“National Poetry Month” #1: Andrew McEwan

from error language

An error has occurred. 
              Diffusion immediately pops into daylight.
Particular mechanisms
                           arrange awkward in neural network.

Hands’ persistent toggle. Scan log is memory.
              Constellations of interpretation as patterns unfold.
The fate of moving light implicates further ink.
                           Incongruous embodiment.

An error of handling language becomes an error of error-language.
              Descriptive standard defaults
Sentence becomes disruptive
                           becomes translational iterate of original mis-scan.

Reader tests node’s belief in network realignment.
              Frozen screen again.
Fidelity is unsystematic in press of wires, as wires press limit
                           of automator sense.

The above poem by Andrew McEwan comes from the sequence “error language” which can be found in his 2012 book repeater. At the beginning of April, aka “National Poetry Month,” repeater was short listed for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, an award presented by the League of Canadian Poets to the best first book of poetry by a Canadian published the previous year. The BookThug Team is particularly pleased that Andrew’s book was shortlisted, and not just because we published it. It is an unexpected delight when a book like repeater – a poetic code programmed into a computer code – is recognized for its contribution to Canadian poetry. Congrats Andrew!

ANDREW MCEWAN is the author of repeater (BookThug, 2012), currently a finalist for the 2013 Gerald Lampert Award. and the chapbook Input / Output (Cactus Press, 2010). He is working on his M.A. at the University of British Columbia, where he is an organizer for the Play Cthonics reading series. repeater is his first book.