Description
“A poem is a small (or large) machine made of words.” — William Carlos Williams
This collection of lyric essays asks a series of questions on poetry and the intersections of other forms of visual art such as cinema, video art, and new media. In particular, the collection ponders the Kimchi Poetry Machine, a tangible poetry jar the author created in 2014 with the hope of an embodied and feminist poetry digital future. From literary criticism of Claudia Rankine’s ‘Citizen’, Teresa Hak Kyung Cha’s ‘Dictee’, and Emily Dickinson’s “envelope” poems, to meditations on poetic films by Trinh Minh-Ha and Aneesh Chaganty, the collection explores how poetry is embodied within image and cinematic form. Exploring electronic literature, the collection meditates on e-literature, and how Black Twitter and how other forms of social media exemplify the pressing need for poetry. Grappling with the creation of a feminist poetry machine ‘Poetry Machines: Letters for a Near Future’ explores the definition, stakes, and interventions of poetry in our digital age
