I am, you will have noticed, largely absent from these pages nowadays.  While I do not pretend that a heartfelt apology is either desired or necessary, I would still like to make it known that I at least have good reasons for being away, and that I have still been watching the group avidly, despite providing nil input for the last god-knows-how-long.

Some activities which have distracted me include but are not limited to: the writing of my debut novel; the writing of my debut volume of poetry; the studying of english literature with a view to acquiring a degree; the studying of buddhism with a view to acquiring freedom; the uproarous reshuffling of my psyche which has been the foremost concern of the past year of my life. So while I have been gone, I have been busy. I'm sure you understand.

The world of found poetry has been growing exponentially, it seems, and - as a proponent of chaos theory and the idea of the interdependence of the universe - this must be partly due to the artistic efforts of the many prolific members of this group. One of the foremost sculptors of experimental literature, it seems to me, is that Christian Bok guy, whom most of you probably know of already. I read his lipogram poetry book 'Eunoia' a while ago (a book in which each section only allows for the use of one of the vowels), and have heard that he is currently 'bio-hacking a durable bacteria so that it exudes protein poems in response.' In other words, he is injecting bacteria with poetry formed from letters assigned to strands of DNA, who then 'responds' with a phrase of syntactical equivalence. Bok says that his aim is to explore the nature of the artist's desire for immortality; it could actually be argued that he has created the most permanent artwork of all time.

So, check him out, do, if you haven't already. I am currently involved in the practice of a kind of found poetry I have devised, which I have called 'backward translation'. The basic idea is to take a poem written in a language I do not understand - and make sure I have never read a translation of it, either - and jot it down on tracing paper. Then, I flip the page over, and proceed to 'find' English words out of the backward, foreign letterings. It feels very much like decoding an alien language. It's great fun; do try it. I shall upload some of my own silly little efforts when I have produced something bearable. I'm still practising.

Keep up all that you do, you beautiful things. You are like gods to me. Keep that carnival going in your hearts.

Peace,
Luis.