Mar y virus / Virus and the Sea by Tina Escaja

“Mar y virus / Virus and the Sea”

Artist Statement

“Mar y virus / Virus and the Sea” is an “oleatory” poem in the time of COVID-19  -“oleatory” coming from the Spanish “ola,” meaning “wave,” and the English “aleatory,” since this is a generative/aleatory poem. Like waves of a primeval sea populated by viruses, the verses of this poem, key and matrix of a larger project, are composed and recomposed in a “random” and infinite way, mirroring the impact of ancient plagues in our DNA. Purposely hacked from Nick Montfort’s “Las aventuras de la Muerte,” this poem acts as an allegory of the virus, inserting itself in the original poem and altering it.  English translation by Kristin Dykstra.

Bio

Tina Escaja (aka Alm@ Pérez) is a destructivist/a cyber-poet@, digital artist and scholar based in Burlington, Vermont. Her creative work transcends the traditional book form, leaping into digital art, robotics, augmented reality and multimedia projects exhibited in museums and galleries internationally.  Escaja’s poems, fiction and digital work have appeared in numerous collections and have been translated into a dozen languages. She is the instigator of the Destructivist/a movement, initiated on the grave of Vicente Huidobro in October of 2014.

This poem is part of The Los Angeles Review‘s electronic literature folio presented by Letras Latinas and The Poetry Foundation. Please read the introduction letter HERE for more information.

15 May 2023