In Codify, Irene Koronas’ seminal, post-language collection, “cochineal bugs” wait for their “theologic vigils” in a carved minimalism, which will prompt the gifted among us to replace their internal organs with algorithms. The poems in Codify are scalpels arranged by the nodules of some posthuman gematria. 6, 13, 22, 16, 8, for example, suggests a lottery or the fibonacci code as seen by a midget with a monocle travelling the Einstein-Rosen Bridge on a unicycle. Koronas is a dead serious parodist, “hope or no hope/secretes a virgin,” but she’s also writing wisdom literature like a posthuman Ecclesiastes. “She doesn’t/stand God,” and “snort praises/a fatal cross,” bear witness to the future of poetry, beyond confession and retweeds. Codify is invention.
