Ubu Untitled By Michael Kirby

Issue 10

of bodies
in lieu, I stein
/beckett my
production:

here lay. here lay.
points for motion;
points for (e)motion.
keeping level

dispositions
of 2 at 6.

j. cage—‘spin
a faint comet
she knew was
brunswick’,

in bet

ween.

form devours
itself, despite oroborian.
and language, perl
-scripted engine,

est arrivé(e)

 

Source: UbuWeb

Method: Culled from the entirety of UbuWeb, an online archive of experimental writing, this poem was generated using markov chains. The number of lines (21) corresponds to the number of years UbuWeb has been active.

Michael Kirby is a student at The Graduate Center, CUNY, specializing in Digital Humanities. His main interest is contemporary poetry and poetics, and work, both creative and critical, can be found in Spikes Arts Quarterly, Jacket2 and Best American Experimental Writing 2016.

Respond to Alice By Jennifer Handley

Issue 10

Well, nobody else
talked
about
apples & potatoes.  

Concur.

Sorry–I am
obviously
forgetting
the important details.

Thank You Goddamnit!

Lunch? 


Source & Method:
This poem is constructed from a collection of sticky notes I have had lying around on my desk for some time. each is from a colleague, each for a different reason. 

Jennifer Handley writes and teaches in northwest Washington State. Her work has most recently appeared in 100 Word Story. She won the prose writing award in Crosscurrents (2007) for her nonfiction essay “The Break,” and her essays have also appeared in Puerto del Sol, Calapooya Collage, and Trestle Creek Review.

Seeing By Tyrell Collins

Issue 10

November-dark.
Her hand signal,
too much for her to speak,
too much to understand.

Blink.
Her eyelids just ripple, twitch.
Was that a blink?
She weaved the lids up,
and let them thud back down.
The pain weighs that much.

A day with—
pain
patience
pain.
The word doesnt hurt enough.

Morphine,
she asked for it.
This was the end,
how she would go.

Its been twenty years.
Ive forgotten so much.

 

Source: Ordinary Light by Tracy K Smith

Method: The craft of this poem came from pure inspiration to teach my first-year-writing students the wonders of how one genre of writing can cross into another to make something new.

Tyrell is a Masters of Fine Arts Candidate at Columbia College Chicago. His work has appeared in the Lab Review, Don’t Talk to me About Love online Magazine, and Punctuate. a Non-Fiction Magazine.

 

Strengthen Skin Against the Day’s Assaults by Jodi Andrews

Issue 10

Embrace your skin to reduce key signs of visible aging.
Nothing superficial about plumped & dewy.
Great skin runs deep— from the inside out. #1 anti-

wrinkle cream. Younger, more radiant skin.
Rejuvenate the appearance of severe frown lines between
the brows and 28 or 38? Skin won’t show your age.

Reduce age spots. Restore firmness. Moisturize.
Younger skin. It’s got depth, feather-light touch, nothing
superficial about giving skin a fresh, supple look and feel.

One common goal for all skinkind: no more scars.
Imagine life without a raised, dark scar. From cuts
to tummy tucks—a beautiful finish. Embrace your blurred

imperfections. Natural nourishment. Feel the difference
so your skin won’t show your crow’s feet, wrinkles, age;
nothing superficial about the best skin of your life.

Source: Skin advertisements in these four magazines: Glamour (May 2016), Bazaar (May 2016), Seventeen (June/July 2016), and People (May 2016).

Method: This poem originated from the fact that I have two scars on my body from brushes with cancer. This makes me interested in writing about scars. I wanted to focus on societal expectations of women’s skin in particular. These advertisements fixate on perfect, unrealistic skin, and the poem creates the dominant narrative about skin, and this lead me to work more on re-writing my scars, to buck these harmful ideals.

Jodi Andrews graduated with her MA in English in December 2016. She now teaches English classes at South Dakota State University and lives in Brookings, SD with her husband.

Bookcase By Jose A. Alcantara

Issue 10

When you are engulfed in flames
you will meet a tall dark stranger
on the border of snow and melt.

But these are ​my rivers, the words
under the words, at mesa’s edge,
the signature of all things.

It’s a wonderful world – becoming,
unbecoming, floating and falling.
It’s a wonderful life.

Yet, in the palm of your hand,
this is someone else’s garden, a course
in miracles, Einstein’s dreams.

We live in water, in white noise,
in a house of leaves, amid echoes
of tattered tongues.

We are chasing the rose into thin air.
This is the way it is, bird by bird,
a tale for the time being.

We are crossing to safety
in the elegant universe.
Thank you for being late.

Source & Method:​ I sampled the titles from the roughly 200 books and movies on the shelves.

Jose A. Alcantara works in a bookstore in Aspen, Colorado. His poems have appeared, or are forthcoming, in Spillway, The American Journal of Poetry, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Midwest Quarterly, Spoon River Poetry Review, Little Patuxent Review, San Pedro River Review, and 99 Poems for the 99%. Jose is a former Fishtrap Fellow and was the winner of the 2017 Patricia Bibby Memorial Scholarship from Tebot Bach.