The basics
Goal: Use automatic writing, aleatoric editing, and the literary cut-up technique to transform excerpts from poems currently in the public domain into entirely new poems to be published as free mints on Zora, with the first series spanning 30 pieces.
My background: I’m WMP, a creative writer who arrived in crypto in May 2017 after clicking “Random” on Reddit and landing in r/ethtrader. I’ve never looked back ever since. Now by day I’m a senior contributing writer at Bankless, where I lead the NFT newsletter Metaversal, and by night I write poems and work on my first novel, a DAO tragedy titled “Thou Unreluctant.”
At university I got my degree in creative writing, and after school I had a brief stint as a poetry editor. That said, in uni I specialized in American and British modernist literature (1900-1945). And it turns out many of the great poetry volumes from this era are now in the public domain. So recently I got the idea to remix modernist works by smashing them into many pieces, only to reconfigure and embellish the shards with my poetic vision into completely new works of my own.
My new series, Free Verses, is thus the culmination of this concept via free mint NFTs. There isn’t a large reader base for poetry period, much less experimental poetry like I write, and I’m writing these out of love just to riff, so publishing as free mints feels perfect for my purposes and is also as accessible as possible to frontier people who want to expand their digital collections with poetry.
Works remixed: I’ve used passages from the following poetry volumes to combine, cut-up, and refashion with my own wordsmithing into entirely new poems:
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E.E. Cummings — Tulips & Chimneys (1923): This debut collection of Cummings' poetry was a stunning intro to his unique typography and experimental style.
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Mina Loy — Lunar Baedecker (1923): A collection of poems that highlighted Loy's feminist views and her distinctive style, combining modernist, imagist, and surreal elements.
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Marianne Moore — Observations (1924): Moore's first book of poetry, which established her as a prominent modernist poet.
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Wallace Stevens — Harmonium (1923): Stevens' first poetry collection, featuring his signature style of mixing philosophical meditations with vivid, often surreal, imagery.
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Ezra Pound — Lustra (1916): This collection hosts some of Pound's early imagist and free verse poems, reflecting his interest in Chinese and Japanese poetry.
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T.S. Eliot — Prufrock and Other Observations (1917): Eliot's first published collection of poems, containing the famous "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
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H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) — Sea Garden (1916): A collection of imagist poems that drew on classical mythology and H.D.'s own experiences.
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William Carlos Williams — Al Que Quiere! (1917): This collection showcased Williams' early poetic experimentation with imagery and form.
Remix tools: The cut-up technique is an “aleatory literary technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text.” The technique was pioneered by writers like the dadaist Tristan Tzara and postmodernist William S. Burroughs. For my cut-up needs, I paste in and crudely remix my target excerpts using the Text Mixing Desk V2.0, typically with a cut frequency of every 3 words. I do this until I get a really interesting new raw text, which I then insert into JanusNode to use Markov Chaining and other techniques to morph the texts that much further. I then edit and add new words into the Janus’d drafts to finalize new works. Also, the newly launched ability to mint pdf files on Zora was indispensable for this project.
Mint details: Free Verse: Series 1 poems will be available as free mint open editions on Zora for 2 weeks at a time. There is a 2-mint limit per address for this first series. There is no set cadence planned for the release of Series 1 mints, although the first three — Inaninstant, Sunseanian, and Cruelor — are already live. For the best viewing experience on Zora, I recommend reading the poems via desktop rather than mobile. Beyond that, below you’ll find the text of these initial three pieces.
The poems
INANINSTANT
the voiceless am. A breathing what smile used an i to hour male, awake; and a small And through old unremembered villages, of whose extraordinary times? Bever lover so’d into in-hour circles, the dost i away with will-wind’s flowers shrinking, full skin’d into it Twenty unremembered stars who clouds strong and, as liked, then Angels thou’d first: this of wildest, this myriad of a Darkness came. The uncountable est, meaning’s back, whole regions bridged lift’d and laughing, rainbow’d out, holding over trees inviting renewal, with and of the paramour wind. Yield yet that bridge, yes, Flesh Crossings that sunny infinitest staggering, and, and, quivers the thy of the entering hand, into its trembling phase, the twilight thou’d, Twenty Crossings through the body beating Thinks over radiant golden Dark, quivering mysterious suddenly wholly whoever making it across leaving unbreakable, thought a steal once more.
SUNSEANIAN
now of the mad sun Oncoming to buried visionless heavens. Isles of earth spear-songing Our Ares, wilden haplessly upon the forthing out; masquerading Gawd and surpassing all this shining light. The eyeless old ways. The Deepening; slowly downy hopes expunged, in cock’d the souls, pushing salt, However Splits, hark! hark! the day-nots play wanderings are that “Thing” the Fars abright for; that the hordes lark in ams for, sedulously such that base-dreams dawn golden obstacles, abundant excursions where the tremulous mosaic air humbly contains many paths to beauty, where it flowers on dappled “Go,” life invading the Patience beyond, The Apart.
CRUELOR
there’s a bore taught only to me where your eyes break on Gawd’s; the wind stuffs and tumbles and the illusion crystallization sets upon the clock-work backgrounds; we lift the scores up and there’s a haloed suspicious-I washed anew in the “All I’ve to Live Fors,” in that fearful midnight push where strangers kiss out in mercy, where the name doors tells something, where the poor ego rains like a cruel soul presenting its own honey; please tell me something, the universe is printing dimensions and you’re not watching, what wounds do you have for ears? And what are the 12 voices that unnerve your hands? You are colorless beneath the moon, becoming a Gawd too, the cosmos pulling you in again.
Looking ahead
Inaninstant, Sunseanian, and Cruelor are the first three of 30 mints that will be part of Free Verses: Series 1. I’ve no roadmap or utility planned here besides just continuing to publish Series 1 as free mintable poems for people to enjoy as they please. The poems are CC0 too, so feel free to tinker with them in any way you wish. In the meantime keep your eyes peeled on my Twitter to learn when the next mints in the series drop! And thanks so much for reading, it’s an honor to have you considering my work.