So, let me start by saying that I realize that poetry is not for everyone. This is true for old poetry, with its repetitive rhymes and rigid structure, but it is also exceptionally true for much of modern poetry, which can sometimes read like some sort of self-indulgent exercise in emotional riddle-making.
But, after hearing an interview with poet Franny Choi, I couldn’t wait to get a hold of her new book of poetry, Soft Science. I usually love poetry and was intrigued by the ways Choi said she wove together the threads of politics, gender, sexuality and technology in her new collection. She also said that she did so using the language of technology and science, which I thought had to be super cool.
When I finally received my copy though, I realized that I may have overlooked some very important details of my own educational prowess before deciding that I could read this book. I am an English and History major who has always worked in Education. I can’t even do an excel spreadsheet, to be honest. So, suddenly diving into a volume of poetry composed almost entirely with technical language was going to be an interesting challenge.
My first reaction to Choi’s collection was anger and frustration. I believe that art should be accessible to everyone. It’s hard to tell people that academics aren’t judging us from their ivory towers and then read a book of poetry that is utterly incomprehensible. Plus, reading reviews from literary types that label said incomprehensible collection of poetry as a work of genius just throws salt in the wound. Honestly, I feel the same way when I see a Jackson Pollock painting. I’m an educated woman; I like academic-y things; I like artsy things. Why don’t I get it?
Enlightenment, however, comes in the strangest of places. So, for my ultimate enjoyment of Soft Science, I have to thank cats.
Soft Science
Franny Choi is a queer, Korean-American poet, currently with two published volumes of poetry and prose, Floating, Brilliant, Gone and Soft Science, and one chapbook, Death by Sex Machine. Choi has competed and placed in some of the nation’s most prestigious poetry slams and has had her work published in many locations, including Poetry magazine, The Huffington Post, and American Poetry Review. Her poetry focuses intently on identity, particularly Asian-American identity and sexual identity. Choi also uses her poetry as a method of activism, speaking openly about politics and policy.
Soft Science uses the structure of the Turing Test for its organizational basis. The Turing Test (for those of you, like me, who aren’t as familiar with science and technology things) was developed by Alan Turing as a method for calculating a machine’s ability to mimic human behavior. Essentially, it’s a way to see whether or not Artificial Intelligence will ever be able to actually communicate on a human level. Thus, the beginning of this collection begins with a series of poems that are pretty much incomprehensible. They fail the Turing Test. However, as the collection continues, Choi’s speaker “improves” its grasp of human communication and the ideas become more clear. This structure also mimics the ways in which immigrants adjust to a new society, women adjust to a world of men, and citizens adjust to new government. All of these ideas are interwoven into her poems at varying rates of clarity.
Although I found this lack of clarity frustrating at times (and you might as well), I would like to suggest first reading this article about an AI neural network that was developed for naming cats before diving into Choi. This neural network, which was trained to produce typical cat names, spit out thousands of cat names at varying rates of success. For example, some of my favorite names were “Scat Cat Butthole” and “Kill All Humans.” Of course, these names are ridiculous and hilarious, but they also present an accurate understanding of how humans conceive of cats. My cat, named Mable, is a snuggly, soft, destruction machine of death. While she’s never killed a human, she has killed some chairs and door jambs and the carpet on the top stair. So, despite the fact that the neural network hasn’t quite got the name thing down, it has essentially got down what humans think about cats.
Choi’s Soft Science essentially does the same thing. The poems are not always comprehensible. They do not always communicate in a way that is satisfying. But, they do get to the root of the matter. They break down our understanding of the world around us and parrot it back in a way that makes us think and question our own acceptance of the world and the ways in which we sacrifice our humanity just to avoid the discomfort of confronting the world’s problems. So, if you pick up a copy of Soft Science and it doesn’t immediately appeal to you, think about why that might be. Push through. Ask questions. And, if all else fails, go look at some AI generated cat names.
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