pity this busy monster, manunkind,
not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)
plays with the bigness of his littleness
—electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
A world of made
is not a world of born—pity poor flesh
and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical
ultraomnipotence. We doctors know
a hopeless case if—listen: there’s a hell
of a good universe next door; let’s go
e. e. cummings *
—Janice Lee
Bio
Janice Lee is a writer, artist, editor and curator. She is interested in the relationships between metaphors of consciousness, theoretical neuroscience and experimental narrative. Her work can be found in Big Toe Review, Zafusy, antennae, sidebrow, Action, Yes, Joyland, Luvina, Everyday Genius, elimae, Black Warrior Review and elsewhere. She is the author of KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, 2010), a multidisciplinary exploration of cyborgs, brains, and the stakes of consciousness, Daughter (Jaded Ibis, 2011) and a chapbook Red Trees. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts and currently lives in Los Angeles where she is co-editor of the online journal [out of nothing] and co-founder of the interdisciplinary arts organization Strophe.
Artist Info
janicel.com
* Note: The original text is by e. e. cummings.