news
Everyone’s a poet, including this microbe
Electric Literature must raise $35,000 to fund our next chapter. EL’s incoming Executive Director and Publisher, Denne Michele Norris, plans to grow EL’s reach and influence by every measure, while maintaining our sharp, independent spirit. We need your help to ensure our continued success.
Donate now to join us in building EL’s future.
Christian Bök is part poet, part mad scientist. He’s read the entirety of Webster’s Dictionary three times, invented a language for a sci-fi TV show, and, most recently, brushed up on his genetic engineering skills to create the world’s first “living poem.”
According to Macleans, the project, called Xenotext, is a “short stanza enciphered into a string of DNA and injected into an ‘unkillable’ bacterium, Bök’s poem is designed to trigger the micro-organism to create a corresponding protein that, when decoded, is a verse created by the organism.”
So what’s wrong with writing poetry in your Moleskine, or on a coffee-stained paper napkin at a local open mic? Nothing, I guess. But it’s clearly not enough for Bök, and his imagination — “the biggest in the room” as he calls it — is inspired by less traditional sources (more Watson & Crick than a red wheelbarrow). “I am amazed that poets will continue to write about their divorces, even though there is currently a robot taking pictures of orange ethane lakes on Titan.”
***
— Benjamin Samuel is co-editor of Electric Literature. He looks forward to the day when natural selection will be our first line of defense for bad poetry. You can find him here.
