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    Soft Science
    Soft Science
    Soft Science
    Ebook90 pages48 minutes

    Soft Science

    By Franny Choi

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Loosely inspired by the movie Ex Machina and the character Kyoko (an Asian sex robot whose creator removes her language capabilities in order to protect his company's trade secrets). It's a take on language, race, and gender; about survival under capitalism; about power and intimacy, especially with others whose bodies make them strange. Though the book isn't just about robots (or just about that movie), Kyoko is "one of the godmothers of the book," and haunts it throughout. About the author in Choi's words: "Franny Choi is a queer, Korean American pottymouth. . .about a 5.5 on the Mulan butch-femme scale." Choi is super enthusiastic, energetic, and ready to tour. She has already dreamed up a book launch in Detroit, MI, and also plans to tour the northeast.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlice James Books
    Release dateApr 2, 2019
    ISBN9781948579551
    Soft Science
    Author

    Franny Choi

    Franny Choi is the author of two previous poetry collections, Soft Science (Alice James Books, 2019) and Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014). Her poems have appeared in the New York Times, the Nation, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. They are Faculty in Literature at Bennington College and founded Brew & Forge, a project that aims to build connections between writers, artists, and organizers.

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    Reviews for Soft Science

    3.5/5

    87 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      absolutely genius. one of the best poetry collections i’ve ever come across.
    • 2/5
      Is modern poetry supposed to make very little sense? One of the poems was hate comments the author had received put through Google translate several times until you could only get an extremely vague idea of what the original comment might have implied. I felt like maybe she did that for her whole book.
    • 5/5
      Wow those words are on their own decidedly inadequate .✨
    • 4/5
      ¿Cómo habremos de reconocer la conciencia de las máquinas? ¿cómo reconocemos nuestra propia conciencia? Frany Choi construye sus poemas para dar respuesta a estas preguntas al tiempo que explora el dolor de pertenecer a grupos minorizados en una sociedad como la estadounidense. Y, a pesar de las exploraciones formales, no pierde de vista que los poemas, para ser tales, necesitan mantener una musicalidad.
    • 5/5
      Seriously, this was one of the most intriguing poetry collections I've read in quite a while. I loved the used of the Turing Test in the formation of the poetry: it was interesting, poignant, and all around a great metaphor.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Truly a must-read based on its craftsmanship alone. The way Ms. Choi creates an extended metaphor connecting woman and machine to relay her experience as an Asian-American woman is stunning (and tragically beautiful) to say the least. To be honest, though, it is a more dense collection to understand fully, given its slight use of programming syntax, as well as the way she plays with the linguistic elements of English, but for those willing to read it thoroughly, it is one of the best books of modern poetry created. Most notable is her manipulation of English syntax (reminiscent of e.e. cummings at times) and her use of repetition/almost repetition to play with connotation and create connections, as well as her unique voice and, again, her gorgeous use of extended metaphor.
    • 2/5
      Rating this purely on my enjoyment level, not on how well-written or good it is, as I’m not well-versed enough in poetry to even try to judge that. I didn’t “get” most of this and I don’t enjoy that feeling. That’s maybe the whole point? I like science fiction and I try to read more poetry, so I hoped this would make me like it more, but I just didn’t feel like I connected with, or understood the point, of most of the beginning poems. I did follow some at the end - and felt like it wasn’t a waste of my time to read, hence the 2 stars.
    • 4/5
      A difficult but worthwhile read about existing as a woman, specifically a queer Asian-American woman in America. Maybe not for poetry beginners like me - I always felt like I was missing something, but I also had the impression that in some way that was the point. That which we do not understand still has value.

      2 people found this helpful

    Book preview

    Soft Science - Franny Choi

    SOFT SCIENCE

    SOFT SCIENCE

    FRANNY CHOI

    © 2019 by Franny Choi

    All rights reserved

    Printed in the United States

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    Alice James Books are published by Alice James Poetry Cooperative, Inc.,

    an affiliate of the University of Maine at Farmington.

    Alice James Books

    114 Prescott Street

    Farmington, ME 04938

    www.alicejamesbooks.org

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Names: Choi, Franny, author.

    Title: Soft science / Franny Choi.

    Description: Farmington, Maine : Alice James Books, 2019 Includes bibliographical references.

    Identifiers: LCCN 2018038108 (print) | LCCN 2018039064 (e-book) ISBN 9781948579551 (e-book) | ISBN 9781938584992 (pbk. : alk. paper)

    Classification: LCC PS3603.H653 (e-book) | LCC PS3603.H653 A6 2019 (print) DDC 811/.6—dc23

    LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018038108

    Alice James Books gratefully acknowledges support from individual donors, private foundations, the University of Maine at Farmington, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Amazon Literary Partnership.

    Cover art: Parasola. Digital, 6919 × 9598 Pixels, 2017. By James Jean

    NOTE TO THE READER

    Alice James Books encourages you to calibrate your e-reader device settings using the line of characters below as a guide, which optimizes the line length and character size:

    past your skin / ever felt yourself peel / from yourself / like wallpaper / watched

    Please take the time to adjust the size of the text on your viewer so the line of characters above appears on one line, if possible. Doing this will most accurately reproduce the layout of the text intended by the author. Viewing the title at a higher than optimal text size or on a device too small to accomodate the lines in the text will cause the reading experience to be altered considerably; single lines of some poems may be displayed as multiple lines of text. If this occurs, the line break will be marked with a shallow indent.

    CONTENTS

    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

    Afterlife

    Everyone Knows That Line About Ogres and Onions, but Nobody Asks the Beast Why Undressing Makes Her Cry

    The Price of Rain

    Program for the Morning After

    The Cyborg Wants to Make Sure She Heard You Right

    Shokushu Goukan for the Cyborg Soul

    Perchance to Dream

    Jaebal

    & O Bright Star of Disaster, I Have Been Lit

    TURING TEST_BOUNDARIES

    Chi

    I Swiped Right on the Borg

    The Cyborg Meets the Drone at a Family Reunion and Fails to Make Small Talk

    You’re So Paranoid

    TURING TEST_PROBLEM SOLVING

    Ode to Epinephrine

    The Cyborg Watches a Video of a Nazi Saying Her Name to a Bunch of Other Nazis

    In the Morning I Scroll My Way Back into America

    It’s All Fun and Games until Someone Gains Consciousness

    Chatroulette

    TURING TEST_LOVE

    Solitude

    Perihelion: A History of Touch

    TURING TEST_WEIGHT

    Introduction to Quantum Theory

    Kyoko’s Language Files Are Recovered Following Extensive Damage to Her CPU

    Notes

    FOR ALL MY SISTERS

    "We are excruiatingly conscious of what it means to have

    a historically constituted body."

    —DONNA HARAWAY

    The rain is soft. The rain is hard. I don’t know anything.

    —BHANU KAPIL

    GLOSSARY OF TERMS

    TURING TEST

    // this is a test to determine if you have consciousness

    // do you understand what I am saying

    in a bright room / on a bright screen / i

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