Essays, Art and Plays by Dan

I pause the war
to answer
an email

Editor’s comment – Such a striking opening line: ‘I pause the war.’ Of course, we understand that Campbell means something like “I pause the video covering the war,” but by condensing it to ‘I pause the war’ and suspending the line there, it’s almost surreal.

There is also the feeling that he has the power to call a time out on the conflict, like a politician agreeing to a ceasefire.

We’ve seen a lot of pausing and starting up again in recent months, as if the war were nothing more than a video to be played at leisure by those in charge. Of course, Campbell continues: ‘to answer / an email.’

And the poem becomes an insightful look at how we are forced to multitask between processing massive worldchanging events and relatively unimportant personal duties or niceties.

Our minds are constantly shifting between the horrors of war and the etiquette of email. And technology reduces it all to the same level. This, then this. This equals this. Pause. Play. Pause. Play.