Would Emily Dickinson Tweet?

All these years, I’ve pounded out my thoughts on a trusty Underwood Champion Portable Typewriter. My favorite authors wrote by hand or on typewriters.

Can you see Harper Lee writing To Kill A Mockingbird on an iPad? Or Emily Dickinson tweeting Hope is the thing with feathers on a mobile phone?

Actually, Emily might have done that.

What do I know?

Chip’ll show me tweets and messages and posts from Media Jean, and some of her one-liners are pretty good. Just the other day she tweeted:

“I’m flying through the air and see everything out of the corner of my eye.”

If she had been writing about her unfettered imagination rather than her wireless connection, that’d be flat out poetry.

Maybe it is anyway.

Repeat after me:

​What do I know, what do I know, what do I know...?

Comments

Media Jean: Your dad’s right. If Emily were writing today, she’d love social media! She could be anonymous and public at the same time. If you ask me, she’s the patron saint of social media poetry. Go, Emily!

Chip: I didn’t know who she was until dad lost his copy of Walden. He likes to read me Thoreau at bedtime. Now he reads Emily. I like her stuff better.

Media Jean: Lost? Didn’t you hide his copy of Walden?

Chip: Yeah. I thought I could get him to read an e-book. I even downloaded Walden to my phone. But he said that would be saccharine.

Media Jean: I think you mean sacrilegious. Your dad’s a riot!

Chip: I love him too.

Johnny: Would you two slackers get back to work?! We’re supposed to be designing software! This is why every responsible corporation in America needs to block social media access for all employees!

Media Jean: Speaking of which, what’re you doing reading a blog on company time?

Chip: Shocking behavior for our CFO.

Media Jean: Unless CFO stands for Chief Facebook Officer. Johnny Green, the new Facebook face for Kid, Inc.

Johnny: One of these days I’m going to take over this company and fire you idiots.

Media Jean: Until then, get back to work, you slacker!

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