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

Forms of Poetry: Diastic

"Diastic" is a word coined by Jackson Mac Low from the Greek words "dia" (through) and "stichos"(a line of writing, a verse). He termed it as deterministic method that relied on the use of two texts:

Seed Text
Source Text

The Matched Asymmetries are derived from their sources by "diastic reading-through procedures".

In employing such procedures, the writer reads through the source text, taking into the poem each successive unit which has the letters of the source words in corresponding places. The first linguistic unit in the poem begins with the first letter of the first word of the title or other seed, the second unit has the second letter of the first word of the seed in its second place, and so forth, possibly through multiple passes through the source string.

In the creation of the Diastic poem, Major Concern for Squatters, Major Concern I selected this article from the daily newspaper as my Source Text. You can use poems as well for the Source Text and Seed Text.

The front page story of the Nation on July 18 highlighted that some squatters had been given enforcement notice to move from Oldbury and this was followed by another article, two days later, by the same newspaper, on squatters mushrooming in a "Zone 1" area adjacent to Blenheim.

In the latter case, the water course runs into the Belle aqueduct and is then pumped to most of our reservoirs by the Belle pumping station. I compliment the newspaper for highlighting this problem relating to water region which is now likely to become a health hazard. I say this because the water table in the Belle is the country's most precious source; and Barbados is dependent on this to supply our nationals, our livestock, our tourism and our manufacturing industries.

The purity of the water must not be compromised if we are to survive physically and economically. If we know that contamination of or water supply would be irresponsible and not immediately reversible, why not be strict with our regulations? It urgently becomes necessary for the responsible powers (if there is such) to arrest this modality which is increasing and being ignored by the policing powers.

On the other side of the coin, Barbados now finds itself with a problem where persons who want to improve their social status and would like to own a residence, are unable to purchase the relevant entities. Most of them opt for the less expensive option of becoming squatters with minimal overheads.

There is an urgency associated with their need for housing; and this cannot be ignored. This is similar to a revolt since their actions continue and are being done in full view of everyone and without fear of being caught in spite of the item being highlighted in our daily newspaper.

It would be a wise move if such signals are not ignored by the authorities but are acted upon before it develops into a genuine social revolt as erupted in 1937.

The article of 20th July states that the residents have either water nor electricity but this is not true for all of them. Some of the installations of utilities were done (in my personal opinion) much faster than for non-squatters.

There still has to be concern about the disposal of faeces, other waste products, collection of garbage, use of chemicals to control weeds and pollution that occur as the population density increases. This increase in numbers is inevitable especially when others requiring similar commodities realize that no action will be taken to arrest the potential disastrous circumstance in the Belle.

I would like therefore to, enquire on the status and requirements needed to build in this area as I do not believe our Town & Country Planning Department should/would allow such circumstances to prevail.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the squatters' goals of wanting to have their own home but should this be done at the detriment of our water resource which can ruin our economy if/when it affects any (if not all) of our sectors. This type of venture needs to be regulated.

I will conclude with this quote from the July 22 SUNDAY SUN article One World which give the social studies panacea: "At first, a few violate the social norms, but as more people violate them, the actions become the norm."

Then, after reading it through the Source Text I selected my Seed Text, Major Concerns for Squatters, Major Concern. This Seed Text in essence becomes the title of the poem.

In crafting the poem I read through the Source text, taking into the poem each successive unit which has the letters of the source words in corresponding places. The first linguistic unit in the poem begins with the first letter of the first word of the title or other seed, the second unit has the second letter of the first word of the seed in its second place, and so forth, until the seed text is completed through the source string, these I have numbered to show how the Diastic structure evolves.

As you will readily see the Diastic is contrasted to "Acrostic." (from "akros" (an extreme, such as the letter at the beginning or end of a verse line). "Acrostic" reading-through procedures draw words and other linguistic units from source texts by "spelling out" their titles with linguistic units that have the letters of the words in the titles as their initial letters. One reads through a source text and finds successively linguistic units spelling out the title as follows: the units spelling out individual words comprise single lines (often long ones) and the series of lines spelling out the whole title comprises a stanza. (The "asymmetries" are nonstanzaic but still partially acrostic.)

Major Concern for Squatters, Major Concern
1 2345 1 23 4 567 123 1 2 34 567 89 1 2345 1 23 4 567

(Diastic)

1 Move
2 was
3 adjacent
4 Into
5 reservoirs'

1 Complement
2 for
3 manufacturing
4 which
5 increasing
6 authorities
7 residents

1 for
2 some
3 were

1 Still
2 squatters
3 studies
4 panacea
5 first
6 violate
7 violate
8 squatters
9 squatters

1 Mushrooming
2 latter
3 adjacent
4 into
5 water

1 Case
2 social
3 runs
4 circumstances
5 Belle,
6 electricity,
7 planning...

Click here to read the poem

Source Text

Don't uproot them!
Brief
by TREVOR YEARWOOD
NO BULLDOZERS, please!
Government's adviser on eradicating poverty, Hamilton Lashley, made this plea yesterday in the wake of notices the Town Planning Department sent to several squatters in Oldbury, St Philip, to move on.
"To bring the bulldozers in and uproot so many persons at one time is inhumane and not in sync with Government's commitment to help the poorest of the poor," Lashley told the SATURDAY SUN.

"I am not one to encourage people to squat, but it would be sociological madness, pure and simple, just to uproot them like that, to send in the bulldozers and lick down their houses. "There must be a more palatable solution, there must be a more humane solution."

Lashley said Government needed to "sit down and talk" with Oldbury's more than 60 squatters to find practical solutions, which could include "regularising" their status or helping them to find alternative sites.
"You just can't wake up one morning and give people notice to move like that, especially people who have been living on the same spot for many years," the former Minister of Social Transformation argued.
"I have talked to some of these people and I know that in that 28-day period more than half of those people will not be able to find alternative sites. "The irony of it is that many of these same people now facing the threat of being pushed off the land would have applied to the National Housing Corporation many years ago for a house-spot or a unit to rent and never heard one word from the NHC."

Vast demand

The Member of Parliament for St Michael South East charged that the NHC, by its inability to respond adequately to the vast demand for low-income housing "solutions", and a short-sighted state building programme that failed to anticipate that Government units would be "bursting at the seams" within two decades of being built, were partly to blame for some of the squatting. You think there is only squatting in Oldbury and The Belle? There is squatting in almost all Government housing schemes, where people are adding on to the original structures to accommodate family and close friends," Lashley declared.

"When you are building, you have to build with a vision, you have to build with a plan for the future, but the people responsible for construction of a lot of the Government units, especially those in The Pine, never foresaw that within two decades you would have massive overcrowding there. "In some cases we have 14 to 16 people living in one small two-bedroom unit and sharing one toilet. They have to sleep on the chairs, they have to sleep on the ground, some have to sleep close to the toilet." Lashley said these people found themselves between a rock and a hard place, forced to endure such conditions at home or to venture out to squat because they could not get land or houses to rent or buy.

"Therefore Government has to make houses available in a massive way to the poorest of the poor," he added. He said in the case of The Belle, a vital source of water for Barbadians, the solution might lie in establishing a waste treatment plant and allowing the squatters to stay. "It is time to stop the talk and get on with the job," he added.
Nation News.com
Barbados Leading Newspaper/July 28, 2007

Poor
1 2 3 4

(Diastic)

Poverty notices poorest poor

1 2 3 4

People to people years

1 2 3 4

People more those years

1 2 3 4

Parliament for short-sighted there

1 2 3 4

People too close over-crowding

1 2 3 4

People toilet ground there

1 2 3 4

Click here to read the poem

Squatters Paradise
1 2 3456789 / 123 4 5678

(Diastic)

Simple squatters squat palatable solutions squatter Minister squatters squatters
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Programme failed bursting decades building especially decades sentence
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Said squatters found squatters squat department declared therefore Oldbury's
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Palatable Barbadians hard demand bulldozers especially persons inhumane
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Click here to read the poem