Writing Through the Mutant Continuum a book review of
Poetechnics: Designs from the New World poerty by
Yaxkin Melchy translated by Ryan Greene
Reading Yaxkin Melchy’s collection Poetechnics: Designs from the New World (Cardboard Press, 2023) was a mediation on curiosity. Rarely do I walk away from a collection where I’m just as hypnotized by the author’s ethos as I am their work. Often these aspects inform one another, I see who a poet is via their work. But after reading the collection, I was hungry for both more poetry by Melchy and to pick his brain. Where does someone get the idea (the gall!) to fuse what is often seem diametrically opposed—science and poetry; the objective and subjective? When one completes the collection, they are greeted by Ryan Greene’s translator’s note which states that Poetechnics is a selection of poems derived from Melchy’s decade long project, THE NEW WORLD, which he began as a 21-year old industrial design student. Without sounding too corny, this collection functions as a machine. The invention, or perhaps, the world Melchy develops is the Poetechnics— “a scientific imaginary rooted in the heart, and a sensitive understanding of scientific theories and methods in order to overcome the modern world’s poetic disconnection.” Throughout the collection form, language, and muse are not bent, but rather, adapted to reflect our Digital Age. Titles are shifted around the page, the poems have become diagrams. We are in an era where we consume more information than generations past. Poetechnics embodies that everythingness.
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