THE XENOTEXT: BOOK 2

The Xenotext: a poem as a strand of DNA embedded in an eternal bacterium.

In The Xenotext: Book 1, Christian Bök outlined his plan to insert his poem, written as DNA, into a deathless bacterium, thereby writing a text able to outlive every apocalypse, enduring till the Sun itself expires. Now that the experiment has finally succeeded, Book 2 of The Xenotext situates that poem within the deep time of the cosmos. Our civilization has only very limited methods or preserving its cultural heritage against a potential planetary disaster (be it thermonuclear warfare or astrophysical barrage); however, this experiment rehearses some of the techniques likely to be used in the future to preserve our archives against such annihilation. Writing in his signature poetics, Bök speculates that, buried within the biochemistry of Life itself, there really does exist an innate beauty, if not a hidden poetry a literal message that we might read, if we deign to seek it. CHRISTIAN BÖK is the author of Eunoia (Coach House Books, 2001), a bestselling work of experimental literature, which has gone on to win the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence (2002). Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), his first book of poetry, was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award (1995). Nature has interviewed Bök about his work on The Xenotext (making him the first poet ever to appear in this famous journal of science). Bök has also exhibited artworks derived from The Xenotext at galleries around the world; moreover, his poem from this project has hitched a ride, as a digital payload, aboard a number of probes exploring the Solar System (including the InSight lander, now at Elysium Planitia on the surface of Mars). Bök is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and he teaches at Leeds School of Arts in the U.K.