Chris Semansky's poems, essays, and criticism appear regularly in literary journals and magazines. In the following essay, Semansky explores the relationship between gender and technology in Phyllis McGinley's poem "Reactionary Essay on Applied Science."

W. H. Auden said that when Phyllis McGinley was confronted by things and people who did not please her, she did not—like other satirists— show shock or temper, but merely observed the case with deadly accuracy. McGinley's "Reactionary Essay on Applied Science" takes its initial power from this dispassionate view.  It examines the nature of invention and its dubious assistance in increasing human health and happiness. The poem is an adulterated sextilla, juxtaposing stanzas written in this poetic form with single lines of free verse, as if the speaker is interrupting her own highly organized attack against "progressive" inventions with stage-whispered asides. This breached form carries the poet's meaning clearly: the...