This 10-centric issue features 23 remarkable works:
Not a truly odd number, because
that’s 10 in trivigesimal. There are not just numerical abstactions,
but projects about loss (
a
father’s death felt through rhymes of folklore), politics
(
perspectives on Puerto Rican
statehood) and existence (
the ways we ponder whether it makes
sense).
As is often the case, some of these computational poems render the textual as differently visual,
for instance, presenting
a color-coded Quenueau-like
arrangement.
Converting measurement units
may
seem sterile, but
it’s actually cultural communication, not to mention
an aesthetic and inviting process. Be sure, too, to see how a
moving
homage doubles down on and transmutes
Charles Demuth’s The
Figure 5 in
Gold.
There’s a generated
poem
with every word inTENse, and, even more severe, two that deal
with writing as discipline: In one case, it’s worse than
being slapped with
a wet noodle,
in the other, a
self-imposed self-improvement routine that breaks down.
If you want to follow the bouncing ball, you’ll need to
write univocalic
phrases,
and it wouldn’t hurt to maintain a poker face.
Text in a tower of powers,
generated by silicon, computes the number of the sand. If you prefer something edible,
the obsessed can
classify oatmeal in 10,000 ways. Two of
fortune’s wheels spin here,
one
forming phrases, the other
scattering words in star charts.
Conjunctions between historical events are presented with the accompaniment of sound,
briefly buzzing or (if you prefer)
painfully prolonged.