the a list

I imagine beginnings, Where word makers harnessed the stars, Leading up to the two of us. Now, the Atlantic air lifts the curtains Up over the indignities of dishes And unbleached enamel. Our worn minds and hands Retrace the contours Of mountains and empathy. Softly watching As crossroads and names Morph into self, into oblivion.  Published in Penumbra  2021

  Click on the image below or here to read "rock"

 

  Poor Ezra's Almanac has published two of my poems pie (page 11) a bad purple bow tie (page 13) Head on over and take a read.

  This poem - Spilling - is another example of automatic poetry I've been creating over the last few years.  One way that I chose to edit the poem was to put it to music.   I ended up really liking the musical version of it.  The poems was accepted by New Note Poetry .  After the launch of the poem on the online magazine , the editor asked if the authors wanted to do a video reading. I suggested using the video and it was well received. I thought I'd share with you.

 My Poem Spilling that I put to music will be performed at New Note Poetry's live reading on November 20th.     Spilling is one of a growing collection of automatic poetry that I've been creating.

Building and unbuilding On a scaffold of nucleotides And lust.   Fueled by a warmth That can only be made By moving around   Like a mind wandering Far beyond itself,   Falling and unfalling through gravity And chaos. Published in  F3LL Magazine

   This is... an early version - stanza two - of the application of  automatic poetry  to the  Tao te Ching  stanza two.  I created the font - absurdlyTall-regular - just for this.  

  This is... an early version of the application of automatic poetry to the Tao te Ching .  I created the font - absurdlyTall-regular - just for this.  

I've been playing with generating poetry using spreadsheet formulae for a year or more. why produce automatic poetry?  I encourage you to read up on John Cage and Chance Operations Coming from a software development background, I have an uncomfortable relationship with the idea of anything automatic.  The work that goes into a button you can push to automagically do something, is often complex and subject to variation. Automating anything to do with the english language implies even more complexity.  The language, in a word, is irregular - making it beautiful and a major pain to codify. Here's how I approached "automatic poetry". provide input to the spreadsheet about the structure of a poem. provide data  that the spreadsheet can use to construct its own poem. To me, the logical units of a poem are the words.  Each word contributes to a line in a poem by acting as a part of speech.  It's probably important to note here for the reader, that I don't even con...