As I wrote my “high tech corridor” piece, even as I was driving through Georgia’s High Tech Corridor (which got that way via House Resolution 1327 in 2001), I mused whether this impression could be expressed in a poem.

Clearly, since I wrote an essay, nothing suggested itself to me naturally, so I’m going to try this the hard way. WARNING: long and pointless post ahead.

Main images:

• pine plantations
• pecan groves
• abandoned communities
• rural-ness
• high tech corridor signs
• endless stretches of road
• the ridiculous sign: COMPUTER WORK & BOILED PEANUTS

The ultimate poet’s question: So what is the point?

(1) the dichotomy of my life , tech savvy, tech supported, sophisticated, erudite

(2) the claims implied by the “high tech” signs, hopes & plans

(3) the reality of the landscape and the society which informs and which is informed by it.

So what have I got?

(1) zooming through the landscape; iPod, laptop; serious and obscure classical music; complexities of networking, the WWW; all that software on the laptop; my and my family’s cosmopolitan-ness (cosmopolitaneity?)

(3) the old Georgia flag, paired with the Stars & Bars; “Dump Perdue” signs; billboard backing the “marriage is one man and one woman” shibboleth; do people hunt in those pine plantations?; no farms to speak of; what drove those small downtowns? All those empty stores: whom did they serve?

(2) suddenly a huge Wal-Mart, scarred into the hillside (We stopped on the way back for a bathroom break; it’s new and actually nicer looking than the one in Newnan, but it’s still a Wal-Mart); Did high tech help kill these communities? Are there large farms, more technologically savvy, elsewhere? Online shopping? Wal-Mart and its web of technology?; Education in these counties can’t be up to supporting high tech industries, can it?

Thus endeth the notes for a poem.