Meet Me In the Middle

By Gordon B. Isnor & Christopher C. Yorke

While reading this small zine of poetry two thoughts entered my head.

First: Poetry is weird, and usually it doesn’t really appeal to me very much (at least in written form, I have more time for it as spoken word).

Second: The repetition and word choice throughout these poems made me think that a computer wrote them.

To my surprise, I discovered on the last page of this zine that a computer did write these poems!

You can check out the website here It’s a pretty simple thing that takes in words and phrases and spits them out again in a random order. I think if someone spent time inputting a lot of different phrases they could probably create some neat stuff, but I didn’t do that.

Instead I quickly plugged in most of the words of this review in small chunks, and managed to make some poems of my own, which I think are better (or at least less obscene) than the ones in this zine.

on the last page
that a computer did
I discovered
entered my head
The repetition

To my surprise
and word choice
and usually
of poetry
I discovered

First:
time for it as spoken word
throughout these poems
in the middle
and usually

And finally, the especially poignant:

write these poems
While reading this
Second
First:
it doesn’t really appeal

Poetry!

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)