Here is my blackout poem on the Veldt. I used a book page to create this poem. I ‘found’ this poem on page 41 of the novel ‘Red Rising’.

Eyden Amram’s poem “Machine People” is a thematic exploration of Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Veldt”. She portrayed a clear theme which was technology and alienation, more so how gravely technology has affected society and humans all together. In the line, “Emptiness life without freedom, emptiness living chained by fear” I felt that she was talking about how for the kids in “the Veldt”, technology and/or the nursery symbolized freedom and happiness but really it had a worse effect on them after all. More so how once the kids get their freedom with technology taken away it is like their life is over. She continues to personify this through her lines throughout the rest of the poem. She says, “break those chains of society, I’m slaved here.” Breaking down the underlying problem between the parents and the kids in “the Veldt”. They know they have a problem but it is like they’re stuck in this cycle and it’s too late to break the long-lasting effects that will happen. She proceeds to write “The things you could do, you could make. You have been given so so much; you’re not living” which really touched on just how the kids weren’t living. They were empty and had no emotional regulation. They were so connected to their nursery and technology that the moment their parents, who had become mere irritations throughout their day, threatened to sever the emotional tie they had between them and this nursery, they snapped. They weren’t feeling and making emotional connections with people, which is why they relied so heavily on this nursery to make them happy, because they knew they couldn’t count on their own parents, which therefore made the nursery a kind of parental figure in their lives.  She goes on to add, “we are machine minds, machine lives, machine hearts, what do I live for, I must live for more, in this world”. Throughout this line all I could think about was how obsessed the kids were with their material goods and always needed their technology to function like normal human beings. The kids were like machines, and at one point, so were the parents. The parents were evolved enough that they had started to realize their mistakes and the gravity of exposing their kids to technology so young would be. However the children weren’t old enough to be able to know by themselves, and that is where the parents let them down in a sense. Throughout her poem, Eyden Amram uses metaphor and repetition. When reading this poem, it was quite easy to visualize the different parts of her poem. It was clear that she had a good understanding of how technology has affected humans up to this point. I felt as if she was trying to communicate how technology has such a hold over us and how we might rely on it too much. As she said in the line “I’m slaved here”, we’re stuck in this cycle of reliance on technology and we’ve pushed it too far.