Scott Simpson · Poetry
V. Who Is Speaking
The World We Mean · Authenticity and the Self · Singing · V. Who Is Speaking
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Poem segment 1
V. Who Is Speaking
Working with a machine
makes the question visible.
You type a sentence.
The system answers.
You reshape the answer.
It reshapes you back.
Soon a voice appears
that belongs fully
to neither side.
Not a person.
Not an instrument either.
More like call and response
echoing through a canyon.
You recognize yourself in it
and also don’t.
A phrase arrives
you would never have written alone
yet somehow
it carries your fingerprints.
This feels unfamiliar
only because we prefer the myth
of solitary authorship.
But expression has always been collaborative.
Books altering thought.
Strangers altering memory.
Randomness altering direction.
The self itself
is assembled through encounter.
Layer over layer.
Voice answering voice.
Copyright Scott Simpson, All Rights Reserved
