Fuck Productivity 2021

Back with a poem

Heya. I’m back after spending weeks, months, hours, ages, working on my dissertation. I have submitted it now, so there’s more time to write and such. I’ll share some of my findings if and when I can. A lot to think about.

In the meantime, here’s a poem I read on New Year’s Day on my Instagram. Trying to get away from Big Tech and find more sustainable, privacy-friendly social media tools, so I will only share the text now.

I wrote this at an Arvon at Home Masterclass given by Raymond Antrobus. The exercise was based on the same prompt followed by Inua Ellams for his collection The Actual. You can guess what the prompt was.

Fuck Productivity

The reason for this and any other broken season.
The expectation of continuation in the midst of extinction.
Sociopathic responses to fauna and Gaia’s imploring
to stop, break, rewind. Their cries now used as
convenient methods of capital genocide.
The weapons of mass destruction were there all along,
in productivity’s warehouse. Underpaid staff
wearing nappies and shifting boxes as productivity waits
for the gaslight to catch fire. Loss of senses,
lack of breath, fever and limbs of uranium. Under
pressure, on a deadline, the spirit of Anglo Sajonia.

Fuck Productivity. Don’t let it destroy you.

Slow love,
Cynthia Rodríguez Juárez