Ex Machina

by Jonathan Ball

A choose-your-own-adventure-style experimental long poem concerning the symbiosis of humans, books, and machines.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

87 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2010

About the author

Jonathan Ball is the author of three books: Ex Machina (BookThug, 2009), Clockfire (Coach House Books, 2010), and The Politics of Knives (Coach House Books, 2012). He also wrote the academic monograph John Paizs's Crime Wave (University of Toronto Press, 2014) about the cult film classic, and co-edited (with Ryan Fitzpatrick) Why Poetry Sucks: Humorous Experimental Canadian Poetry (Insomniac, 2014). He holds a PhD from the University of Calgary, with focuses in Canadian Literature and Creative Writing. He is the former Managing Editor of Dandelion magazine, the former film/video section editor at Filling Station, and the former short films programmer for the Gimli Film Festival. He writes the humour column Haiku Horoscopes (http://www.haikuhoroscopes.com), and can be found online at http://www.jonathanball.com and on Twitter @jonathanballcom.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man's very soul is due to the machines; it is a machine-made thing: he thinks as he thinks, and feels as he feels, through the work that machines have wrought upon him, and their existence is quite as much a sine qua non for his, as his for theirs.

- Samuel Butler, Erewhon

My impression: Where Jason Christie failed with i-ROBOT , Jonathan Ball has found more success with Ex Machina. The comparison may be superficial or outlandish - two Canadian poets, both writing outside of the tradition vein - one writing about machines (robots), the other writing a book that is a machine (ex machina). but the impression is a lasting one. Of course I am biased by my inabililty to finish Christie's I-ROBOT... Moreover, I prefer Ball's brand of minimalism to Christie's style (which I would characterize as overwrought and indulgent)...

This book is a machine.
It will use you to generate poems.

There are numbers.
If you follow these numbers,

then the book may follow you.
Otherwise, the book will continue

Ex Machina is a machine and more - a labyrinth of references and citations (appropriate that Ball should conjure Borges in the first line of the first poem).

[01]


The Book of Sand.[02]

The Book of Fire.[17]

The Book of Glass.[21]

* * *

[02]


The book that you read, seeking something.[60]

The book that you write, to discover.[52]

The book for which they burn you.[35]

The book the bacteria write in our bones.[08]

* * *

[03]


Please be aware of these risks.[19]

Do not operate without.[14]

Acknowledge the potential for failure.[18]

When I looked at the sky, I saw clouds forming chains.[63]

The title, aside from its reference to machines, establishes the book's structure - "deus ex machina" suggesting the intervention of a higher power, god or the author, upon the outcome or ending. Ex Machina, although structured like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" novel, follows a set path determined by the author. How's that for intervention?

[Cameron Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book through about half a dozen times in a row, and I still don't know what to make of it. It is certainly one of the most bizarre reading experiences, and one of my most unsettling ones. There is hundreds of ways to read it. This is a poem that defies the nature of poetry and fiction, questioning the relationship of writer and reader. One is as key to the creation of a narrative as the other. The reader and the book are intertwined entities that cannot exist independently, each shaping and reforming the other in turn. Reading this book is a bizarre, unnerving, thought provoking experience.

And it is wonderful.

[Holly Raymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jonathan Ball, some day in the future you will wish you'd said his name as much in 2010 as I did. A man who doesn't joke around about poetry, but is funny anyway. Ex Machina is the kind of collection that physically terrifies you. Also-- it's open source, which people have put to really interesting use. I used parts of it for a thing at a conference in NYU in the fall.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely

[Kathryn Mockler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book!

[Aiyana McKenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good.