love where poetry and passion are synonymous. The art of being a poet, to Lane, includes living like a poem, perhaps, as he expresses his oneness with language in lines like “For poets it always comes to this, to write/ on winter mornings alone among these intimate/ verbs such as sprout” (48). There seems to be a saving grace in writing for Lane. This is true, crisp language and it communicates. Communication is what we spend most of our waking time doing. To get across our thoughts, to encourage others to understand our feelings, that is the ultimate goal. That is living.
Our narrator screams that he is “Against Information” in the title but shortly in to the collection he makes evident the difference between “information” and communication. Simply conveying a message of truth is what Lane shows us is his purpose. In Health Care Plan He writes, “I’m speaking/ of the grass. I’m speaking of the rabbit not in a cage./ I’m not speaking of a new BMW plant with trucks/ that ballet back and forth with concrete for the/ opening” (25). Repeatedly telling us that he is making a point and we should listen. But we must not listen with our cellular phones and satellite dishes, we must listen with our imaginations and our minds. Lane is not against “information.” He is, however, against information for information’s sake. He wants meaning and purpose in words. And as we are bombarded with commercials, info-mercials, and junk mail, Lane asks us to decipher between useful and trivial information.
The path to being informed and knowledgeable is not through the animated and dehumanized mass-media world we live in. It is inward, inside all of us. Lane expands on this idea with beautifully articulated lines like “The sun and moon are on dialysis and the state will not pick up the bill!/ Who has a kidney for hire to the last planet discovered/ this century?” he continues with “I pose these solutions: attention to the body” . . . “the delivery of love like a laser” . . . “educating first our doctors in the stories of Chekhov, not numbers” (25). The narrator’s way is to concentrate on what is real and what is applicable to life in a practical way.
To preserve mind and body we mustn’t fall into the static of society. We must focus on improvement from the inside first. I think this is one of the most dominant messages that Lane sends to us. There is not an institution, a law, or a government program that will make us happy in our everyday lives, with ourselves, or with each other. We must start from within and we must enjoy the richness of a simple life. Lane gives a an example of how the motions we go through for the sake of should aren’t the best ways to achieve happiness. Lane writes, ” I don’t write away for more information. I take/ a job in a restaurant and own one suit of clothes./ I wait on tables and make love late in the morning./ I don’t see my life closing in at thirty” (15).
Lane is telling us ” here it is, what is important to you, what really matters?” and he does it in a way that is pleasing to the ears and satisfying to the mind. As a teacher of English and Literature, Lane knows that knowledge is a never-ending and comes from countless sources. But the artificial knowledge is sometimes what cling to and what we believe. It is obvious that Lane does not want his readers to stop with his book. According to his formula in the poem College Textbooks, Lane writes “. . . you may not sell your books back to the store upon/ completion of the syllabus. You must not complete/ the syllabus” (31). Amen.
