Machine Poem Mix

Jonathan Ball. Ex Machina BookThug, 2009.

Like Cortázar's Hopscotch, each section is numbered and, unlike the novel, each line offers a path to read on, a sort of hyperlink in print.

[50]


The poem is not written by machines. [36]

It is the root, the cause of machines. [17]

As the book does not birth the poem, but is its vessel in the world. [15]

Clothing the Word in flesh, so that it might finally die. [63]

One can with diligence assemble a poem out of the references.

The poem is not written by machines.	[36] The machine spawns new machines. [05] Improvements are necessary. Conceived and carried. [40] (while in secret new machines produce new needs) [11] (offering themselves to answer to the problems they pose) [41]
It is the root, the cause of machines.	[17] The machine that will never think. [04] The machine we believe will never think. [26] The machine that, thinking, chooses, suicide. [37]
As the book does not birth the poem, but is its vessel in the world.	[15] "Physiologically, man in the normal use of technology […] is perpetually modified by it and in turn finds ever new ways of modifying his technology." [34] "Man becomes, as it were, the sex organs of the machine world, as the bee of the plant world, enabling it to fecundate and to evolve ever new forms." [27] "The machine world reciprocates man's love by expediting his wishes and desires, namely, in providing him with wealth." [26] Steel and your warming sex. [62]
Clothing the Word in flesh, so that it might finally die.	[63] My spine is broken. [01] My ribs are splayed open like wings. [64]

And if one continues the resulting fan reduces the initial set of lines to a point. That's the point.

And so for day 1740
18.09.2011