Barcode Poetry

Author: Kyle Flemmer

Publisher: The Blasted Tree (2021)

Riffing on company slogans, song lyrics, protest chants, and writing advice, Kyle Flemmer’s Barcode Poetry is a 101-part sequence of typewritten visual poems taking up the complicated relationship between art and commerce. Though made on a 1940 Remington Rand Deluxe Model 5 typewriter, a relic of the analogue past, these poems masquerade as the hallmark of digitized consumerism—barcodes—to playfully critique the paradox of creativity under capitalism. This debut collection includes an afterword by the author on composing typewriter art that positions Barcode Poetry against the commercialization of the culture industry. Barcode Poetry is a 124-page, 7.5” x 7.5” x 0.25” paperback published in an edition of 200 copies.