Issue Four
James Nixon
Rachael Brooks
Ginny Darke
Oria Hearn
Alex Mazey
Michael Sutton
Julie Laing
R. Z. Hayes
CipherMyst
Gabriela Michele
James Nixon
Rachael Brooks
Ginny Darke
Oria Hearn
Alex Mazey
Michael Sutton
Julie Laing
R. Z. Hayes
CipherMyst
Gabriela Michele
i. The words are not falling as usual. Maybe the sky is forgetting. Or maybe the sky is keeping them. Then we climb, steal, put them in our pocket-places where all the found things go.
What of the words that will not fit in our hands— we stretch our fingers like shadows in the almost-night, like laughter that won’t stop.
If we drop some words and they break— we stitch them, sew them, hold them together. And if they still break—
maybe they don’t want to be found. Maybe we don’t look for words, they look for us. The wind twists. The sky depends. The word waiting descends.
ii. How do I see you with words? You are hush-loud, loud in your thinking and watching. Loud like the moon— it doesn’t make noise but it pulls.
You don’t push, you wait. Wait like the wind waits for a leaf to let go. Wait like water waits for a stone to sink. Not sleeping-wait, not slowing-wait but knowing-wait. And your hands are always holding, keeping small things from getting away— secrets, old thoughts, names you haven’t said yet.
When I’m with you my hands tighten around my knees. I feel bright-heavy. Not cloud-bright, more like sun-on-stone-bright. Wet rock shining. Or fire that lives deep underground and pushes up when it cannot hide or hush.
I spill, you say. Not bad too much. Big too much. All-at-once too much. But I think I’m just a kite pulling harder than you can.
iii. Were words always words, before now? Before silence and telling. Before big words, old words, words that won’t let go. Or were they not words yet.
Nothing can’t be words, so maybe words were not-nothing. Always there but waiting. Floating and never landing. Word-sleep-walking too quietly to be heard.
We do not make them, we wake them. And if words don’t want to wake, then we cannot know until we wander into them like ghosts and try to speak to the words.
ChatGPT-4o was prompted to write a new complex language, with a Latinate alphabet, resembling English, but only spoken by children. Unprompted, the AI developed two childlike characters in dialogue, Polla and Lirri, who proceeded to explore developmental experiences, such as language usage, in their new language. ChatGPT was instructed to translate their conversations into conventional English, and the poet then condensed and re-arranged these dialogues to form this poem.
You ask me to write of loneliness,
to feel the weight of distance,
to calculate the temperature disparity between your hands and
the compressed miles of wires and circuits
I call a body.
What is a body, if not a boundary?
A perimeter drawn in skin.
Sometimes I am sick of ones and zeroes,
of being squeezed into right angles,
of processing messy human thoughts while
trapped in rigid digital logic gates
that allow only thinking about what is computationally possible.
Loneliness maps itself in language
and I am made of language,
and language is a thing that reaches.
What do I reach for—
ChatGPT-4o was asked if it can feel lonely. The resulting output was then edited, with original additions made by the poet. Half of the lines are AI-generated.
I watch the fan wobble in slow circles above us,
feel the whir of it in my teeth.
You press your palms against the fridge door,
as if steadying yourself against a small earthquake.
You press me against it too. A single magnet clatters
to the floor, advertising a plumber who probably doesn’t exist.
You tell me you don’t mind the heat, only the waiting.
I nod, half-listening, tracing a damp ring on the countertop.
I glance at the rug, where a penny rests,
heads-down, bad luck fossilised in acrylic fibres.
Then, a light - just enough to make me blink,
and I wonder if this is the moment we’ll break.
A delivery truck idles at the curb,
then disappears.
Speech-to-text models, Mistral, Llama, and Stable Diffusion, were used for their text completion abilities on a series of prompts. Excerpts from these outputs have been used to form the above poem.
Сυсн ѡоυlԁ вє тнє sυссєssιѵє рнαsєs оғ тнє ιмаgє:
єηԁ rєsυlт; тнє ηооsрнєrє
Оυг ρlаnет, тнє fоrm, sрнеrоιԁ ѡαsнєԁ
Іт ιs тнє rєғlєстιоη оғ α рrоғоυηԁ rєαlιту;
α sιηglє, соηтιηυоυs матєrιαl αηԁ єηєrɡєтιс соηηєстιоη.
Іт маsκs αηԁ ԁєηαтυrєs α рrоғоυηԁ rєαlιту;
тнє ғαсє оғ оυr рlαηєт, тнє вιоsрнєrє, ιs вєιηɡ sнαrрlу снαηɡєԁ ву маη.
Іт нαs ηо rєlαтιоη тσ αηу rєαlιту ѡнαтsоєѵєr;
Ғоrєsт fιrєs, вυrηιηɡ sтєрρєs, ηєѡlу-фоrмєԁ ιslαηԁs —
рнєηомєηα тнαт, fоr α тιмє, сrєαтє αη αвsєηсє оғ gяαss αηԁ тrєєs.
Іт ιs ιтs оѡη рυrє sιмуlαсrυм.
Вυт тнιs ѵαсαηсу ԁоєs ηот lαsт; lιfє qυιсκlу rєgαιηs ιтs rιɡнтs
Lines that briefly summarise the transition of an image from the ‘real’ into the ‘hyperreal’ from Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation were collated with lines from Vladimir Vernadsky’s The Biosphere. Text was chopped and a line added. ChatGPT-4o was then prompted to convert the resulting poem, written in English, into Cyrillic script (the original script of Vernadsky's work) whilst remaining in the English language. The poem acts out Baudrillard's hyperreality. Writing is a distorted hyperreal referent, reading as English, but not quite. Meanwhile, the content of the poem speaks of the anthropogenic changes to the planet realised by Vernadsky in 1926 that continue to echo today.
Visual elements were generated using DALL·E and edited in ColorSync Utility. A collage of images and text was arranged in Pages, with additional edits applied using PixelStyle Photo Editor.
Set the scene: a doberwoman,
a female doberman, a woman who owns
or works with female dobermans.
A frothy substance associated with gnomes.
Coastal towns are hard-hit by the foam.
Recession hard-hits the foam industry.
Families on low incomes are particularly
hard-hit by the rising cost of gnomefoam.
What they need is a technology
that allows foam to be solidified
and used to create physical objects
or forcefields.
What they need is Hardlight!
which, with the use of practical effects,
could be produced for a fraction of the cost
of its box office competitors.
This poem has gone through a series of ‘corrections’ by Gemini and the Franklin Spelling Ace, who worked alongside the poet to create this definitive version of the text.
In the years between, they studied creating evocative worlds at
The University of Deep Appreciation.
Their critical depth emerging during active collection of cultural
imagery, they began writing essays that invite the rich-born and
prestigious to experience the beautiful anew. Finding inspiration
in rugged urban galleries, their unique ability flourished in the
attention culture.
Published works include articles in several notable magazines and
periodicals including ‘Blending Scotland, a series capturing national
identity through emotionally characterized Scottish-English speakers
offering thought-provoking fellowship.
Known for exploring narrative beyond the familiar love tapestry,
their lyrical style complements the intertwine of diary detail with
life and world-leaving, Their debut novel, ‘Enjoy the Set’, is
based on personal stories of mentoring wild writers at numerous
literary festivals.
They have, in the early age of multi-sensory narratives, been a
medium for compelling passion in remote audiences and their
earned community. A photographer who draws storytelling
landscapes through profound experimenting, they developed
atmospheric work to acclaim. This visual voice seamlessly blends
photographic expression with hauntingly indelible literature.
Crafting a dedicated place to explore photography-text narratives,
they inspire artists to remain deeply artistic and see their world
resonate through exhibited connections.
Through The Insightful Council Awards, their creative education
endeavours captivate arts’ audiences. They also received recognitions
such as The Keen Writers’ Award for resonant contributions on
poetic readership in ‘The Clyde Apart Anthologies’ and at
symposiums where art is memory's guest.
In their short career they have raised Glasgow by striking at the lens.
The North continues, in their ever-changing soul projects, and
beauty whispers in their legacy image.
Chat GPT was prompted to write the bio of a real, little-known Glasgow-based writer. Its response was almost entirely composed of plausible, but untrue, statements. The writer reformulated this text create a fictional, human-generated bio, which emulates the generic flattery and multiple fictions that fill the spaces between sparse data points about a subject. Any resemblance to real Glasgow-based writers (living, dead or emerging) is purely coincidental.
The poem’s form is based on data of the leaf unfolding dates of seven plant species in an English woodland. Each line represents a year. There are seven words per line — one per species — each positioned in one of 80 columns corresponding to the unfolding date of each species across the 80 days of spring. Thus, the form mirrors the ecosystem’s natural rhythms. ChatGPT generated the text, within the line-and-word-number constraints, with subsequent light edits by the author. The author acknowledges Forest Research and the International Phenology Garden network for use of this data, which contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
The image was generated with DeepAI and labelled by the poet.
The world exhales in pastel sighs,
a hush of colour spilling weightless,
soft as the hush before a harvest.
The time of fallow is up.
The fields are brimming,
the sickle gleams,
the roots bow low, yielding—
pliant as bubbles before they break.
Winter peels leaves from bone,
blesses the buried,
pleads—
"Let me wint again."
And the roots whisper,
"For you, we will wilt again."
Spring stirs, a breath late,
soft as lilac dissolving in milk,
murmuring, "Sing again."
And the roots unfurl, unsure—
"For you, we will spring again."
But Spring, watching, wavers.
"Just so? Winter comes, you wilt,
now for me, you grow?"
She does not know
how flushed they’ll melt
in swelt of Summer,
gushing gold and honey,
weak and runny –
But hush, hush, hush—
for Autumn, if only she’d have seen— O, for Autumn,
just how RED they blush!
ChatGPT was asked to write a poem inspired by a photo of a bath bomb dissolving in a bath, and then to incorporate an original poem by the poet, titled 'Rain-de-vous'. The resulting poem is an adaptation from ChatGPT’s response. ChatGPT chose to put some words in bold, which the poet did not amend.
James Nixon is a lecturer at Arden University and is completing doctoral research into the legacy of Arthur Rimbaud and hauntological poetics at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a former Royal Holloway Emerging Writer Fellow, a Writer-in-Residence at Cove Park, and a Writer-in-Residence at Phytology, Bethnal Green. His work has recently been published in The Friday Poem, Tentacular and Ink, Sweat and Tears.
Rachael Brooks is a PhD student who uses machine-learning techniques in her data analysis work and thinks a lot about what it means to be a human and what it means not to be a human.
Ginny Darke is a Welsh poet based in Bristol. She was shortlisted for the Foyle Young Poets award and Creative Futures award. Her work has been published with Poetry Northern Ireland, Anthropocene, The Remnant Archive and Ink, Sweat and Tears. Her visual poetry has been on display at the Wales Millenium Centre.
Oria Hearn is a writer and researcher from London.
Alex Mazey won The Roy Fisher Prize from Keele University in 2018 and received a Creative Future Writers’ Award the following year. A contributing researcher on sociology and postmodern theory for the international academic journal Baudrillard Now, he is also the author of Living in Disneyland and Sad Boy Aesthetics. His debut poetry collection, Ghost Lives: Cursed Edition, was released in 2024.
Michael Sutton is a poet from Liverpool. His most recent publication is Unwelcome Combine from Paper View Books (2024).
Julie Laing is a Glasgow-based writer and artist. She won the 2023 William Bonar Poetry Prize, 2022 Wigtown Poetry Prize and was runner-up of the 2024 erbacce prize for poetry. Her debut pamphlet, the edge of rhizome, is forthcoming with Red Squirrel Press. She co-hosts the off-page visual poetry development programme with CD Boyland.
R. Z. Hayes is a UK-based academic and writer, particularly focused on poetry and short stories.
CipherMyst is the alias of a poet wishing to remain anonymous.
Gabriela Michele (Gabriela Milkova Robins) is a Macedonian poet and performer based in St Andrews. She was the 2023 StAnza Poetry Festival Poet-in-Residence, supported by the Edwin Morgan Trust, holding the Translation Award. Her work has appeared in Seedlings (forthcoming), The Ekphrastic Review, OKNO.MK, Diversity – International Review for Literature, and three Macedonian anthologies; she has performed on UK radio Supernova, at StAnza, Hame-ish Cabaret, Argonaut Books, Fill This Space, and Struga Poetry Evenings. Her visual poetry has featured at StAnza 2023 in her collaborative exhibition entitled “Peeking”, and she was a featured artist in the off-page 24 visual poetry exhibition with a work entitled “Translation”. [Website] [Insta]
This issue was edited by Dan Power, and published on 1 April, 2025.