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This poem is taken from PN Review 77, Volume 17 Number 3, January - February 1991.

Three Poems Iain Bamforth

TRANSLATING THE TRANSLATORS

i

They called it
user-friendly -
it was the DIY
of a lethal dose.

Still, ghostwriting
its hors-texte
revolution made
us word-perfect,

unable to resist
those subliminal
slogans for the One
True Science

whose built-in
obsolescence
would one day cry
havoc and leave
...


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