Poet Lillian-Yvonne Bertram talks with Nat and Nino about using code to write poems, the simple pleasures of button pushing, going slow to go fast, unsupervised AI on the internet, and how to stop the machine apocalypse (hint: unplug em).
This episode begins with a reading of “A New Sermon on the Warpland.” Thanks to the Poetry Society of America for letting us use this audio! You can find another version of this poem in its form as digital performance here along with so many other fabulous poems and projects in computer-human hybridity at lillianyvonnebertram.com.
With Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an Associate Professor of English, Africana Studies, and Art & Design at Northeastern University. They have previously taught at St. Lawrence University, Ithaca College, and Williams College. They also direct the Chautauqua Institution Writers’ Festival.
They are the author of the poetry collections Travesty Generator (Noemi Press, 2019), winner of the 2018 Noemi Press Poetry Prize and finalist for the National Poetry Series. Travesty Generator received the 2020 Poetry Society of America Anna Rabinowitz Prize for interdisciplinary and venturesome work. They are also the author of Personal Science (Tupelo Press, 2017); a slice from the cake made of air (Red Hen Press 2016); and But a Storm is Blowing From Paradise (Red Hen Press, 2012), chosen by Claudia Rankine as the winner of the 2010 Benjamin Saltman Award. Bertram’s other publications include the chapbook cutthroat glamours (Phantom Books, 2012), winner of the Phantom Books chapbook award; the artist book Grand Dessein (commissioned by Container Press), a mixed media artifact that meditates on the work and writing of the artist Paul Klee and was recently acquired by the Special Collections library at St. Lawrence University; and Tierra Fisurada, a Spanish poetry chapbook published in Argentina (Editoriales del Duende, 2002). They collaborated with the artist Laylah Ali for the exhibition booklet of her 2017 art show The Acephalous Series.
