Poem Review : ‘Echo Chamber’
It is a working day morning.
I wanted to do something inspiring. I write only over the weekends to keep my focus on my day job, that is investment banking.
Sometimes, I need motivation. I find reading and reviewing poems inspirational. So I picked one, by my new friend in Linkedin, D.G. Torrens.( D .G Torrens)
Excerpt from her Linkedin Profile:
’UK Author/publisher of 18 books and currently penning book 19, FULL CIRCLE due for release Sept 2020. I am represented by literary agent Hershman Rights Management (HRM Literary Agents USA) I am a prolific writer and love what I do with a passion. I also do voiceovers for TV/Radio/Film/advertising/Tech.
I am one of the founding members of https://www.bestsellingreads.com which is an association of talented authors who value teamwork and possess a proven track record of producing quality fiction and non-fiction.I am also a founding member of AuthorcityUK — this is an Author Event organization that organizes multi-author book signing events in Birmingham UK. I am best known for my first book, Amelia’s Story, which has been downloaded over 500k times worldwide.
Poem: Echo Chamber
Here goes the poem:
Commentary
The poem leaves us with the wisdom that we should speak less and listen more.
The title is powerful and deliberately chosen. ‘Echo Chamber’ reflects and reverberates. You can hear your own voice, echoed, distorted and louder, and often cacophonous.
The inference is that the ‘Echo Chamber’ is a space where there are people around — meetings, family and work conversations, social media chat rooms, social media posts etc.,
I could also infer two other metaphors here. That is why I am intrigued by this poem. One is about the women and patriarchy, a growing movement of these days.
Another one is mental health — what if the Echo Chamber is one’s own mind? I also wonder, if it was one’s own voice in their head, but I rule this out because of the external ‘voices’ that seep in during the course of the poem. Hence, this term ‘Echo Chamber’ is more tilting towards a societal form than a mental form of the metaphorical equation.
I have left many social media sojourns- and I keep myself away from news and television for exactly the same reason. I will delve on this further as the poem grows on us.
First, let us examine the environment that Echo Chamber is like. But one might not fail to note that each paragraph has a ‘situation’ or a ‘stimulus’ and there is a ‘response’ from the poet. An interesting construct indeed.
The poem starts with the protagonist finding herself inside an Echo Chamber. She gets a measure of the space she is in — ‘filled with interests self-served’. Already, the place is vitiated with self serving interests of other occupants.
How does she feel? Her ‘views and thoughts are drowning and least of all, could not be heard’. This might indicate the high decibel noise emanating from those self serving occupants. Her own thoughts and voice are disrupted and immersed in this cacophony, in that ‘room filled with white noise’. White noise represents a random and confusing view point, with equal intensity, but has no meaning.
This noise is not only high decibel cacophony, but judgmental as well. ‘Judgmental lips moving’, she sees. She cannot hear them speaking because of the white noise. One can feel the powerful antagonism of the occupants of the Chamber amid the charged environment.
Against such an assault, how does she respond? ‘I stand and poised and I know they are disapproving’. A confident and powerful response. She is aware that they would disapprove ( here, I feel that we are tilting towards opinionated patriarchy).
The high volume, opinionated voices do not contribute to her learning. ‘Without gaining knowledge’, she leaves the chamber. But the voices whisper, still ‘judging’ her. But she ignores them, not letting them affect her.
Now, the poet moves on to express her views on how non-acceptance of new views and lack of open conversations will lead to prevalence of status quo. ‘If there is no debate, very little is achieved’ she opines.
Finally, she expresses her optimism through these lines, ’Its never too late, in this I believe’. Let us start now. Her own experience has not been positive, but she hedges her bets on a positive future through two way debates by well-intended, noble and open minds.
How can such a feature be achieved? Through ‘collective wisdom’, and ‘a measure of words from all sides’, the poet writes. Collective wisdom comes through open and mature conversation — a ‘measure’ is controlled & sensitive choice of words so that the discussions are productive.
The poet concludes her ultimate desire -’ a world without swords’. Peace and progress through open debates with sense and sensibility.
I come back to my views on ‘Echo Chamber’ — was it the ‘mental health’ or the ‘patriarchal society’ that is in the poet’s mind, or a larger cause like the society itself.
I would agree on all three, as the fundamentals of her ‘case’ are strong, that they can be applicable to all three scenarios. Such are her views, sensible and sensitive.
‘Never shoot the messenger, but consider the message carefully’.
~Ashok Subramanian
PS: Poem Copyrights DG Torrens 2020. Published in this story with permission.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/d-g-torrens-194a0242/ — is DG Torrens Linkedin Profile.
