Soft Science

Franny Choi

• Publisher: Alice James Books
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781948579551
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

Paris Review Staff Pick A Book Riot Must-Read Poetry Collection

Soft Science explores queer, Asian American femininity. A series of Turing Test-inspired poems grounds its exploration of questions not just of identity, but of consciousness—how to be tender and feeling and still survive a violent world filled with artificial intelligence and automation. We are dropped straight into the tangled intersections of technology, violence, erasure, agency, gender, and loneliness.

"Choi creates an exhilarating matrix of poetry, science, and technology." — Publishers Weekly

"Franny Choi combines technology and poetry to stunning effect." – BUSTLE

“…these beautiful, fractal-like poems are meditations on identity and autonomy and offer consciousness-expanding forays into topics like violence and gender, love and isolation.” – NYLON

TURING TEST_EMPATHETIC RESPONSE

// have you ever questioned the nature of your reality

stop me if you’ve heard / this one / once / upon a nation / everyone got what they / were asking for

// and how does that make you feel

amygdala / thalamus / hypothalamus / having been hurt before / subgenual cingulate / cingulate gyrus / i guess a / little insecure / a little embarassed haha / serotonin / torn / i’m turning / into my mother oh / god reading the news / the noose / tryptophan dopamine / if you’re happy & / you know it / if you know it then / what / what then

// how can we know that these are not simply simulated emotions

the nurse missed / my vein / & dug for it / it was a white light / a tin flame in / the forearm / fluorescent / sick vinyl / what else can i say / i opened / i cried / & the needle / drank

AFTERLIFE

To answer your question, yes,

I find myself wanting less and less

to fuck the dead boy who was mine

before he was nothing.

He is nine years younger than me now—a boy

who still smokes blunts in his dorm room,

by which I mean he does none of that

because he is dead. Because his body

is no body now, but wet earth.

Meaning I should instead desire

the bellies of flies. Moth wings

unfolding wet from their shells.

Should hunger for the fish that ate

the fish that ate the plankton

that took his once-body dust

into its gullet. The boy whose body

was the first to enter mine is breathing

from too many mouths now.

He is gilled, wet leaves, coral,

all things that live but don’t know it,

don’t know they were once a boy

who peeled off my wet jeans,

kissed the insides of my knees

in his parents’ house, who came to me

love-addled one night, saying,

listen no matter listen

always i’ll never

EVERYONE KNOWS THAT LINE ABOUT OGRES AND ONIONS, BUT NOBODY ASKS THE BEAST WHY UNDRESSING MAKES HER CRY

Her mouth is a stage sprouting cardboard trees.

What’s my motivation? she asks the man reading in her bed.

She runs headless through the mall and everyone shouts, Hey legs!

No one mentions the girls gnawing each ankle to its core.

Inside the beast is an apple

holding a knife to its throat

threatening to rot.

So that’s what that noise was.

She digs a claw into her ear. Pulls out a longship.

Rides it to the bottom of the mine.

She peels glue from her hands.

The mine asks her about her mother

and she laughs, which is funny

because root vegetables don’t have mouths.

Somewhere, miles above, the girl (or her mother

or her mother’s beast) is putting on gloves

or tearing chicken from the bone.

line … line …

Somewhere, she is a cell remembering itself

suddenly, late at night.

THE PRICE OF RAIN

The truth is that no man has taken anything

I didn’t give him. I mean, no man has taken

anything I claimed as my own. My body, my stink,

my land to plant in. It’s never been about the price

of lettuce. How many times have I taken something

that did not belong to me? Queen, queen, I croon,

pulling up handfuls of greens. My, my.

Property’s still theft. I let my wet skin slip

through the drainpipe. My mother says love,

in our family, means sacrifice. I thought,

if I lay my legs on the altar, I thought something

would come back to me. Mine, mine. I offered it,

being promised rain. Being told my wet was in

...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Glossary of Terms
• Turing Test
• Making of
• Bad Daughter
• Beg
• Acknowledgments
• On the night of the election,
• A Brief History of Cyborgs
• Turing Test_Empathetic Response
• Turing Test_Boundaries
• Turing Test_Problem Solving
• Turing Test_Love
• Turing Test_Weight
• Notes