Apostrophe

by Bill Kennedy, Darren Wershler-Henry

you are entirely happy with your poem / you are not happy then there is no charge and your deposit is returned / you are totally satisfied with the outcome / you are a man / you are a little confused / you are entirely happy with your poem / you are not happy then there is no charge and your deposit is returned / you are totally satisfied with the outcome . . . ”Apostrophe” a) a figure of speech in which a person, an abstract quality or a nonexistent entity is addressed as though present b) a poem written in 1993 in which every sentence is an apostrophe c) a program-apostropheengine.ca-based on the 1993 poem that hijacks search engines in order to extend the poem infinitely d) a book of poetry written using the website The e) all of the above. Bill Kennedy and Darren Wershler-Henry’s Apostrophe contains all of these things, except the search engine (but you can visit that any time you like). Each line from the original poem has become the title of a new poem generated by the program’s metonymic romp through the World Wide Web. Phrases rub against each other promiscuously; poems and readers alike come to their own conclusions. The results are by turns poignant, banal, offensive and hilarious, but always surprising and always unaffected. In other words, everything a book of contemporary poetry should be, and then some. Poet and scholar Charles Bernstein has suggested that Apostrophe may be related to Freud’s notion of the uncanny, a somnambulistic drift that appears aimless yet somehow always returns to “you.” Apostrophe is an entirely new kind of neither stable nor unstable, sections come and go, but the overall shape of the poem remains vaguely familiar, like a trick of memory.

Genres: Poetry

293 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

William P. "Bill" Kennedy, born 1951, is the former editor-in-chief of A+ Publishing, including MacComputing, A+, and PC Games magazines. Kennedy was an early participant in Real World Interface (RWI) along with Grinnell More, inventor of the PackBot. When RWI combined with Colin Engle, Joe Jones and Helen Greiner of ISRobotics to form iRobot. Kennedy went on to co-found, along with CEO Jeanne Dietsch, ActivMedia Robotics (later MobileRobots Inc.) where he led development efforts for the Pioneer series, the reference platform for research robots. As of 2010 he is chief technical officer of MobileRobots Inc.

Bill Kennedy is a co-author, with Chuck Musciano, of HTML: The Definitive Guide and HTML & XHTML: The Definitive Guide by O'Reilly Media.

Reviews

[Alicia Zuto · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.6;)
At first I was hesitant about reading past the first couple of pages. Knowing the book was generated, I thought it lacked creativity. Then when I continued to read and realized the depth they went to, to think of this idea and proceed with it, I realize how much creativity it actually took. I sound like an unsure hypocrite but I'm very sure this is how I feel. I started to do the same process that they started out with (google searching a fav line from one of my own poems. Then Google searching whatever was my favorite response from the search.... Haha.
Ya. These authors filtered the search a bit by asking for the words "You Are" before each search in response to the search result. Ha
Took me a minute to realize the entire circular concept and it can send you on a world wind journey. An addicting one.
At first I thought they just (for lack of better words I refer to Google) "Google " searched the lines from a poem that one of the authors created years ago. They did break it up like that but then the responses were then sent through a search.
It inspired me by giving me a lot of ideas and subjects to touch upon in my own writing. It's like a book of inspiration when it comes down to picking your brain with subject ideas or just letting your mind run free. You can only read it in small doses because it's something that would be a waste if you weren't able to reflect deeply on whatever sparks you. I'm just going to randomly open up to a few pages and read a few lines I've highlighted to give you an idea of the wide array of subjects and possibilities.
- you are mixing memory with desire
- you want to sound tough around new people to tell them that your nickname in high school was ol Mr dick head
- accenting each word with a twist of a strand of hair
- you are a case of halitosis, gingivitis, dandruff and split ends all rolled up into one

[Rebecca]

This is a crazy wonderful little book, each line beginning "you are" is its own imperative but as a study in accumulation, the collective is in fact an apostrophe to the you that is (or was originally) one specific person that could also be and also is anyone and everyone. The text is, funnily enough, generated using internet search functions. Usually I would wrinkle my nose and say it sounds gimmicky, but considering the nature of the "you" and the apostrophe, it's actually kind of satisfyingly apt.