The Xenotext: Book 1

This book from experimental poet B%C3%B6k (whose collection Eunoia won the 2001 Griffin Poetry Prize) is a poetic diagram to be decoded and deciphered. B%C3%B6k explores genetic encoding, immortality through text, conservation of meaning, and creation and destruction with virtuoso wordplay and composition that include acrostics, sonnets, catalogues, pastorals, and incantatory repetition, among other forms. Much of the text is translation%E2%80%94between genetic markers, from classical text to English, and through encapsulation of and commentary on both found and original poetry. B%C3%B6k also provides detailed discussion of each section's form and aims in the "Vita Explicata" section, which is useful given that the purposes of individual sections can be obscure until they're given context. The whole of the collection is an intriguing and adroit display of poetic and literary capability, and it ties to a larger project that's even more ambitious: B%C3%B6k's ongoing attempt to encode into an extremophile bacterium%E2%80%94Deinococcus radiodurans%E2%80%94a poem in DNA form designed to perpetuate and answer/continue itself in replication. The success of that project has yet to be determined, but the collection at least already succeeds in its aims, and is highly recommended. (Oct.)