By Jamie Bennett (Brooklyn, NY United States)

This review is from: Poegles: A Short History and Collection (Paperback)

There’s a meme floating around that Google is making us stupid. My first reply to this meme is, sounds like a good title for a poegle. My second reply is, only if we let it. In fact, Google probably makes us smarter, and it definitely helps us become more poetic.

Describing exactly how is the idea behind Poegles, first a blog, now a book by Dave Gunton and Justin Hendrix. (Full disclosure: I know both authors and have even written poegles with them.) The concept is simple: poem + Google = poegle. However, I have found that poegling’s results can be profound.

In the accepted scheme, language and poetry originate in a speaker or writer through an act of self-expression. Poegling upends this order, letting you experience language in ways closer to how DNA must feel as it constantly replicates and recombines. Sometimes you get the wisdom of crowds, sometimes the exact opposite. Whatever you think of Google as a tool, constructing a poegle re-imagines the search engine as a digital Ouija board, offering chance, surprises, and maybe even a little mysticism.

Poegles makes learning the process easy. It’s geared, as is the idea of poegles, towards those who don’t consider themselves “poets.” It’s literary Sudoku, so is great for anyone (business people, techies, as well as “creatives”) who wants to prime their own divergent thinking potential.

Step-by-step guides and many examples help get new writers/poeglers started. For those who want a pedigree, a useful brief history places poegles in a tradition that begins with obscure 19th century poetical experiments and extends through Dadaism, Surrealism, Beat writing, the Situationist International, and the development of today’s Internet. The overall spirit of the book recalls the best promises of new technology; it’s democratic, inclusive, and awaiting your own hacks, mods, and inventions.

Google Is Making Us Stupid

I was at a dinner party the other night
When Professor Glushko brought up
Friedrich Nietzsche’s typewriter
And The McGurk Effect,
While I pretended to read
“The Brain that Changes Itself”
by Norman Doidge M.D.

I wasn’t willing to argue over stupid things:
Should women settle? What type of potato are you?
Why does your dog pretend to like you?
Is divorced the same as single?
Does anyone else Plurk?

Instead, an egotistical bastard
Or just an Ubermensch at heart,
I stared at Big G making money,
Drunken Snooki dancing with a plant.
Oh look shiny.

Such as “the last time I saw Beth” 

*****

Step Two:  Copy the interesting search results.

Beth Lochtefeld

The last time I saw Beth was in the Nantucket airport I was engrossed in reading trashy magazines as she bounced into the little shop telling the woman …
www.summerinternships.com/BethLochtefeld/guestbook.php – 47k – Cached – Similar pages

lmharnisch: Blogging the Wolfe Book, The Lady in Red

And I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles, and tell my minister, too—that was the last time I saw Beth Short. I did not kill her!’” Herald-Express, Jan. 20, 1947 …
lmharnisch.blogspot.com/2006/03/blogging-wolfe-book-lady-in-red.html – 37k – Cached – Similar pages

harrypotterfanfictioncom 50000 Harry Potter stories and podcasts

… I pushed open my window and just sat there looking out into the summer night Almost two summers ago was the last time I saw Beth July 31st would mark my …
harrypotterfanfiction.com/printerfriendly.php?mode=chapter&object=180048 – 16k – Cached – Similar pages

Etc.

***** 

Step Three:  Paste the interesting results onto a single page.

The last time I saw Beth was in the Nantucket airport I was engrossed in reading trashy magazines as she bounced into the little shop

And I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles, and tell my minister, too—that was the last time I saw Beth Short. I did not kill her!’”

July 31st would mark my second year as a known witch.

the last time I saw Beth some people said insensitive things and she got pretty mad

That night was the last time I saw Beth. Of course, I mean alive. I see her everywhere.

The last time I saw Beth . . . she was at the Moulin Rouge.

The last time I saw Beth, it was some night in November.

The last time I saw Beth, she was picking out Christmas cards and I didn’t want to bother her.

The last time I saw Beth, she had just found out that she was pregnant with their first child.

The last time I saw Beth she told me, “What a good feeling it is helping others even in a small way.”

The last time I saw Beth, she didn’t have a blue wig and sunglasses.

The last time I saw Beth, I was about 16 and living in Invercargill.

***** 

Step Four:  Edit the interesting results to make a poegle.

The last time I saw Beth, it was some night in November.

The last time I saw Beth was in the Nantucket airport I was engrossed in reading buried my face in a trashy magazines as she bounced into the little shop

The last time I saw Beth, I wanted to she was picking out up my Christmas cards, but and I didn’t want to bother her talk to Beth.

The last time I saw Beth, she had just found out that she was pregnant with their first child.

The last time I saw Beth she told me spotted me and said, “What a good feeling it is helping others even in a small way.”

The last time I saw Beth, she didn’t have a blue wig and sunglasses.

the last time I saw Beth some other people said some insensitive things and she got pretty mad

The last time I saw Beth, I was about 16 and living in Invercargill.

July 31st would mark my second year as a known witch.

And I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles, and tell my minister, too—that was the last time I saw Beth Short. I did not kill her!’”

That night was the last time I saw Beth. Of course, I mean alive. I see her everywhere.

The last time I saw Beth . . . she was at the Moulin Rouge.

*****

Step Five:  Read your poegle.

The Last Time I Saw Beth

It was some night in November, in the Nantucket Airport. I wanted to pick up my Christmas cards, but I didn’t want to talk to Beth. I buried my face in a trashy magazine as she bounced into the little shop. She had just found out that she was pregnant with their first child. She spotted me and said, “What a good feeling it is helping others even in a small way.” She didn’t have a blue wig and sunglasses. Some other people said insensitive things, and she got pretty mad. I was about 16 and living in Invercargill. July 31st would mark my second year as a known witch.

*****

That’s it!  Try it at home.  Or, read more Poegles here.

I am the girl who eats alone, looking at you
from a distance. Look for bad-you will find
enough evil deeds. Some genetic trace
skipping generations: consider
my daughter.

Why would I pawn
my wedding ring, change the locks?
That is no idle threat.

What he is claiming is the opposite
of commonly accepted reality: cognitive
dissonance. And if I were inclined
towards political allegory, now
would be the time to make one.

Putting things down on paper
is the only way to understand.
Facts. Logic. Science into art.
When anyone asks how much my painting
costs, I say “three divorces!”

I intend to parcel up my belongings, a change
Being as good as a rest. My heart’s
in my eyes and if you touch them,
you’ll get a taste of infinity.

-Polly in the Blue Ridge (search phrase “dirty minds think alike”)

Conquer test anxiety by knowing
about half the people who take the test.

This method will be especially helpful if a hundred
words make up about half your vocabulary.

In the second half of the lesson
you will find out how many words you know.

Approximately half of the tests
in the second half of the lesson

test less than half of the half
of students who have studied

for less than half an hour. And still,
more than half will get it wrong.

Analogies are no longer part of the preparation
for the approximately half of the tests.

It’s no mystery how to do well on this test:
half the GRE is only the SAT.

A person with a highly developed vocabulary
will only know about half the story.

-Andrew in Ohio (search phrase “When Knowing the Vocab is Half the Test”)

More from Science Daily

Keep anything you find safe by having the right materials with you.
Know how to recognise a settlement.
Reject the path of the new motorway.

Most archaeologists are willing to risk to lose everything they personally own.

Uncover centuries-old graves.
Preserve the abundance of numerous bone artifacts lying in the path.
Discover lost treasures as you travel.

What years of anticipation and persistence had produced was accidentally discovered.

-Megan in NYC (“search phrase “an important archaeological find”)

1.
She the rusty swan
slinked around the walled city
always on the wrong side
of whatever side there was.

The portrait of a pin-up,
in shades of rose
a little starved, no longer

afraid of Patti Smith,
the Hindenburg disaster,
fast easy love, or some
comparable horrific accident.

I liked the way her face looked-
red-deemed feral-
How, as she moved to speak,
there was nothing but bonfires
wasted on air.

2.
Crash and burn
behavior became her
own style. Out of an envy
I can’t articulate exactly-

I gave her
home, to make it up to her
a bath, a quietly staged sunset,
a piano.

I followed her
right into the storm drain
to save her with my antidotes
for deployment. My ropes of sand.
Slouching towards Bethlehem
and stamping disapproval.

3.
How does this always happen to us?
These symptoms of eye,
these morbid fascinations?

You can’t see
a train wreck once it has burned.
View it here.
You can’t look away.

4.
“At least I know I’m a sinner,”
she shouted back,
“You ain’t gotta chance.”

-Caroline in Richmond (search phrase “kitten” + “trainwreck”)

I am a poor man and of little worth

Who is laboring to kill myself

And so I live in sin
I am no artist

Artists are guilty of such superficiality

Because they have no clue of what they are

I know that I am no Michelangelo.

There are no flames of love within my heart

But a bare cold hearthstone deep in ash

To think, I once wanted to carve an entire mountain into a Colossus

I know that I am no Michelangelo.

And I am not a painter (paint I did, of course)

I am not a prophet (this is no great matter)

I am not a theoretician (I am still learning)

I know that I am no Michelangelo.

Though I am not, nor will I consent to be obliged to tell

That I have no supernatural powers-

Neither divine strength nor divine wisdom

I am only a man called Michelangelo.

-Margaret in Richmond, VA (search phrase “I am no Michelangelo”)

Caught in a rock crevice, the leaves for a cover, a snowy lite has this day gone. They were here and there, but mostly the fog was everywhere. Chou had fairly poor eyesight, so even though some sunshine was seen when both children laughed, swinging and balancing on the amber surface, and watching the rings being set in the rolling hills and pastures of East TN, reflecting off of nearby Douglas Lake, the splendor of the Smoky Simon wrapped his tentacles around the Lady Erica’s fair head, flying around her. Erica laughed, a soft musical sound, on the dew moistened windows, sprinkles of salt spray leaving crystals on the panes, wind gusting like an energetic part of life.

Ben in Charlotte, NC (search phrase “sparkles of sunshine”)