Found poetry 2021

The poem is called “COVID-19 and Flu Vaccination | Walgreens Immunization Services.pdf,” and here it is:

What happened was we went online to Walgreens to schedule our booster shots. When we printed out the receipt, lots of extra pages spewed out, and we were using these as scratch paper. And then one day I noticed the above string of code words that didn’t seem to go together. Or maybe they do go together in some way. I guess that’s the point of found poetry, to reveal connections that we hadn’t thought about.

Just to break the spell a bit, I’ll try to analyze what makes this poem seem so striking and absurd. What first jumps out is “Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking,” which is so horrible and doesn’t seem to fit in with anything else here, except I guess “Affiliate Program”? And then something about how “Do Not Sell My / Personal / Information” is broken into three lines, which deconstructs the message, in the same way that if you look at a word very carefully, letter by letter, it starts to fall apart in your mind. Finally, the juxtaposition of all this corporate-speak seems to speak poetically about the contradictions of the modern world, or of any world.

14 thoughts on “Found poetry 2021

  1. These are the hyperlinks listed after “Company Information” on the bottom of their website. It looks like the first few were cut off, so your poem could be extended by a few stanzas! Before your flowing, melodious lines of “Diversity and Inclusion” you should also have:

    AARP
    Careers
    Disability Inclusion

  2. With a h/t to e.e. cummings.

    Diversity &?
    Inclusion investor
    Relations
    newsroom logos sell
    Your pharmacy
    charitable donations… social responsibility
    California transparency
    Act modern
    Slavery [and]?
    Human traffic affiliate
    Program do not
    [instead] sell my personal information
    Walgreens advertising
    group [what happened]?

  3. Very good materia for creative exegesis.

    “Walgreens logos/ sell your pharmacy/ charitable donations.” Indeed, taking in “charitable” donations an important component of the public relations campagin of modern retail institutions like pharmacies. and walgreens logos are part of the branding strategy. Think “Toys For Tots” at your local auto dealership. (Compare Good ol’ St. Nick throwing money unseen through poor people’s windows. There are famous paintingings of it. Hmmm.)

    A more (yet not particularly) sensible set of line breaks would yield something like:

    “Social Responsibility — California Transparency — Act Modern / Slavery and Human Traficking Affiliate Program / Do Not Sell My Personal Information, Walgreens!”

    Moving from ironic mocking of Silicon Valley culture and control in the first line, to denunciation in the seond, and defiance in the third. (Indeed, noting Materialisms reductive definition of personhood as “information.” Echoing one of Tarwater’s epithets in Flannery O’Conners “The Violent Bear It Away.” )

    The actual line breaks are more confusing, reflecting almost literally how the twitter-like fragmentation of messages garbles any possible arguments against the oppressive Social Media Industry.

    There is a lot more here. And Andrew says he doesn’t get post-modernism.

  4. “Walgreens Logos Sell Your Pharmacy”. Makes sense.

    BTW, has there been an actual study on the third shot’s ‘effectiveness’ for any of the vaccines? I mean in a sense the original one was (not that that study was able to control its independent variable, but that’s another matter altogether).
    Thanks.

  5. Tangential to the topic but related: Saturday evening went to Walgreens to get my Moderna booster, which I thought as per the FDA, would be a 50ml “half” shot. To make sure, I asked the guy behind the counter if indeed I was going to get half a shot. Whereupon he proceeded to explain to me that the original two Moderna shots I got eight months ago were 50ml each, not 100ml each, and that the booster was also going to be 50ml. I was flummoxed, tried to quickly research the issue on my phone before the nurse jabbed me. The registration guy was full of it. The original shots were 100ml each, and the FDA last week recommended a 50ml booster.
    Presently, in came the nurse with the syringe, and when I asked, at least he knew the score, yes the syringe had 100ml. He looked at me like I was being a troublemaker and said “So, you want half a dose or a full dose?” I was like, “this is my option? In that case, yeah, I want half a dose.” He went out, annoyed, to empty half of the contents I presumed, but he came back, full syringe, telling me that, no, they are allowed to give only a full-dose booster.
    Tbh, at that point I was pretty shaken, so after hesitating for a few seconds (I’m vaccine hesitant too), walked out sans booster, wandering what else goes on in places like these where we put our health in the hands of others

    • Nobody is going to give you an intramuscular injection of 50 or 100 ml–you don’t have a muscle large enough to tolerate that volume of injectate. The dosage for the vaccine is denominated in micrograms of mRNA.

    • At least for the Pfizer where I’ve read about this topic for the kids approval, the concentration is 100ug per ml, and they were giving 0.3ml and kids will be 0.1ml most likely. With modernal, if they used the same concentration it’d be 1ml or 0.5ml for half dose

  6. “per the FDA” is not quite correct.

    A panel of outside advisors recommended to the FDA that the Moderna booster shot be 50 ml two days before you went to get your booster. The FDA itself now has to make their own determination, which will likely follow the advisory panel’s recommendation but hasn’t been issued yet as of this writing.

    So if you try again in a couple of weeks you’ll probably get your 50 ml dose, if everything goes as expected.

      • Yes, N-G, you’re right, I should have waited. I knew I was rushing it, which is why my prior was that there was a decent chance of my being given an unwanted a full dose.
        Thank you, Daniel, for setting me straight, 0.5 ml, not 50 ml!
        Clyde, I may be old enough to get a booster, but the size of my muscles may surprise you! (jk) :)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *