Reviews
reading this after death by sex machine makes me intimately understand so much just how the order & curation of poems inside a poetry collection shapes its atmosphere. there's a lot of poems from the previous collection but the overall feeling of them 2 are so different! while soft science is definitely still bodily & visceral, it feels more "weighty" rather than just shocking.
standouts: A Brief History of Cyborgs; Perchance to Dream; & O Bright Star of Disaster, I have been lit; Solitude; Introduction to Quantum Theory (which i think should be required reading for everyone)
I think I just don’t like when modern technology (like tinder) is mentioned in poetry, although it was done in an interesting way. That being said I loved the ongoing cyborg theme and she had some bars in her! She was placed in a unfair position by being read right after Richard Siken.
the cyborg/tech parts were lost on me. still, some others pretty good.
I am not the best at reading poetry and this I picked up as one of my 12 months, 12 books challenge - and I am glad that I did.
Even though I could not necessarily connect with the poems, I still understood the sense of loneliness and alienation that they expressed (in that regard, depicting one's self as a machine, a robot is a very effective shorthand, too). And if poetry is about expression and relaying it to others, would that not make Choi a clearly talented poet, even if the statement comes from someone as unreliable as myself?
I particularly loved the Turning Test poems and the format of "Program for the Morning After". Chi from "Chobits" was also not a reference I had expected to see but very, very apt.
2.5 I appreciate the cohesion of themes and format and the ingenuity of some of the poems but, ultimately, this wasn't really my favourite collection...
miss franny choi... <3 you have not disappointed me. as a longtime chobits fan, i approve of this chobits slander
the scope of these are admirable, and so is the prose... that being said I couldn't connect to a lot of these. which is pretty interesting too, to stare at a poem like a total stranger
This book made me remember how much I love free writing surrealism
I didn’t connect with this at all?
Excellent poetry with a couple awkward word choices that jolted me.
*4.5. i was about to give up on my venture to understand poetry but then i read this and realized i dont have to understand shit wow what a revelation
The structure and concept of this collection intrigued me, but most of the individual poems fell flat, or felt messy, or were honestly just confusing to follow. It may be that Choi's style just isn't for me.
Highlights
if it / kills for a living we call it ; a soldier ; if it kills but can’t speak ; we call it ; a mirror
from “the cyborg meets the drone at a family reunion and fails to make small talk”
I hated my body for loving what could only die. / I hated it for forgetting. I hated it. For being my ugly, only chance.
from “perchance to dream”
it’s an old question: / is there anything that works / that isn’t a machine for killing, / or doomed to collapse, or stolen / from the sweat of the hungry?
from “on the night of the election,”
I made my mouth a jar until technology squirmed and bubbled. I scooped up the foam and called it language. The audience applauded. To prove them wrong, I became a screen of lights. I had no thighs at all.
from A Brief History of Cyborgs. text gen AI in a nutshell: the program holds language with no idea of what that "foam" even means.
What brings you to the bed of this river? What is it about this planet that keeps you running back?
There's no good word/for the opposite of fire,/the ice's sear and split, how it beckons the blood/toward what means to end it.
do not try to prove your / what is the word / humanity / you are organic / plum-hearted / oyster-throated / & lined / yes / with metal / remember / where all that silicon comes from / for the ocean so loved / the quartz / feldspar / the tiny homes of tiny creatures / that she ground them / into sand / to keep them close / to kiss them with / well / i suppose you would call it / a mouth
I’ll scrape the lonely from your teeth.
There are hundreds of videos of huskies/saying I love you without meaning to-/moans warped by an anxious, animal jaw.
if you don’t mind ; me asking ; shouldn’t a god have blood to lose
dear doll made soft/on the outside who dimmed you/when you stopped
im the beast/rattling the cage, asking for slaughter.
Even blood, when it comes down to it, is only a series of rules.