Duplex: Robot
Julie Kane
Duplex: Robot
I will not write a pandemic poem
Robots are terrible at writing poems
Robots are very bad at writing poems
Though they’re getting better & better at chess
I haven’t played chess since adolescence
That era of generating angst-ridden poems
Stuffing my angsty poems in a hinged metal box
Decorated with cherry blossoms, storks, & lanterns
Cherry blossoms, storks, & Japanese lanterns
Early sign of robothood: affinity for Japan
Later sign of robothood: a stab of indecision
When yet another website asks, “Are you a robot?”
I may well be a robot after a year inside
With minimal human contact, writing formulaic poems
Julie Kane’s poetry collections include Rhythm & Booze, winner of the National Poetry Series; Jazz Funeral, winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize; and Mothers of Ireland, winner of the Poetry by the Sea Book Award. Forthcoming in 2025 from LSU Press will be Naked Ladies: New and Selected Poems. With Grace Bauer, she co-edited Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse. Louisiana Poet Laureate 2011-2013 and Professor Emerita at Northwestern State University of Louisiana, she currently teaches in the low residency poetry MFA program at Western Colorado University.