Conclusion
I
n his poem ‘Killing Time’, Simon Armitage describes a human-
oid built out of technological bric-a-brac. Far from the utopian-
ism of early twentieth-century conceptions of the robotic human,
Armitage’s creature is a ‘monkey gone wrong’ with ‘loud speakers
for earlugs’ and ‘a microphone tongue’.^1 This creature, with body
parts made from communication and information hardware, sub-
sists on news and information networks, even having a ‘mouse for a
hand’. We are told that observers sit at the monkey’s feet ‘switched
on and tuned in’ (p. 4 ), while the creature is sated by its consump-
tion of electronic information: ‘After booting up with a virtual
fart / it fl ickered and started to sing’ (p. 4 ). Armitage’s humorous
if dystopic poem exhibits an anxiety about our relationship with
technology; any technological advance is portrayed with a corre-
sponding brutish behaviour.
Do all poets share Armitage’s concerns? If not, how does tech-
nology impact upon our reading of the present and future scene of
contemporary poetry? It has become somewhat axiomatic, in con-
sidering poetry of the early twentieth century, to equate the advent
of new technologies with a corresponding impact upon literary
form. The genuine impact of the Internet upon contemporary
poetry is less immediately quantifi able. However, one element is
evident in considering twenty-fi rst-century poetry: the exchange
of instantly accessible information has an impact upon the content
and texture of writing. Certainly, not all poets share Armitage’s