The Xenotext: Book 2
เด เด-เดฌเตเดเตเดเดฟเดจเตเดเตเดเตเดฑเดฟเดเตเดเต
Christian Bรถk in Book 1 of The Xenotext outlined his plan to encode a poem into the genome of a deathless bacterium, thereby writing a text durable enough to outlive any apocalypse, surviving until the death of the Sun itself. After more than two decades of effort, Bรถk has, at last, succeeded at this incredible experiment, and Book 2 of The Xenotext situates his enterprise within the deep time of the cosmos.
Bรถk rehearses some of the techniques likely to be used in the future to preserve the cultural heritage of our civilization against a potential planetary disaster (be it thermonuclear warfare or astrophysical barrage); moreover, Bรถk speculates that, buried within the biochemistry of Life itself, there really does exist an innate beauty, if not a hidden poetry โ a literal message that we might read, if we deign to seek it.
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เดฐเดเดฏเดฟเดคเดพเดตเดฟเดจเต เดเตเดฑเดฟเดเตเดเต
Christian Bรถk 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 Bรถk about his work on The Xenotext (making him the first poet ever to appear in this famous journal of science). Bรถk 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). Bรถk is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and he teaches at Leeds School of Arts in the UK.
