" All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace."

           

Richard Brautigan’s poem “ All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace,” shows how technology has doomed our society.   The poem discusses how technology has negatively impacted our daily lives by interfering with nature’s already occurring processes.  Brautigan comments on how functions of nature, such as the mammals and trees, have been disrupted by the presence of a “ cybernetic” technology.  The word cybernetic, meaning the structure or regulation of a system, conveys the image that our modern technology has taken over or surpassed the already set systems of nature.  Within the third stanza, the words “ cybernetic ecology” are placed together emphasizing that are whole ecology is cybernetic.  The beginning of every stanza begins with the same repetitive line “ I like to think.”  This emphasizes that that the poet would like to think of  “deer strolling peacefully past computers,” but realizes that this is not the case in our modern world.  

Brautigan’s poem also can be interpreted as a case for pro-technology.   Brautigan envisions a time where technology has made possible “ cybernetic meadows where mammals and computers live together in harmony.”  The poem implies that instead of fearing technology’s powers, we should embrace it and rather use it as a way to connect nature with it.  Within the poem, nature is put side to side with technology, “ pines and electronics” or “ deer and computers.” This illustrates that rather then nature being separate from technology; they are side-by-side and of equal importance in our world. Although this almost symbiotic relationship that Brautigan envisions hasn’t yet occurred, the mood of the poem conveys optimism that these events will occur.   This optimism is seen within each stanza in parentheses, “ ( and sooner the better) ,( right now please!), and ( it has to be !),” showing the poets desire and hope for technology to fuse alongside with nature. 

In the context of the poem, pro-technology seems to be the better interpretation of what Brautigan is trying to illustrate.  The poem never mentions how technology has created an over powerful machine that destroys the natural world. Rather in every instance of the poem, technology and nature are equally incorporated as a pair.  Brautigan shows that the two are equally important aspects of this world.