"All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace" by Richard Brautigan

In Brautigan’s poem “All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace,” he presents the reader with two interpretations of what he thinks of technology.  His poem could take on an anti-technology or pro-technology message.  This anti-technology message can be seen in the urgent tone from parenthetical remark accompanied by an exclamation mark at the beginning of each stanza.  The lines “and the sooner the better!,” “right now, please!,” and “it has to be!,” shows Brautigan’s urgent message that we cannot let technology become superior and disrupt the balance we have between nature and technology.  While these remarks help to set a tone, they also seem like they don’t belong with the rest of the imagery of nature and technology Brautigan has in the poem.  It seems he has put them here to incorporate that society has become used to getting answer and solutions quickly because of technology, which is not good.  Brautigan ends the poem with the phrase “all watched over by machines of loving grace.”  While it seems to have a positive emphasis by using the phrase “loving grace,” it also is an eerie ending to the poem because it’s suggesting that technology has broken the balance and taken over. 

Brautigan’s poem can also leave the reader feeling that he has taken on a pro-technology tone.  This is shown by continually using images of a paradise where technology and nature can co-exist peacefully and happily.  Brautigan uses words that posses positive connotations such as “mutually, harmony, peacefully, free, joined, loving grace,” throughout the poem.  This choice of diction leads the reader to believe that Brautigan promotes the balance of nature and technology.  Brautigan uses images such as “a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together,” “a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics,” and “a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature.”  These images of nature and technology living together harmoniously show the reader that Brautigan wants a world where we can have the beauty of nature and the productivity of technology. 

I believe that the pro-technology message is more convincing because of how Brautigan continually works in the harmonious relationship between nature and technology.  While Brautigan has accepted that technology is going to be a prevalent part of our lives, he seems to hope that technology will live in peace with the rest of the world.  He offers the reader an optimistic out-look on this co-existence by repeatedly using positive words to create a peaceful tone throughout the poem.  I came away from the poem feeling that Brautigan believes nature can peacefully embrace the transition to a place where technology is abundant.