Joshua Trotter, “Turing World”

joshua-trotter.jpg

I want a program to use a program which can simulate
a Turing’s machine like Turing would. Where can I find it,
in light and free version!!! Thanks.—Anonymous

Decode the cries of birds, is why I came
at dawn to press record on each machine.
Oscilloscopes and spectrographs and hoists
grew hot then moist then rust I stayed so long
unknown among my future-perfect hosts.
I stayed so long and never heard them sing
a theme I couldn’t transfer note for note
to satellites that thronged above unsung
repeating birdcall bleep for bleep—but not,
I told myself—restating what they sang.
I’d caught the pitch, the point remained unclear.
Dead air, I said, as I prepared to leave
for they, like me, had little to declare
so I declared and made myself believe.

All This Could Be Yours, the debut collection from Joshua Trotter, was the one Canadian volume in the National Post list of 2010’s best poetry. It also includes “Hearing” (published in Boston Review) ad “Continuation of the History of Utopia” (Arc).

11 April 2011 | uncategorized |