Alex Calderwood

alex calderwood

Ways of Knowing (Digital Poem)

June 17, 2025 publication poetry

A screenshot of 'Ways of Knowing' digital poem depicting green letters suspended on a grid of partial words going in different directions: sys-ue-matically and sys-ues-atical-y

A screenshot of 'Ways of Knowing' digital poem depicting green letters suspended on a grid of partial words going in different directions: sys-ue-matically and sys-ues-atical-y

Inspired by Queneau’s A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems, “Ways of Knowing” tasks the player-writer-reader with producing single-word sonnets on a character-by character basis. Every reload maps a random 14-character word to each arrow key. The player is tasked with navigating an epistemological sonnet by iteratively choosing which character from the four words to next select.

I’ve found the created texts to form potent and quirky neologisms, and the resulting spatial construction to have a different effect as a concrete poem than experienced during its composition.

“Ways of Knowing” is part of a larger project exploring text editors that peek into or comment on the aesthetics of composition. How might the experience of writing be targeted as a poetic end in and of itself? How can we provoke writer-players to confront the limited plane of authorship afforded by their material circumstances?

Taper #14: Sonnets, Spring 2025

Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole. Lines and colors made with earth on earth may hold knowledge in them. All knowledge is local, all truth is partial, Havzhiva said with an easy, colloquial dignity that he knew was an imitation of his mother, the Heir of the Sun, talking to foreign merchants. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger patttern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole.