Code

by Charlotte Pence

Code features at its center a narrative sequence with three characters: a young father; a young mother who is dying from an inherited disease; and the mother’s own DNA. Considering exciting new developments in genetics such as CRISPR, which would allow us to eradicate certain diseases, this book approaches ethical questions from a poetic and narrative lens, providing an angle that science cannot.

Ultimately, Code is a book about grief—specifically, how to surmount it. The poems attest to how we preserve memory through nonverbal means such as cave art and DNA—as well as through story and poetry.

Genres: Poetry

Unknown Binding

First published July 1, 2020

About the author

Charlotte Pence is the author of Many Small Fires (Black Lawrence Press, 2015), The Branches, the Axe, the Missing (winner of the BLP Black River chapbook prize), and Weaves a Clear Night (winner of Flying Trout chapbook prize). A professor of English at Eastern Illinois University, Pence also edited The Poetics of Song Lyrics (University Press of Mississippi, 2012), which explores the intersections between poetry and songs.

Reviews

[Jeannette Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book at the crossroads of poetry and science.

[shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

a truly strong and powerful collection

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charlotte Pence has crafted a remarkable poetic narrative exploring ethical questions surrounding art, technology, science, motherhood, and grief.

[Sarah Giragosian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an astonishing collection, absorbed by the processes of inquiry that science and poetry might share. It deftly weaves together meditations about evolution, art, grief, maternity and technology. I'm in awe of Pence's dexterity, the lyric experiments and fascinating investigations into a genomic poetics that are the base notes of this capacious collection.

[Kent · Rating 3 out of 5]

The reach to connect science to poetry is assuredly an ongoing venture. Especially when the connecting point passes through human emotion. I’m always bewildered about whether poetry will discover its connecting point(s) that join the poetry to science. Or the poetry that will endeavor to cement that connecting point together.

I would say Pence opts for the poetry that has understood what connects the science and poetry for her. And her poems sound out that note. Proposing a scientifically minded poetics that is interested in what the science can help her understand, even as her personal treatment of a poem’s subject doesn’t think it will come to an understanding. It proves an interesting balance, a comment on science’s usefulness (as it provides a lens for observing, say, her friend dying from a degenerative disease), while still maintaining there are personal tragedies that don’t reveal something that explain themselves.

For my reading, the poems’ styles feel set (and settled) on realities the poet has determined will be the poem. A determination that is committed to how these realities can sound in on the subject. Like, for instance, the poem “Zwerp,” that sees frogs leaping, and the poet’s familiar walks with her dog, and a word, “zwer” used by hunters to signify partridges rushing into flight, all these realities fit into a consideration of human response to the world. How deep-seated responses like grief might be as much a human’s animal nature. And for Pence, this method is as much the reason for her book, as the various subjects her poem covers, like considering her friend’s illness and death, its timing, how humans have long responded to the world via archaic expressions like cave paintings. It leads to what feel like carefully crafted, even burnished poems. Which feels apt for what a monument to her friend. And her friend’s complex influence on her life since her death.

[Violeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Code is my favorite type of poetry collection- ambitious *as well as* accessible. Pence’s blending of science, history, and personal experience is brilliant, and yet her words read effortlessly, each one clicking perfectly into place so the reader takes in the complexity she presents so easily. And while each poem can stand on its own, taken together, the collection offers a powerful meditation on humanity through the prism of our genetic lineage and mortal limits. I loved this!

[Rita Quillen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The very best books are those that leave us stunned in some way, shocked, in wonder, and finally, changed. It may be the subject matter, the language, the insight into the human condition, the powerful presence of the voice, the sheer bravery of it. Charlotte Pence's new book of poetry CODE satisfies all those requirements! It's one of the most unexpected and innovative books of poetry I've ever read.

Obviously, we have to do a whole lot of living to produce a book of poems, and its a weird confluence of events that sparks a particular group of poems. Pence includes notes, essays, references to the people, places and events, allowing us inside her journals, inside the writing process itself, down the rabbit hole with her! to fully follow along on the intellectual, spiritual, and artistic journey the book chronicles.

And I must give praise to the editors of Black Lawrence Press for seeing the genius of it all and the absolute necessity of this somewhat unorthodox ( for lack of a better word) presentation. Many presses might have been unwilling or unable to see its merits.

This one is a gamechanger, and if you are interested in contemporary poetry and what's good about it and what's next, you will want to read CODE.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pence is a superior poet and writer. This is a very different way of going about poetry and observation, and she draws you into it in an intimate and compelling way. Its a lot about what it means to be human.