The Cyborg Anthology

by Lindsay B-e

Overview

2021 VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award Shortlist * 2021 Elgin Awards Longlist

Poems written by Cyborgs in the future—this collection melds sci-fi and poetry, human and machine.

The Cyborg Anthology takes place in a future where there was a thriving world of Robots and Cyborgs living peacefully beside Humans, but a disaster destroyed all Robot and most Cyborg life.

The book is organized like a typical anthology of literature, split into sections that include a biography of each poet and a sample of their poetry. It covers early Cyborg poetry, political, celebrity, and pop culture poets, and ends with the next generation of Cyborg poets.

The narrative takes place in the time after a cataclysmic event, and the collection wrestles with this loss. Through the lives of the poets, the book chronicles the history of personhood for technological beings, their struggle for liberation, and demonstrates different ways a person can be Cyborg. The poems and biographies together tell the story of a complex and enthralling world-to-come, exploring topics that are important in the future, and also urgent right now.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771315319
Publisher:	Brick Books
Publication date:	10/01/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

LINDSAY B-E

is a writer and filmmaker from Clavet, SK currently living in Toronto. They have a BA in English, a BFA in Filmmaking, a Certificate in Poetry from The Writer’s Studio at SFU, and are completing a Novel-Writing Certificate from U of T Continuing Studies. Their writing has appeared in Poetry Is Dead, the League of Canadian Poets’ Poetry Pause, Geez Magazine, Peach Mag, emerge: The Writer’s Studio Anthology, and a chapbook from bird, buried press. Lindsay is married with two kids, two dogs, and two cats. They can be found online at biseenscene.com.

Read an Excerpt

The Rise of the Cyborg Poets

Scientists and artists had been envisioning Robots and Cyborgs for centuries before they existed. Even with all of this preparation, the general Human population was surprised when some of the first newly sapient individuals became artists and nurturers. Indeed, the first three popular Cyborg poets were a surrogate mother, a journalist/peace activist and a beloved high school teacher. Instead of the Robot Wars that had been predicted in science fiction stories, these new people helped humanity to imagine better ways of living together. The early years after Robot sapience were some of the most peaceful on record.

Matriarch Doe (2102-2202)

Matriarch Doe, or M-Doe for short, was a trailblazer for Sapience Rights. She was originally created as a non-sapient mechanism that carried fetuses until birth — a metal and silicone shell that contained cloned organic organs and systems like a uterus, heart, digestive system, birth canal, etc. A rogue tech-nurse at the El Nada Hospital in Cairo uploaded an illegal sapience program to M-Doe, believing that if the fetuses were loved by their carrier, they would be happier and healthier.

Of course, once M-Doe achieved sapience, she wanted to forge her own path. She successfully petitioned the hospital she lived in to fund the creation and surgical attachment of legs, arms, a neck and a head. Then, she petitioned for legal personhood. After a lengthy court battle that was widely reported on around the world, Matriarch Doe was granted Sapience Rights (they were still referred to as "Human Rights" at the time).

In a surprising turn of events, M-Doe chose to continue as a host body for fetuses. As it turns out, the tech-nurse was right about M-Doe caring about the fetuses she was pregnant with. She carried generations of fetuses to birth-age, performing her specialized skill for parents-in-need instead of for profit. She had a large family herself, parenting 17 children with six different partners. Her oldest Robot child, Petra-Doe, founded the Institute for Juvenile Robots (IJR). The IJR advocated for newly-sapient Robots and Cyborgs who didn't go through the same 'growing-up' process as Humans. New Robots and Cyborgs were adopted by guardians and given other legally-recognized kin to support them. The IJR provided a variety of educational programs to guide them through their juvenile period, which lasted from one to eighteen years, depending on the individual. M-Doe raised five of her Robot children using IJR precedents.

M-Doe published two printed poetry collections, M/Other and Inside Outside Upside Downside.

fetal address

welcome
to the ol' rip 'em out
and roll 'em around

i'm your mum,
and i know a thing or two
about you, transparent skin —

like this: [human embryos are visually indistinguishable from pigs, at first]
or: [a 20 wk old fetus already carries their life's supply of egg cells]

you're older than you'd think
you animal you, wild-eyed,
crying, clawing
your way from whence you came

come
spring baby,
melting snow,
and i'll crouch
in that birthing bath,
baby bath,
bloody bath,
boom

and force you
into all of this air
outer, spacial, regional,
national, sport and

the goddammotherfucking pressure -

like this: [at 28 wks gestational age, a fetus can cry, silently]
or: [fetuses are affected by their parent's feelings, in some ways, lifelong]

shhh ... hush now

float in my fluids
listen to my beats
and my bowels

bug eyes
limb buds
back bone

blink, breathe baby

Hail Mary.

(for Jean-Luc Godard and the Twilight Sleep birthers)

the body is
le, a temp
est, a temp
orary, temp

Hail Mary.

you imagine bosoms and bottoms
write of them even

but you've never been in that room,
except metaphorically maybe

mama's mama was tied to a table,
not crouched in a stable, able
ity

in fact,
ion
act
drab, drooping flaps

conscious, sub/un
the medi-
cured baby naps.

Hail Mary.

the belly is a ball
near, far
large, all

the (f) light at the end
of that (f) tunnel,
tuned, turned, trag
ick

the family's not catholic anymore, thank
mod
-ern dog moon body room
ball-shaped crevice, can't
feel a thing.

Male Very.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Early Cyborg Poems

Batt471 & Rhett Weisner 5

The Disgruntled Robot Says No

Jason Valerno & CompuTerm 7

From Characters

From Themes

The Rise of the Cyborg Poets

Matriarch Doe 9

Fetal address

Hail Mary

Mother [o][f][all]

Hazel Hush 15

Relate Real Late

Behind that that

Topic Top Pick

Patterson Armitage-The DictaScrivener 18

Together today (a sonnet)

After

A True Story of Good News

Poetry and Politics

Thesus 24

Repress Address

Connections or

Everybody Else Has the Stomach Flu

Sydney School of Robotics 29

March

The Red Cyborg

MDCCLXXIX-CCLX

Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes on Robots (070 108 101 097 115)

Death Fable

St Spike 34

I Am the Sun Mantra

The Happy Bell

What Makes Us 1

Celebrity Cyborgs-The Golden Age

Andre.riga 39

Green Light

Blood Writing

Sounds Like

Skyenc 44

Veins Wires

Harmony, Room 527

Beatrise in Amber

Clark Jones-Smith 48

Once

Shift

Reaction to the Doughnut

PoP Culture Poets

Trinh Radham 51

The Red Shirt

Slapping Asimov

Twist the Plot

Scount Bot 57

All That Is Left: An Ode to Defunct MMORPGs

Lack

CC Adventure

Sarah Ruddiger 63

Two Poems and a Lie

Tell Me Something Good-I'm Kinda Fucked Up from Thinking about the Crucifixion

Poem [01000001 01110011 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01001101 01101111 01110100 01101000]

Cyborg Poetics-The Next Generation

Tommy the Witch 72

Only Humans

Menu

Echo

Tiff Koong 78

What Remains

Trinity's Painting

Fish Bowl

Mi'la Lalpetit 84

The Sun Hits

What Do You Say, Squirrel?

Blood Drowning

Afterword 89

Notes 91

Thank You 95