Wendy Lavine's List: American Lit

COME my avatar children, follow well online, mobiles in hand. Have you your  flaming fingers? Have you your sharp-edged tongues? Pioneers! O pioneers!
For  we cannot drop off here, We must post my friends, we must bear the brunt of lost  privacy, we the youthful early adopters, all the rest on us depend. Pioneers! O  pioneers!
O you youths, Western youths, so quick to test, full of data, full  of public pride and networks, Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping  for the camera, Pioneers! O pioneers!
Have the elders shushed you? Do they  tire of teaching dignity, wearied over the divide? We take up task of building  bridges, and carry their worry alone. Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we  leave alive, We dawn a newer, mightier world, varied world, New and ubiquitous  the stream we generate, stream of life and our footprints. Pioneers! O  pioneers!
We attachments steadily embed, Down the glass fibers, through  packets, upload heave, Felling networks, mobbing, daring, venturing as we go the  unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers!
We media barriers damaging, We the data  sharing, vexing we and exposing deep our minds eye, We the landscape net  surveying, we the unused space filling, Pioneers! O pioneers!
All earth’s men  are we, From the cellular waves and T3 lines, from the great doomed dungeons and  the high moon seas, From the schools and from the streets, from the lonely  trails we come, Pioneers! O pioneers!
From plain sight, from kitchen corner,  an unending sea are we, from our phones, with the satellite link in between, All  the keys of comrades clicking, all the polar opposites, Pioneers! O  pioneers!
O coffeeful surfing race! O beloved race in all! O my fingers ache  with tender updates for you all! O I miss you when I’m offline, Invisible  rapture in electronic ties, Pioneers! O pioneers!
Raise the mighty copyright,  waving high the delicate balance, over all the starry favorites, (open your  readers all,) Raise the fang’d and warlike C&D letter, stern, impassive,  weapon’d corporate dagger, Pioneers, O pioneers!
See my children, friended  children, It’s those established media we must never stop disrupting, the  Boomers and the Silents and WWIIs frowning but progress urging, Pioneers, O  pioneers!
On and on with compact back-ups, with inaccessible sites waiting,  with data of the dead quickly suspended in cyberlimbo, through dial-up, through  power outages, uploading and never stopping, Pioneers, O pioneers!
O to crash  while beta testing! Are there some of us to grow weary and fail? Is there one  hour we share around the world? Then upon the lines we belong, soon and sure the  miles are crossed. Pioneers, O pioneers!
All the signals of the world, they  ping for us, with the social tech beat, holding a network, steady connection  with laptop fronts, all for us, Pioneers, O pioneers!
Life’s honesty and  varied opinions, All the online forms and channels, all the networkers at the  screen, All the air travelers and broadcast surfers, all the masters of enslaved  desktops, Pioneers, O pioneers!
All the secret internet lovers, All the  students in the class, all the preached to and their preachers, all the egos,  all the apathetic, all the voiceless, all the 5K walkers, Pioneers, O  pioneers!
I too with my distracted spirit and body, We, a virtual trio, hunt  and pecking, wandering from site  to site, Through these stories amid  backlit darkness, with ghosts left in our retinas, Pioneers, O pioneers!
Lo,  the animated glowing screen! Lo, the handheld games, all the platforms and  science, All the missed sunlit days, all the nights never slept, Pioneers, O  pioneers!
These are our thing, they are with us, All for primal validation,  while our followers in silence wait for us, We to-day’s news feed wanting, we  the route for neutrality paving, Pioneers, O pioneers!
O you daughters of the  dead, O you community searchers! O you mommy bloggers and you military wives!  You are divided, yet you must move in unity with us, Pioneers, O  pioneers!
Independent labels, bootstrapping musicians, (Show Biz OldTimers,  back away or host sketch comedy,) I hear your tunes, your a capella singing,  soon your video will have 1,000 views, Pioneers, O pioneers!
Shop for  delectations sweet, shop the gadgets and covers, disturb the peaceful and  scramble the studious, the riches of distractions appalling, mindless shock for  our enjoyment, Pioneers, O pioneers!
Do the narcissists self-indulgence show?  Do the traditional media sleep? Have they laid off their writers? Rough pill to  swallow with strange bedfellows, Pioneers, O pioneers!
What time is it? How  did it become so late? Did I nod off? The passing hours I yielded to tracking  you has made me oblivious, Pioneers, O pioneers!
Set your calendar alarms,  even on the desktop in the basement, turn up the volume, AWAKE! Log in to your  networks, Pioneers, O pioneers!