Algorithmic Shapeshifting by Bogi Takács

Algorithmic Shapeshifting by Bogi Takács is a collection of mostly speculative poems. I'm not a big reader of poetry, but I have mostly enjoyed, for example, the poems that appear in Uncanny Magazine. Since I also enjoy Takács's writing, this seemed like a good place to start reading more poetry.

Algorithmic Shapeshifting is the first poetry collection of Bogi Takács, winner of the Lambda award for editing Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, and finalist for the Hugo and Locus awards. Algorithmic Shapeshifting includes poems from the past decade and previously unpublished work. The scope of the pieces extends from the present and past of Jewish life in Hungary and the United States to the far-future, outer-space reaches of the speculative—always with a sense of curiosity and wonder.

There is a variety of poems contained in this collection, from very short to longer works and written in different styles. Some are more narrative and some more abstract. A lot of them tell a story, although a few (fewer than I expected, to be honest) went over my head. Some were very sweet love poems, some were chilling dystopian tales. Most tended towards the science fictional or the fantastical, which definitely appealed to me. Several poems engaged with Jewish themes in various ways. A few were less conventional (I think that's the right description) such as "The Tiny English-Hungarian Phrasebook for Visiting Extraterrestrials" which told a story in a clever way, and "The Oracle of DARPA", which was an amusing poem in the form of an interview between DARPA trying to build a weapon and an oracle giving oblique answers and unexpected side effects.

With short story collections and anthologies I usually include comments on each story unless it's flash fiction. I didn't think that would work for me with poems, so instead I'm just going to discuss/react to some of the poems that stood out for me. I was expecting "A User Guide to the Application of Gem-Flowers" to be horrific rather than wholesome. I was wrong. "Trans Love Is" was very sweet, as were a few other love poems I didn't explicitly mark out. "Periodicity" and "Flee to Far Shores" were both about leaving bad political situations and migration; I found them quite meaningful. I found the sort-of-reveal at the end of "The Third Extension" quite satisfying. "A Hail of Pebbles and Dust" was particularly science fictional, about a tidally locked planet. I liked the way "The Size of a Barleycorn, Encased in Lead" engaged with the idea of time-proof sign-posting (for nuclear waste). "Six Hundred and Thirteen Commandments" told a nice story in several verses spread across time, about completing commandments in different lives.

Finally, I want to mention that I had a review copy of the ebook and there were a few typographical notes in there about how the ebook differs in presentation from the original, intended form. One poem ought to have had two verses printed on opposite sides of a double page spread. Another was originally published in an animated form online and, although there description prefacing it was quite accurate, I didn't fully understand the point until I clicked through to see the original version. It's interesting, given these two examples, that neither the ebook or the paper book can be truely said to be the definitive version of the entire collection. I kind of like the idea of there no being one true version...

If you are a fan of poetry or Takács's writing more generally, then I heartily recommend this collection. I am far from being an expert in speculative poetry, but I enjoyed it a lot and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to others who are also interested in reading more speculative poetry (perhaps in between their speculative fiction).

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2019, Aqueduct Press
Series: Not in the usual sense
Format read: eARC
Source: Review copy courtesy of the author