The life we invest in these figures is the same life that's taken from us.
We will be checking your room.
We weren't allowed to go out or take phone calls.
We need to know what works.
We have free speech for everyone that has nothing to say.
We won't know anything until we open it up.
We all like to laugh at quacks when they misuse basic statistics.
We have several other cases just like this one.
Just because tons of people are signing up doesn't mean it's not a con.
We should enjoy this because it seems like we're all coming down now.
I've got a sweetheart, treats me good, just like an object.
A shape of some kind for something that has no shape.
What does it mean to regret when you have no choice.
I'm a gun and there is someone who puts the bullets.
There's a place to go just know you will not return.
Sandman's orders.
I will take your thoughts and I will make them mine.
Think my husband cares of the hair that adheres to him.
I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land.
Affirmation does not require proof, provided it claims to prove nothing.
I need a blowtorch and a jar of mayonnaise to catch these girls.
How we talk about sex profoundly affects how we experience it.
The operator tells the caller to call back if he finds the girl.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Our culture is caught in a frenzy of biological materialism.
I am running up and down the stairs and not touching the rails.
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
It's called taking advantage, it's how you get ahead in life.
Cry if you must.
I want them all.
Notes on the Text:
555 is a collection of sonnets whose construction is database-driven and relies on text analytic software. I crunched and analyzed Shakespeare's sonnets to arrive at averages for word, syllable and character (inclusive of punctuation but not spaces). These averages (101 words, 129 syllables, 437 characters) became requirements for three groups of sonnets. I collected lines from anywhere and everywhere in the air or in print in a database. The lines are all found, their arrangement is mine. Values for word, syllable and character were recorded. Typos and grammatical oddities were preserved; only initial capitals and a closing period have been added as needed. The selection of lines isn’t rule-driven and inevitably reflects what I read, watch, and listen to, thus incorporating my slurs and my passions as well as what amuses and disturbs me. These sonnets were assembled using nonce patterns or number schemes; by ear, notion, or loose association; by tense, lexis, tone or alliteration. Every sonnet matches its targeted average exactly. Think of Pound’s "dance of the intellect among words" then sub sentences for words—it is amongst these I move. The dance in question traces out a knot (better yet, a gnot) that holds together what might otherwise fly apart. I espouse only the sonnets, not any one line.
You can find out about John Lowther’s work at his poetry blog where there are many links to online poubellications and details about a few of his ongoing projects. Or if you prefer the tangible, pick up one of these anthologies The Lattice Inside: An Atlanta Poets Group Anthology (UNO Press, 2012) or Another South: Experimental Writing in the South(U of Alabama, 2003) or wait for Held to the Letter (co-authored with Dana Lisa Young) due from Lavender Ink in 2015. He works in video, photography, paint and performance. His dissertation-in-progress tries to reimagine psychoanalysis with intersex and transgender lives as pointers toward our ever-expanding subjective potential.
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