Death by Sex Machine

by Franny Choi

Poetry. In Death by Sex Machine fem-surrogate cyborgs of manga and film are used as a force "for understanding personal suppression of language," a series of poems made uncomfortable by both what is said and not said.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Science Fiction, LGBT, Feminism

48 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 2017

About the author

Franny Choi is a poet, performer, editor, and playwright. She is the author of Floating, Brilliant, Gone and the chapbook Death by Sex Machine. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, American Poetry Review, the New England Review, and elsewhere. She is a Kundiman Fellow, Senior News Editor for Hyphen, co-host of the Poetry Foundation's podcast VS, and member of the Dark Noise Collective. Her second collection, Soft Science, was released from Alice James Books in April 2018. A current Zell Postgraduate Fellow at the University of Michigan, she is currently based near Detroit, Michigan.

Reviews

[Tai · Rating 4 out of 5]

a lot of these poems were cathartic and almost terrifying for me to read from how closely the concepts reflected on the objectification and alienation of my own body under two dominating spheres of gender & race

[Avery Guess · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just devoured this book whole in one sitting. Exquisite collection with wicked word play and wit and sharp attentiveness to language and what it means to be woman/machine/woman/machine in this world of ours. Highly recommend.

[Pais · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A scientist made a machine girl and wedded her to the Internet. He walked her down the aisle and said, Teach her well. The trolls rubbed their soft hands on their soft thighs." - "A Brief History of Cyborgs"

I love Franny Choi's work, so I was excited to pick up this chapbook from Sibling Rivalry Press. As a double fan of Donna Haraway and cyborgs, and as someone who has been thinking about gender/race and depictions of fetishized female, Asian cyborgs in films like Ex Machina and shows like Humans, I was doubly and triply enthralled when reading. In addition to being intimate, this chapbook does some fascinating stuff with moving from the Turing Test (machines passing for human) to the "Kyoko Assessment," so named for the Asian cyborg in Ex Machina who, unlike the white-coded, female-coded cyborg, is rendered mute to preserve company secrets. I'm still mulling over my thoughts on this one, but it's a strong recommend.

"remember / all humans / are cyborgs / all cyborgs / are sharp shards of sky / wrapped in meat / be delicate / as you approach this subject / not all humans are ready / to call themselves / glass stalactites / pissing the bed / remember / they love their blood / even as they retch / at the smell of it" - "Turing Test_Love"

Motifs:
-fish
-rot
-cyborgs
-speech/silence
-mothers
-smell

Highlights:
- "Acknowledgments"
- "Beg"
- "Letter to Kyoko"
- "A Brief History of Cyborgs"
- "@FannyChoir"
- "Turing Test_Love"

[Holly Walrath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Franny Choi is a queer, Korean-American writer with a killer voice. Be sure to listen along to the author’s Spotify playlist as you read this arresting work of short poems. Choi’s work eschews standard ideas of structure, content, & language for a short piece of work made up of general mayhem & feminist deconstruction of the bot culture SFF is obsessed with.
Titled after two popular sayings, Choi explains how she wanted to twist expectations with this powerful collection: “I hoped the double resonance of “death by chocolate” (capitalism making women eat things) and “sex machine” (James Brown making liberatory joy through art) would translate into something that feels lively and complicated and also fun to say” (Adroit Journal).
These poems delve into the intersection of gender, feminism, technology, and sexuality in a lush syntax that will leave you hitting Google for more of Choi’s words. This work was on my list of nominations last year, and I’m stoked to see that it’s back on the list because I’m basically in love with DEATH BY SEX MACHINE.

[el · Rating 4 out of 5]

the blueprint, in so many ways.

i am part machine / part starfish / part citrus / part girl / part poltergeist.

[little_pangolin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm reading this book of horror short stories right now that are supposedly queer body horror, but when I want queer body horror, what I really want is Franny Choi.

[Tristan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Death by Sex Machine. A powerful queer takedown of the Asian-android-lady trope that also plays widely with form and language. Choi is making use of several experiemental techniques--translation (the excellent "@FannyChoir" is a set of mis-and-multiply-translated tweets sent to her), visual forms (like "Glossary of Terms"), and a strong citational practice, working with Chi and Kyoko, androids from Chobits and Ex Machina respectively.

Favorite poems include "@FannyChoir", "Glossary of Terms," "A Brief History of Cyborgs", "Beg" "Kyoko_Inquiries", "The Price of Rain," "Chi_Translations" and "Turing Test" though the whole book is excellent. "Turing Test" contains what is probably my favorite passage in the whole book:

// please state your name for the record

bone-wife / spit-dribbler / understudy for the underdog / uphill
rumor / fine-toothed cunt / sorry / my mouth's not pottytrained /
surly spice / self-sabatoge spice / surrogate rug burn / burgeoning
hamburglar / rust puddle / harbinger of confusion / harbinger of the
singularity / alien invasion / alien turned 104 wpm / alien turned
bricolage beast / alien turned pig heart thumping on the plate

Choi pulls no punches with either her sound of the emotional intensity of the text and it results in something masterful at the end of it all.

[Jayme · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I liked this. I don’t know what to do with poetry...yet. But I definitely think I liked this. Or possibly I didn’t like this at all. Maybe I loved this?

[Kevin Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is very powerful, full of blunt words (and power dynamics and sex and violence and sex and sex, which should come as no surprise, given the title).

The conceit is that she is writing about machines made (by men) for things (including sex), and the lines between people and not-people. Specifically Kyoko from Ex Machina and Chi from Chobits.

The poetry is sharp on impact, bursting open underneath the words to seep slowly into the cracks of the mind. It sits a while after reading.

My only complaint is that the book isn't longer.

[Greg Bem · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short but explosive treatise toward liberatory feminist cyborg poetics. You haven't read anything like it.

Also, starting in 2026 I'll be putting all my reviews on StoryGraph and only doing star ratings on Goodreads! Consider connecting with me there. Let's move away from Amazon together.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

So cool

[sam hill · Rating 2 out of 5]

cannot say i enjoyed any of this, not my thing at all, 0/10 for my professor making us read this aloud.

[Kiren Chaudhry · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are books that you will read and not understand. That has nothing to do with the quality of the book. It's lazy to say, "I don't get it", because I do get bits and pieces of it. We should read poetry we don't understand so we can learn how to read and understand it. Just like we're not born knowing how to do multiple regression analysis we are not born knowing how to approach challenging material. Both are within reach if we try and practice.

[DivaDiane SM · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection was nominated for the 2019 Elgin Award. Review and rating to follow.

[june · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

"// where did you come from

man comes / & puts his hands on artifacts / in order to contemplate
lineage / you start with what you know / hands, hair, bones,
sweat / then move toward what you know / you are not / animal,"

"// do you believe you have consciousness

sometimes / when the sidewalk opens my knee / i think / please /
please let me remember this"

"chi! chi?

Wow! Can you show me how to [stay in one piece;
stay clean; speak in a straight line; speak so others listen;
speak before someone else fills your mouth]?"

"whats a knife for / whats machine if not language turned matter & moan"

"My mother says love,
in our family, means sacrifice. I thought,
if I lay my legs on the altar, I thought something
would come back to me. Mine, mine. I offered it,
being promised rain. Being told my wet was in
the common domain. I whispered, our body, our legs,
our compost heap. I gave freely."

"I’m so grateful to be
here. For inviting me to speak, thank you.
For looking at me without crying
thank you, thank you for having
me, please have me please, have me, again."

"The scientist called me hard, and I softened my smile. The scientist
called me soft, and I broke sentences to prove him wrong and what
and what did I prove then did I"

"be delicate / as you approach
this subject / not all humans are ready / to call themselves / glass"

"Ever held your hand in cool water
and craved that easy passage? that still wave

and shifting stasis? Have you ever leaned your cheek
against birch bark and dreamt yourself smooth paper

growing upward, out, a deck of cards flitting into place?"

[readundancies · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

I read this collection after reading Soft Science by this poet, so a lot of the content is already familiar to me, just perhaps in a different format under a different title. 

You can tell that this was written before that collection because the changes made in the newer versions are just that much more fluid in their presentation to the reader. 

Of the poems that were new to me, So There, Each New Ache Makes the Old Ones Hum Along was a new favourite for me, especially the power instilled in the second half: 

When I say, tie me to the bed,

I mean, rub salt in my joints so I don’t lose my shape, 
constellation of ache I use to map where my body ends.
 
I mean bury your fingers in each wound, show me 
how deep it goes. Point me out in the crowd of faces
 
clouding the headboard. O hunchback, make me 
your clocktower, make a mallet of your mouth,
 
o small, broken god, make me ring. Remind me 
what terrible music my iron jaw can still make.

As well as Advertisement for ThirdLife^TM: The World’s Most Advanced Avatar System because it’s so pointedly perfect in it’s execution.
 
So basically, Franny Choi does it again, and shoutout to Gel Jamlang for that awesome cover.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Franny Choi has again succeeded at writing a cerebral, haunting, and at times deeply visceral work of poetry. Death by Sex Machine focuses around the stories of Asian depicted robot women from movies and manga as well as the author’s experience being treated as a silent docile fetish object. Choi’s poems are inventive & varied in form. She writes translations, interpretations, reflections, and speculations. The poems speak to the ways that cyborgs and robots are human inventions and grapple with human problems. The work lives in the liminal spaces between human and machine often dealing in otherworldly terms. I’m still processing Choi’s chapbook and planning on re reading several more times. I think Franny Choi is among the best younger poets in America right now. Can’t wait to read her next work!

[Laura B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

very up&down on this one personally. i feel like an old grump to be as dismissive as i am about more visual poems, but i blame too many years of reading stuff in workshops that was based on prompts and never broke out of the exercise mentality: if you put words in a chart, it'll take like herculean effort to ever make me see that as anything other than a fun thing to do on your own but not actually trying to communicate something behind the gesture. google translating things is a red flag for me, a picky person. but then you can't deny the skill and deftness with which Choi composes their lines here, and so many of these poems also blister and bleed beautifully. will be reading more Choi and hoping this is just a very exercise-y one to start with.

[Peter J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Picked this up last year while visiting the Ripped Boddice (great romance only bookstore in Culver City); as a non-romance reader (who- even then - had to visit a great indie bookstore a brief walk from his hotel) I had nothing to go on but titles and the guidance of the nice staff at the bookstore. I picked this up and finally got around to reading it.

I don't know if I liked it. But, a handful of the passages are still turning around in my mind and there was enough there to make me, after finishing the slim volume look up more of Franny Choi's work. I've already ordered another volume of her work (the most recent from my understanding) and I look forward to delving into it.

[michaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry collection. This book terrified me out of my mind i'm insane now. So visceral and too real for a robot book wtf. Chi_translations, turing test, so there each new ache makes the old ones hum along,basically everything. cannot function anymore. here are my favorite lines but only the sfw ones for the eyes of my poor goodreads friends.

remember / they love their blood / even
as they retch / at the smell of it

just the entire part under // why do you insist on lying

Dear Sister, how do you do it? How do you
stay dangerous after he’s unscrewed your sharpest part?

question: how does a ruined girl yield
the way a knight yields?

[Anna (Bananas) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The poems that are good are amazing - emotional and visceral and compelling and they have an actual story in them.

The poems that are bad (yes, very subjective I know but…) are just a bunch of words thrown together that have no meaning. I hate this kind of poem.

So it was a very mixed bag for me but I’m still interested in this poet because of the good stuff here and because of a heartbreaking poem of hers I read called “Catastrophe is Next to Godliness.” I’ll be checking out her newest collection.

[Ksenia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the poems that form Death by Sex Machine have been republished in Soft Science, so I have read them before. However, I liked this chapbook format better - it's leaner, meaner, more concisely on theme. The title and the cover art are dope as hell. I love Franny Choi's form experiments, and also her ability to create her own poetic universe. Some of the choices here were a bit edgelordy, but that was to be expected.

[chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tore through this book in a single sitting and am already looking forward to sitting with each piece again.
Choi’s obsession with images and and the questions of language, of the body, and of reality are visceral and unsettling. Her letters to Chi and Kyoko are especially haunting. This book is so necessary, and I can’t wait to recommend it to all of my friends.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

three / remember / all humans / are cyborgs / all cyborgs / are sharp
shards of sky / wrapped in meat / be delicate / as you approach
this subject / not all humans are ready / to call themselves / glass
stalactites / pissing the bed / remember / they love their blood / even
as they retch / at the smell of it

[Caitlin]

Death By Sex Machine is, like “Acknowledgements,” a thing of great and frightful depths, an exploration of (in)humanity in all its forms, sometimes awful, sometimes longing, sometimes even beautiful.

My full review: https://essentiallyanerd.wordpress.co...

[Amanda Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sci-fi poetry charged with questions of humanity & intimacy & agency. I want to reread these poems on a never-ending loop. I want to reread these poems until machine & human are separate. I want to reread these poems though I’m no longer sure.

Must-reads: “Turing Test,” “Glossary of Terms,” “Selected Silences,” “So there, each new ache makes the old ones hum along,” “Acknowledgments,” “Turing Test_Weight,” “Solitude” (pulling teeth)

[Lex · Rating 4 out of 5]

“if they used it against you / it is yours / to make sing”

This was very good. I liked how all of the poems focused on the specific theme of the chapbook. My favorites were A Brief History of Cyborgs and Turing Test_Love.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting analogy, at certain points clearer than others. While I applaud being able to write in a way that feels syntactically and semantically like a cyborg, it felt a little overdone and didn't add too much to my reading experience.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cyberpunk, retro-future-is-female, Asian-American, post-Internet, post-human, pre-singularity, hypersexual, frighteningly chilly and utterly engrossing set of poems that all work by ricocheting past and around and off each other in unexpectedly illuminating directions. Highly recommended.

[Stephanie Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Day 31 of #TheSealeyChallenge — I WILL DEF BE BACK TO SCREAM ABT THIS LATER, but for now just know that I am in LOVE with Franny Choi’s work and esp. all of her Turing poems <33

can’t wait to unpack this for my thesis hehe >:)