hope

what of this future

our responsibility 

and the lack of it

see hope slip through our fingers like straws in the wind never again to be clutched

Prompt

It was a discussion around a ‘future design’ task. The original text was just a loose almost off the top of the head scribble then spoken word thing for students – where I pulled together the vast number of individual topics they were working on into a kinda poetic critique – and setting up a subsequent search for answers / possible solutions in the process. Some draft sections of that original text below …

of social media suicide made real

insta love heart death

and despair

breathe that toxic future air

….

of bragging rights

of the brash and the brazen

and the bland

tweets

by twits

….

and the tech entrepreneur’s rocket-propelled road out so their grandchildren don’t have to see

or remember

what we did here

….

Image

Letraset on handmade paper.

148mm x 210mm | A5

On ‘Future Design‘

The task – final assessment item embedded in an undergrad course – came out of a book by Roman Krznaric titled, ‘The Good Ancestor – How to think long term in a short term world’ (2020) Penguin. Random House. UK. Krznaric shares a beautiful poem by Drew Dellinger on one of the first few pages. I have never forgotten it. And know it by heart …

it’s 3:32 in the morning

and I can’t sleep

because my great great grandchildren

ask me in dreams

what did you do while the earth was unravelling?