The Xenotext

""In this audacious work – arguably the world’s first example of “living poetry” – the poet and Leeds Beckett University professor Christian Bök chronicles the completion of his 25-year experiment, in which he used a “chemical alphabet” to encode a sonnet into the genome of the almost indestructible bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans – which can survive radiation, acid, freezing and even outer space. Miraculously, the microbe “writes” a poem back. Although his text is shadowed with apocalyptic gloom, Bök stokes a romantic idea: that poetry might live in more than just our hearts, perhaps even outliving humanity itself."" – The Observer’s books of the year 2025 ""While civilizations in the future may look back upon the germ that contains The Xenotext and see there one of the last vestiges of our culture, The Xenotext today forces us to consider the “poetics” of the genetic code and, by extension, the poetry that might be buried within the origins of life itself."" – Dashiel Carrera, Los Angeles Review of Books  ""[W]ell worth the price just for the the acrobatics and anagrams and sonnets, for the way it remixes science and fiction and the classic canon."" – Peter Watts ""With The Xenotext, Book 2, Bök now ends a 25-year project with even stricter constraints: embedding a poem in the genes of a living bacterium that, when genetically transcribed, produces a corresponding poem, both of which can be genetically replicated without error, ad infinitum."" – Tom Bowden, The Book Beat Praise for the author:  ""The Xenotext is equal parts revelation and revolution. Absolutely staggering."" – Peter Watts “Many artists seek to attain immortality through their art, but few would expect their work to outlast the human race and live on for billions of years. As Canadian poet Christian Bok has realized, it all comes down to the durability of your materials.” – The Guardian  “Christian Bok’s The Xenotext, a poem in DNA mutation, continues his attempts to redefine what poetry even is.” – The National Post  “Bök's dazzling word games are the literary sensation of the year.” – The Times  “A resounding success…brilliant.” – The Guardian