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Black Box Syndrome

Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Black Box Syndrome by Jose-Luis Moctezuma is a collection of poems inspired by the black hexagrams of the ancient Chinese divination text I Ching. The poems embrace aleatoric methods linked to surrealism and artists like John Cage, critiquing the overwhelming financialisation shaping modern life. Combining chance operations with Aztec anatomy, conspiracy and systems theory, the book challenges empire's logic through a mix of lyric intensity and digital contraction in pandemic times.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$4399
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Readers interested in avant-garde poetry, financial and cultural critique, and explorations of chance and divination will find Black Box Syndrome compelling. Those drawn to surrealist traditions, experimental forms, and intersections of ancient and contemporary thought are the ideal audience.

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Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Poems that follow systems of chance and divination to counter corrosive financial systems.

Jose-Luis Moctezuma’s Black Box Syndrome is a series of poems—or “black boxes”—based on black hexagrams in the I Ching, an ancient Chinese divination text. Following the aleatoric tradition popularised by the surrealists and extended by the work of John Cage and Jackson Maclow, these poems cast their lenses on the hazards of the incessant financialisation of everyday life.

Synthesising chance-operational aesthetics with Aztec anatomical science, conspiracy theory with systems theory, and the black box model with the concept of the “influencing machine,” Black Box Syndrome explores tensions between lyric excess and digital compaction in the age of pandemic.

Over and against the corrosive world-shrinking effects of Wall Street risk management and futures trading, the black boxes in this book propose a counter-divination that distorts, deranges, and decolonises the logic of empire.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Edgar Garcia praises Black Box Syndrome as a profound poetic engagement with risk beyond the usual probabilistic lens, blending themes of fate, divination, and global financial systems. Described as nervy and richly lyrical, Moctezuma's work uses formal constraints to unleash imaginative and cosmic explorations. The book is recognised for revealing poetry hidden within chance and uncertainty.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781632431226

Publisher: Omnidawn Publishing

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 20 December 2023

Country: United States

Imprint: Omnidawn Publishing

Audience: General / adult, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 10.0mm

Width: 152.0mm

Height: 229.0mm

Weight: 172g

Pages: 75

About the Author

Jose-Luis Moctezuma is a Xicano poet based in Chicago. He is the author of a chapbook, Spring Tlaloc Seance, and the book Place-Discipline, also published by Omnidawn. His poetry and criticism have appeared in Postmodern Culture, Fence, Jacket2, Chicago Review, Modernism/modernity, and elsewhere.

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