Ego-less and Deterministic Poetry

Ego-less poetry is just what it is…not egocentric. Poets from the western tradition use objects as a mode to express their intellectual sentiments using a variety of poetic devices. Looking at a field of growing okras, the poet would never say, for example “okras are in bloom ready to be harvested” or in some other simple way, but will use imagery sensors to plant images in the mind’s eye of readers by probably saying “okras are pregnant from the electrifying rays of the sun, the pattering rain gleefully massaging their feet in sodden shoes with the whispering sounds of the wind in their thanksgiving dance”. So, instead of calling a spade a spade, poets from the western tradition make use of various poetic devices such as similes, metaphors, personification and symbolism for their embellishment fix. These various poetic techniques allow these poets to inject themselves within the composition whether directly or through the “voice” or persona assigned to articulate the muse.

Ego-less poetry thrives on the concept of Zen that espouses the idea that objects should be seen in their true nature and not be distorted for one’s own self-centered gratification. This overarching use of romanticism in poetry is what propels egotistic gratification. Ego-less poetry would have none of that thus avoiding the use of “self” or “I” in any form or fashion in its chance or deterministic creations. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that poetry embellishment is a bad idea. On the contrary, I cannot imagine myself feasting on poetry without its seasoning and garnishes. Do you? As a side-dish, to balance the diet, ego-less poetry rises to the occasion by not putting the poet as the centre of gravity but rather as a by-stander.

Ego-less poetry is to be found in Japanese forms of poetry such as the Haiku and Senyru and in the poetry of the American poet, performance artist, composer and playwright Jackson Mac Low. He is no longer here with us in this 21st century. He died on December 8, 2004.

This diverse poet, Jackson Mac Low never referred to his poetry as “chance poetry" although other readers of his poetry did. The Dada movement of Western Europe the early and middle years of the last century in such writers as Louis Aragon and Tristan Tzara, just to mention a couple Dadaists described their creations as “chance poetry" because they used chance operations to create their poetry. It is a method of generating poetry independent of the poet’s will. A “chance operation” can be almost anything like throwing the dice, bingo or using the computer. Most poems created by chance operations use some form of “parent text” as their source. The source can be a clipping from the newspaper, magazine, poem or whatever. The purpose behind this approach is to play against the poet’s intentions and ego, while creating unusual syntax and images. The resulting poems allow the reader to take part in producing meaning from the work.

Even though Jackson Mac Low’s egoless poetry relied on a Parent Text to populate the Seed Text with his two methods, namely the Diastic reading-through procedure and the Acrostic reading-through procedure and his knowledge of the workings of computer programs that gave much inspiration he never described his creations as Chance poetry although Chance poetry uses similar platforms. He insistently referred to his brand of poetry as “deterministic” because of his use of “matched asymmetries”.

What is there to uncover about Jackson Mac Low’s brand of poetry?

With a clear understanding of computer-based applications and the knack for modifying those to suit his person Mac Low created two approaches to writing his deterministic poetry swimming in the egoless sea. A cursory analysis of his poetic creations suggests that he was not seeking answers to aleatoric and egoless forms of poetry. He was more concerned with experimenting with the various forms of computerized application programs to find out what would be the outcome when a particular algorithm was introduced into poetry. His focus was to empirically invent techniques of artistic production meeting certain criteria. The outcome of this experiment in poetry is found in two methods he created:

1.  Acrostic reading-through non-intentional text-selection procedures.

2. The Diastic reading-through non-intentional text-selection procedures. 

These two methods rely on a Source Text and a Seed Text. He employed these poetry generation techniques from April 1960 until January 1963. No doubt with the widespread use of computers in this 21st century his poetic technique has the potential of reaching even greater heights in modernistic poetry. However, the focus of this discussion is on his "Acrostic reading-through non-intentional text-selection procedures. So let's get started.

Here is how Mac Low described his Acrostic Method of Deterministic Poetry. The writer reads through a Source Text and finds successively words, phrases, sentence fragments, sentences, and or other linguistic units that have the letters of the Seed Text as their initial letters. I used this technique to produce the poem “Digging Up Earth" (Poetrynest.Blogspot.com). The next three crucial steps in the process are to identify them:

1. Source Text:
     

The 2010 Copiapó mining accident occurred on 5 August 2010, when part of the San José              copper-gold mine near Copiapó, Chile collapsed, leaving 33 men trapped deep below ground the miners survived underground for a record 68 to 69 days. All 33 were rescued and brought to the surface on 13 October 2010, with the first miner emerging from the Fénix 2 rescue capsule at 00:10 CLDT and the last at 21:55 CLDT. After the last trapped miner was winched to the surface, the rescue workers held up a sign stating "Misión cumplida Chile" English: Mission accomplished Chile to the estimated more than 1 billion people watching the rescue on live television around the world.

The San José Mine is about 45 kilometers (28 mi) north of Copiapó, in northern Chile. The miners were trapped at approximately 700 meters (2,300 ft) deep and bout 5 kilometers 3 mi from the mine entrance. The mine had a history of instability that had led to previous accidents, including death.

The retrieval of the first miner, Florencio Avalos, began on Tuesday, 12 October at 23:55 CLDT, with the rescue capsule reaching the surface 16 minutes later. By 21:55 CLDT on 13 October, all 33 miners had been rescued, almost all in good medical condition and expected to recover fully. Two miners were suffering from silicosis, one of whom also had pneumonia, and others were suffering from dental infections and corneal problems. Three of the rescued miners had immediate surgery under general anesthetics for dental problems.

The total cost of the rescue operation was estimated between US$10–20 million; a third covered by private donations with the rest coming from state-owned mining corporation Codelco and the government itself.

2.  Seeds Extracted from Source Text to Populate the poem ""Digging Up           Earth" as follows:

     The, Accident, August, part, of, gold, near, trapped, deep, ground,  history              underground, a, record, days, All, rescued, emerging, rescue, at, After, held,         up, English, accomplished, estimated, than, people, television, around, is,             about, in, northern, deep, entrance, instability, that, had, to, previous,                     accidents, including, death, retrieval, Avalos, Tuesday, rescue, reaching, tall,         and, expected,  recover, two, also,  pneumonia, dental, infections, under,               general, anesthetics,  third, donations, rest, government, itself.
     

3. Select a theme or title for the Seed Text poem as follows:
    Digging Up Earth

4. Compose the Poem

    Digging Up Earth

    

    Deep . in ground. gold . is . northern . gold

    Underground  . problems

    English . all . round . trapped . history
 
    Dig . immediate . gold. gold . in . northern .  ground
    Up . people.
    Even . a . rescue. Tuesday . had

    Dozens . in . gold . government . instability . near . ground
    Ugly . part
    Every . accomplished . rescue . two . held

    Deep . in . ground . government . instability . northern . gold
    Underground . problems
    Every. August . record . third . held

    Death . itself . gold . ground . infection . near . general
    Ultimately. pneumonia
    Even . Avalos . retrieval . television . held

    Donation. is. good . general . infections . near . ground
    Underlying part
    Emerging . accident . retrieval . Tuesday . history

    Dental . infections . ground . gold . in . near . general  

    Under . people 

    Emerging . all . round . trapped . history