Analysis of A World Where News Traveled Slowly by Lavinia Greenlaw

Analysis of A World Where News Traveled Slowly by Lavinia Greenlaw

Lavinia Greenlaw’s nostalgic poem “A World Where News Traveled Slowly,”

captivates readers with its brilliant description of the evolution of

communication. The poem is chronologically ordered, giving us the

effect of how communication moved through the ages. The modern poem is

written in three stanzas each describing a different form of

communication. Starting from the time when electronics never existed

to the current information age. The fashion is which the poem is

written, takes the reader on a journey that lasts centuries.

The first stanza talks about the old fashioned way of communication.

People living far away carefully sent handwritten letters to each

other. These letters were taken by horse rider to their destination.

It is implied, importantly that these letters were mainly sent “while

the head had to listen, the heart could wait.” That is at extremely

important times and not just for insignificant banter. These lines

imply that personal letters were not the prime objective of the post.

It was for example at important times such as during war, that people

sent mail.

The second stanza is maybe a few hundred years later, in the seventeen

hundreds, during the “French Revolution.” It describes a new quicker

way of communication. This is still old fashioned and unheard of for

the modern day man. It is the time of the “telegraph,” and the

“semaphore.” This stanza implies that it was not an easy task and was

yet difficult and hard to manage. “It still took three men with all

their variables….to read record and pass the message on.” This

indicates that comm...

... middle of paper ...

...e so close, we are still not. These messages sent to us so

quickly make us feel as if we are incredibly close to each other.

The title of this poem describes to us that the author thinks that

maybe it would be better if we lived in a world where news traveled

slowly. This poem gives us the feeling that the poet believes that

technology is both a good and bad thing. Even though it gives as

instantaneous messages, these very messages importance is lost. The

author feels that the smoothness and speed of the current age is not

in keeping with the way we talk to each other. It is implied that the

world is now sending a barrage of messages that are not weighted with

enough importance by the recipient. Maybe people would consider

communication with much more importance if we resided in “A World

Where News Traveled Slowly.”