Reserach Visibility Shirt x 4
by Jake Levine
The Academic Journal of Mirror Reflections Reflected In Mirrors
Yesterday we had a meeting to schedule today’s meeting and today we had a meeting to schedule the next meeting. The editor-in-chief pours us tea. When we meet again, the first order of business is to decide when we should meet. Now that that’s decided, let’s decide when our next meeting will be, says the editor-in-chief. I vote that we put it to a vote, says the managing editor. An assistant editor takes a sip of tea. Every day I pass a replica of Jacques Louis David’s The Death of Socrates in the corridor on my way to my office, and I look at the resolute face of Socrates about to drink from the cup of hemlock, the howling and distressed faces of his grief filled students, and I pause. Is there any meaning? I mean, what do we stand for? A different assistant editor takes a sip of tea and raises her hand. I would like to vote for Tuesday afternoon. I take a sip of tea. I become leaves. I become glaze, the porcelain mug. We are a rope bridge strung between this world and the next, I say, we are a string tied around a finger swiping across a blank screen. The managing editor, the assistant editors, the assistant all take a sip of tea. Yes, the editor-in-chief says, It is agreed. Tuesday. Tuesday.
Healing Time
I watch the students' expressions and the students watch me but I wonder, who watches us? Professor thank you, a student says, this is my healing time. No, I say thank you, your healing time makes my time a healing time. Light bulb. I changed the name of A Survey of 20th Century Western Philosophy to A Survey of 20th Century Western Philosophy: Healing Time. Part education, part therapy. As expected, registration increased. As expected, no raise. No one is watching. But even though no one is watching, maybe because no one is watching, I always feel like somebody's watching. Performance evaluation mentality. When I am teaching the air conditioning unit overhead beeps, turns off, beeps, powers up, beep. Blows. The machine confirms what we already know. A small relief. Then, suddenly, beep. The air stops. To know what we know and to know what we do not know, but to never know what we don’t know, to dwell in this endless alley of the meaningless city, becoming silence, the turned off air conditioner and the question, why did the air conditioner beep and turn off? Becoming the answer to that question, a question to itself. Every question an answer in a way. A recurring proposition. I turn on the lights. Now open your eyes. The students open their eyes. See you next class.
Uncanny
Do student responses sound like Chat GPT or do Chat GPT responses sound like my students? All the students’ poems rhyme because Chat GPT rhymes and Chat GPT rhymes because my students rhyme. Feedback loop. Yesterday a student wrote a rhyming poem about a man who saw his reflection standing in front of the glass window of a Starbucks in the glass windows of a Starbucks across the street. The question, the student says, is not if we are already in the uncanny valley, but whether or not we are drinking from plastic straws. Another student presents an experimental sestina. Six stanzas of dancing crabs wearing sunglasses and a three line volta of smiling poop emojis. What does it mean, I ask. The crabs speak. We are a sestina, the student says. I don’t understand, I say. Let the work speak, the student says. The students all nod their heads.
Fungus Life
Weekly experiment: I spin in circles and aspirate into the air. My students blow spit bubbles and poke at their sadness. I spore onto desks, chairs, souls. I network and school. Grackle and goo. My students ask What are you? I twirl and shroom. Burst up and plume. I AM THE MUSHROOM KING! The students throw their mushroom cap hands in the air and scream. HAIL THE MUSHROOM KING! The mushroom king attends the poetry conference. One poet teacher says the poem is never ended, only abandoned. A PhD says you’ve got to kill your darlings and a painter who gets accepted to but doesn’t attend many residencies says the most gifted poet is the least understood. I have elbows, so I have always been ashamed, a wise and bearded poet holds a roundtable discussion: BODY ENJAMBMENT, THE POETIC POSSIBILITY OF ELBOWS. When the time has come to eat tuna sandwiches wrapped in cellophane, I stand and raise my arms. I AM THE MUSHROOM KING! All four of the real poets in the annex stand up. Clap. And clap.
Jake Levine is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Keimyung University. He has written and translated or co-translated over a dozen books, including Kim Yideum’s Hysteria (Action Books, 2019) which was the first book to be awarded both the National Translation Award and the Lucien Stryk Prize. He currently edits the award-winning contemporary Korean poetry series, Moon Country, at Black Ocean. His first full-length book of poetry The Imagined Country is out with Tolsun Books in 2023.