Empires of the Everyday

"An ambitious and wholly original poetry collection that examines how state violence is ever-present and often operates invisibly. In 2021, a year into the pandemic, the City of Toronto started demolishing plywood structures for houseless people at a time when COVID rates were exploding in homeless shelters. The media reporting on the incident didn't delve into the broader societal and historical contexts that give rise to houselessness. This real-life set of circumstances prompted Anna Lee-Popham to consider how AI technology might act as a tool to understand the news. What content would such an AI translator be fed? What form would the communication take? What would be the relationship between the AI translator and the human? In response to these questions, Empire of the Everyday examines (over two acts and five episodes) how state violence is ever-present and often operates invisibly. The "I" of the poems is the piece of AI machine technology that translates life in the city into a less linear language. The poems often address multiple individuals of various subjectivities ("you") to examine ways that life is confined and at times defined by the city. Powerful, thought-provoking, and devastating, Empire of the Everyday offers a new understanding of the current social and political moment."--