In black feminist scholar Saidiya Hartman’s seminal 2008 essay, “Venus in Two Acts”, she raises the pertinent question, “[h]ow can narrative embody life in words” (3). She follows on to question, “[h]ow does one listen to the groans and cries, the undecipherable songs, the cackle of fire in the cane field […] and then assign … Continue reading “How can narrative embody life in words?” Tracing Derrida, Love, Beauty, and Afropessimism in Toni Morrison’s Jazz.
Author: joebamford7
III: Mind // The // Gap
A maximalist stream of consciousness narrative that attempts to embrace a form of narratorial dissonant chorality. This story takes place on one hot day in July in the London Underground.
II. Commuter with the Leaf
The second story in my short story collection "Flatline" about commuters. This story is written in a minimalist stream of consciousness that attempts to blend the mundaneness of everyday travel with small trivial enjoyments.
Ein Stein
A poem I wrote on the train
“Can a Salmon Swim Without its Skin”: Poetic Musings on AI.
Analysis of a poem I wrote about an AI-generated image of salmon filets swimming in a babbling river.
Engführung – Paul Celan
Attempted translation of Paul Celan's poem "Engführung" into English. I attempted to translate the affect of what Celan described that German poetry could no longer speak the language that "many ears expected to hear".
Todesfuge – Paul Celan
My translation of Paul Celan's poem "Todesfuge". I intended to translate it as literally as possible. With little to no embellishments, grammatical transpositions, to emulate how the German reader reads the poem.
Toward a Quantum Surrealism: Diffracting the Intersections Between Interdimensional Beings, Multiple Temporalities, and Alternate Dimensions in Twin Peaks.
Essay analysing the intra-activity of surrealism and quantum theory in David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks.
“Open the so-called body” of Schrift: Descending into the Labyrinthine Palimpsest of Mircea Cărtărescu’s Solenoid
Affect is Dead! Long Live Affect!
Can a Salmon Swim Without its Skin?
A piece of surrealist automatic poetic writing that attempts to grapple with the naivety of AI-generated images. This poem is inspired by an AI generated image of salmon swimming, whereby the AI creates an image akin to a Breton-esque imagination. In a similar fashion to how Man Ray saw Lee Miller as his muse, I find my muse in the innumerable lines of codes that surround the naked AI generator.








