Poem description and background information.
The poem "A World Where News Travelled Slowly" is a rather modern Poem written by Lavinia Greenlaw in 1997. The Poem consists of three verses which each describe a different way in which News travelled from one person to another. They are ordered in movement of technology starting off with the oldest way of transferring news and ending up with the modern way of spreading news used in our days.
The first Verse is the very old fashion way of communication between people living far away from each other. It is the simple way of passing carefully handwritten letters from hand to hand until it finally, after probably a few weeks reaches the final destination. This method was used until the beginning of the 18th century. Because this was very slow, it was mainly used for important information, which is suggested by the last two lines of the first verse. " while the head / had to listen, the heart could wait". It also suggests that personal letters were rather secondary, and was mainly used to send important news such as in wars and battles.
The second verse represents the change in technology, and talks a "new" quicker way of transmitting news. A semaphore. This was a device invented by the French in 1792 during the French revolution. These were normally 10 meter high masts, hundreds in a row (depending on the distance), which had a flag at the top. This flag was able to move into 196 different combinations which could be worked out using a code-book. This enabled the French to send a message over a distance of 191 km (Paris to Lille) in only 5 minutes. The verse still suggests that it was quite a hard way of transmitting news, as it "still took three men with all their variables". .
In the third Verse, the poet suddenly changes into the present tense and talks about the connection of cables which allow our voice to be coded, be send through it "and then to leave no trace".