Isotopes

by Dan Zimmerman. 2001 16 pages. Frame Publications.

Book Review by

A tremendously fun book, with amazement on each page and humor also - follows the drifting imagination and it is startling how it shifts and that shifting pops the mind into yes, I see. Chance generated from 4x4 wordsquares and run through an anagram generator and then downsized to these neat 14 line poems this poetry engages the tech.stuff of this mod. world. Most contemporary high-tech poetry runs like this: poet thinks of an idea and puts it on the web. Web proves the poet’s idea not poetry (mainly because the poet doesn’t do any poetry anyway). But Hear: Here then in ISOTOPES, Zimmerman, smart read deep, Gnostic poet imagines and writes, engages the writing with some form of tech, here anagram generator, and then reengages with imagination, his poet imagination, engages the raw material and produces poetry. This is the way to deal with poetry with tech. Ah. Zimmerman shows us the path through all the websites, emails, hypertext dull forest of unpoetic silliness. He makes poetry. Look for the light. He lives in New Jersey!

Made with ♥ in Baltimore.

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