Varieties of Dignity (Ode to Instagram and the Art of the Selfie)

Photo: Fury in the Desert Series from Adela C. Licona’s rich, complex, brilliant photography @entremundista


In her beautifully crafted blog, Shawna Lemay has explored the nature of social portraiture, the nature of the selfie and the medium that gallerizes all of it. This small poem owes its inspiration (such as it is) to several posts from Transactions with Beauty.

Varieties of Dignity

“…the million-petaled flower of being here.” – Philip Larkin

You see them here, on these things called platforms.
Them? I mean our photographs, all our selves in repose,
at repast, in replays of holidays, getaways, birthdays,
sharing our pets, our haircuts, our pets’ haircuts.

And all the ways we pose for the world — withholding,
revealing, our mannered forms of ill-manner,
our outrage, tact, deference, brass,
our misery, joy, our heart’s geography —
are really just us,
            in our varieties of dignity.

So this is me, saying,
I see you in your wicker chair,
under languid light at the edge of the lawn,
raising your evening glass of wine.
And this is me beneath a tilted moon,
blue-checked cotton against my skin,
made-quiet by the art of a mist-clad night,
made-silent at seeing your self-in-silhouette
these loose and brief connections,
like silken awns soon torn from the cob of corn,
            yet nonetheless real.
Tell the ages! At this place, on this time, in this year,
            we were here.

10 Comments

  1. “. . .varieties of dignity”, while including both pretensions and contingent aspirations,
    (perhaps because of) facilitate “connections” nonetheless. Thanks, Steve, for this stimulating reflection!

  2. Connections encouraged by Varieties of Dignity as being “…like silken awns soon to be torn from the cob of corn, yet non-the-less real.” are very special, realizing these connections to be nanoseconds of awareness in the scale of Universe time.

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