It started as textual deformation, by reading backwards like Samuels and McGann, but after a series of overlapping systemic deformations, using popular media forms and translation programs, it might aesthetically constitute a glitc(hy) poetics. However, unlike Menkman’s works, my glitchy deformance lacks a revolutionary framework, and has no intention to upset the social order. What it really is, is a deformed text processed by translational glitches, which aligns this art most closely with Mark Sample’s attempts to take Humpty Dumpty apart. It is open ended research, not theory. I wanted to see what happens when you fuck up a famous poem, numerous times, using popular translational mediums, just to see what happens.  The weird thing is, I kind of like the final poem, which might say something about myself, or the arbitrary nature of poetics, or both. Can you guess the original poem in its deformed state?

The Bootcamp works backwards to the original text.

6) These are my final creations:

Final audio-text 1

Final text-audio 2

5) The final translation was taking the Backwards-Amplab-Dickinson-Poemhunter-Siri-GoogleTranslate text, and feeding it through Voki.com and imtranslator.net’s text-to-audio programs. I couldn’t decide whether I liked the Scottish-female voiced Elf or the creepy American guy, so I kept both. Each virtual-reader enunciates differently, so each audio file would yield different audio-to-text results if we sent them back through isolated audio-to-text programs.

4) Translation games: I translated the Backwards-Amplab-Dickinson-Poemhunter-Siri text using Google Translate from English to French, and then from French to English:

After the English-French-English translation:

Dickinson or blond man of truth must dazzle gradually with the kind of exclamation like lightning to the children eased the moment too bright grass truths surprised to arm the success of the light in the circuit is telling the whole truth, but missed the whole truth

3) I read the Backwards-Amplab-Dickinson-Poemhunter text to Siri. The first few attempts were really accurate, so for the sake of the assignment and my desire to confuse Siri, I stepped away from the phone and read really quickly. I then emailed the note from my phone, to my Gmail account, and copied it to here:

Dickinson or everyman blonde the truth must dazzle gradually with exclamation kind as lightning to the children eased the moment the truths of herbs surprised too bright for arm from the light success in circuit lies tell all the truth but let it slip tell all the truth

Siri pays even less attention to grammar than Poemhunter.com, doing away with commas, dashes, and the capitals. There are obviously some odd word choices going on as well. Personally, I like Siri’s opening line, “Dickinson or everyman blonde” and also “the children eased the moment the truths of herbs surprised too bright”.

2) Taking pointers from Samuel and McGann, I re-ordered the Dickinson-Poemhunter collaboration backwards:

Emily Dickinson

Or every man be blind.

The truth must dazzle gradually

With explanation kind,

As lightning to the children eased

 

The truth’s superb surprise;

Too bright for our infirm delight

Success in circuit lies,

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,

Tell All The Truth

I have chosen to keep ‘Emily Dickinson’ and the “Tell All The Truth” title as part of the new text. Each line is cut and pasted directly from the Poemhunter site, and as such, the formatting differences from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tell-all-the-truth/ to https://www.amplab.ca/wp-admin/post-new.php to the page you are viewing now, exemplify the transitive deformation between digital mediums.

1) The first deformation is reading Emily Dickinson online, via google search for “emily dickinson poems slant”. I used the first hyperlink, and copied a rendering of Dickinson’s Tell All the Truth (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/tell-all-the-truth/). There is a material deformation from the original chapbooks Dickinson created, to whatever un-sourced anthology the fine people at Poemhunter used, and a further deformation from the un-cited  source to the online presentation, viewed via laptop (in my case). Note the use of a comma after the first line’s slant, and the last line’s ‘blind’. Usually these lines end with Dickinson’s (in)famous ellipsis/semicolon/enjambment /disjointing “—“. This dash is already materially deformed between Dickinson’s original chapbooks and later texts fit for the printing press. Poemhunter.com has opted, boldly, yet probably by accident, for commas—

Tell All The Truth

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth’s superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

Emily Dickinson