Waiter, there's Signal in my Noise!: Does Poetry Need a Message?

"Signal-to-noise ratio" is a term that the tech world has borrowed from electrical engineering. It refers to the clarity of all kinds of signals, i.e. to how much of the actual broadcast is getting through over the general noise. In tech circles, this refers to how much important information is getting through over all the useless information that's out there. Still awake? Stay with me: there's a point, I promise.

This has been a particularly helpful term for search. If you google "apple computer" for example, you want a list full of results about Steve Jobs' legendary company. If nine out of ten results are instead about calculators powered by fruit, then this particular search has an abysmally low signal-to-noise ratio. In search, in e-mail, on discussion forums, and on the internet in general, you always want high signal and low noise. You want those pictures from the wedding your mom sent you, not spam linking you to some spyware. You want to read comments from other people who like asparagus, not obnoxious trolls who only care about broccoli.

We're all generally looking for some sort of signal in the noise; we're searching for a thread of what we want in the gaudy tapestry of every day life. But there's one notable exception to all this: poetry. Poetry, and art more broadly, is often more about the noise than the signal. Many poems, though they include a message, are just as much about the raw language, the sound of the words, and the feelings derived from the experience of reading.

There's no poet that has illustrated this idea better than Lewis Carroll, whose poem "Jabberwocky" conveys feelings rather than a message, with words that don't really exist. You can dismiss this as a silly work intended for children, but I think it speaks to the role art plays in our collective consciousness. We almost obsessively search for signal amid the noise, but it is often those seemingly useless bits of noise that are the most beautiful parts of experience. And out of this beauty, more often than not, comes an even clearer signal and a more complete message.

Instead of thinking of signal and noise as diametrically opposed, maybe we should think of them as poetic partners, weaving together to give us a more complete artistic picture. When we try to send a clear signal, we inadvertently create a lot of noise, and when we make noise there is often at least a kernel of message. Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!