Love in a Time of Robot Apocalypse by David Perez
REVIEW BY ZOELLE EGNER, Book Review/Web Editor
Rarely is a poetry collection so thematically cohesive as David Perez’s Love in a Time of Robot Apocalypse, newly available from Write Bloody press. Although the title suggests a tongue-in-cheek, futuristic update of Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, there is no aging robot love triangle here. Instead, Perez embarks on a thoughtful exploration of what it means to situate oneself as an individual in a society marked by the tension between what is human and what humans have built. In this hybrid world, defined by the almost sinister pervasiveness of both technological advancement and varying forms of violence—the contemporary robot apocalypse, if you will—Perez probes how one might understand and experience something so fundamental as human connection.
The work is loosely organized into three sections, with each concentrating more generally on a particular facet of the larger thematic question. The first provides a context for the author’s concepts of love, sex, and the intrusion of the natural into the constructed environment of contemporary society. In his attempts to understand everything from his accidental interruption of his parent’s copulation as a child to how best to cope with the necessity of setting mouse traps, Perez’s anxiety about each of these basic elements of daily life unfurls beautifully throughout the section, setting us up nicely for the most compelling portion of the book, Part 2. In it, Perez spends significant time juxtaposing humanity with the things it has created. In poems like “Tickle Me Elmo on Black Friday” and “The Puppet,” we see people from the perspective of objects that have been designed to mimic humanity—a pseudosentient children’s toy in the former, and a ventriloquist’s doll in the latter. In both cases, the newly animated narrator plays witness to subtle scenes of human brutality instigated by basic elements of modern culture—consumerism and show business.
Perhaps the most striking piece in this vein is “Deep Blue,” set during the famous Soviet-era showdown between the chess-playing computer of the title and Kasparov, the then world champion. The text, almost clinically divided by time stamps, and narrated by the computer, takes full advantage of the metaphorical implications of this historically monumental conflict between man and machine in order to plumb the depths of the differences between them. Although the fundamental distinction does seem to be the computer’s singularity of purpose (chess) in the face of Kasparov’s other concerns (his family, the Cold War) the piece offers an additional, unsettling reminder that however awful the outcomes technology may produce, the wars or the distance it creates between people, it is only capable of doing what it is programmed by its creators to do: “You have only yourself to blame./I would not be here/if you were not tired of being human” (45-48). That is to say, of course, that the danger posed in the environment Perez evokes lies not in the robots, but in their creators. As he asks in “To the Lady who Carves a Notch in Her M-16 for Every Robot she Leaves Charred and Perforated in the Ruins of Los Angeles,” his ode to Sarah Connor and the Terminator movies:
Sarah,
Why bother saving us
when you have fewer scars from machines
than you do from the men who made them?
You don't have to answer that. (67-71)
Nevertheless, it’s a question the work addresses time and time again, in the most satisfying ways.
The final section of the book dives more into another type of human construction—race and class—in order to reflect on the strain on human relationships and communication created by these artificial boundaries. As with the rest of the work, these pieces resonate with frustration and earnest attempts to digest the implications of the gaping, unnecessary gaps between us. In “How May I Help You,” we see the author finally break beneath his anger, announcing:
I write poetry because I can’t tell you the truth to your face
…
I need a mic stand between us
In order to tell you that I love you.
I can scream it into your face
but I can’t whisper it in your ear
because in another life,
you buried my ancestors in the riverbed. (25-32).
Throughout, Perez has provided an exquisitely multidimensional litany of things that impede our most basic desire as humans—to connect with others. Despite his anxiety about all the elements keeping us apart, here, as in the rest of the work, he makes an excellent case for poetry as a way to begin the conversation.
Rarely is a poetry collection so thematically cohesive as David Perez’s Love in a Time of Robot Apocalypse, newly available from Write Bloody press. Although the title suggests a tongue-in-cheek, futuristic update of Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, there is no aging robot love triangle here. Instead, Perez embarks on a thoughtful exploration of what it means to situate oneself as an individual in a society marked by the tension between what is human and what humans have built. In this hybrid world, defined by the almost sinister pervasiveness of both technological advancement and varying forms of violence—the contemporary robot apocalypse, if you will—Perez probes how one might understand and experience something so fundamental as human connection.
The work is loosely organized into three sections, with each concentrating more generally on a particular facet of the larger thematic question. The first provides a context for the author’s concepts of love, sex, and the intrusion of the natural into the constructed environment of contemporary society. In his attempts to understand everything from his accidental interruption of his parent’s copulation as a child to how best to cope with the necessity of setting mouse traps, Perez’s anxiety about each of these basic elements of daily life unfurls beautifully throughout the section, setting us up nicely for the most compelling portion of the book, Part 2. In it, Perez spends significant time juxtaposing humanity with the things it has created. In poems like “Tickle Me Elmo on Black Friday” and “The Puppet,” we see people from the perspective of objects that have been designed to mimic humanity—a pseudosentient children’s toy in the former, and a ventriloquist’s doll in the latter. In both cases, the newly animated narrator plays witness to subtle scenes of human brutality instigated by basic elements of modern culture—consumerism and show business.
Perhaps the most striking piece in this vein is “Deep Blue,” set during the famous Soviet-era showdown between the chess-playing computer of the title and Kasparov, the then world champion. The text, almost clinically divided by time stamps, and narrated by the computer, takes full advantage of the metaphorical implications of this historically monumental conflict between man and machine in order to plumb the depths of the differences between them. Although the fundamental distinction does seem to be the computer’s singularity of purpose (chess) in the face of Kasparov’s other concerns (his family, the Cold War) the piece offers an additional, unsettling reminder that however awful the outcomes technology may produce, the wars or the distance it creates between people, it is only capable of doing what it is programmed by its creators to do: “You have only yourself to blame./I would not be here/if you were not tired of being human” (45-48). That is to say, of course, that the danger posed in the environment Perez evokes lies not in the robots, but in their creators. As he asks in “To the Lady who Carves a Notch in Her M-16 for Every Robot she Leaves Charred and Perforated in the Ruins of Los Angeles,” his ode to Sarah Connor and the Terminator movies:
Sarah,
Why bother saving us
when you have fewer scars from machines
than you do from the men who made them?
You don't have to answer that. (67-71)
Nevertheless, it’s a question the work addresses time and time again, in the most satisfying ways.
The final section of the book dives more into another type of human construction—race and class—in order to reflect on the strain on human relationships and communication created by these artificial boundaries. As with the rest of the work, these pieces resonate with frustration and earnest attempts to digest the implications of the gaping, unnecessary gaps between us. In “How May I Help You,” we see the author finally break beneath his anger, announcing:
I write poetry because I can’t tell you the truth to your face
…
I need a mic stand between us
In order to tell you that I love you.
I can scream it into your face
but I can’t whisper it in your ear
because in another life,
you buried my ancestors in the riverbed. (25-32).
Throughout, Perez has provided an exquisitely multidimensional litany of things that impede our most basic desire as humans—to connect with others. Despite his anxiety about all the elements keeping us apart, here, as in the rest of the work, he makes an excellent case for poetry as a way to begin the conversation.