Editing Jackson Mac Low (section)

==Composition==
 
One type of non-intentional composition that he used relied on an algorithm he dubbed "diastic", by analogy to [[acrostic]].<ref>Mordecai-Mark Mac Low, "The Role of the Machine in the Experiment of Egoless Poetry" in H. Higgins, & D. Kahn (eds), Mainframe experimentalism: Early digital computing in the experimental arts, pp.299.</ref> He used words or phrases drawn from source material to spell out a source word or phrase, with the first word having the first letter of the source, the second word having the second letter, and so forth, reading through (''dia'' in Greek) the source.  During the last 25 years of his life, he often collaborated with [[Anne Tardos]].

=== Chance operations ===
Jackson Mac Low is known for using chance and experimentation in the production of his diastic poems. He engaged in projects that would extract words from the work of other poets and writers through a specific system he devised in order to produce a new poem. He would often extract these words from texts he was reading on the subway during his commutes. One such example is Mac Low's "Call Me Ishmael", developed from the source text ''[[Moby-Dick|Moby Dick]]'' by [[Herman Melville]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=McHale |first=Brian |date=2000-03-01 |title=Poetry as Prosthesis |journal=Poetics Today |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=1–32 |doi=10.1215/03335372-21-1-1 |s2cid=109928857 |issn=0333-5372|doi-access=free }}</ref> "Call Me Ishmael" is a phrase from "Loomings", the first chapter of the book. Mac Low moved chronologically through the book after finding the phrase extracted from the source text, "Call Me Ishmael," and allowing the first letter of each word in each stanza to spell out "Call Me Ishmael." Additionally, he played with the repetition of the letter "L" in the third and fourth word of each stanza by allowing the fourth word to repeat the third. For example, the poem starts with the line "Circulation. And long long", spelling out the first part of the source-text phrase, "Call."<ref name=":0" />

Mac Low's interest in chance operations within poetry led him to adopt new experimentation techniques during his work on the ''Stein'' series. He used ''[[A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates|A Million Random Digits With 100,000 Normal Deviates]]'', a book of random numbers developed to aid in the production of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, to randomly rearrange and rewrite text by [[Gertrude Stein]] in a series of poems. He originally discovered ''A Million Random Digits'' in 1958 and used it in work throughout his life.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=PERLOW |first=SETH |date=2015 |title=Reading by Chance: Jackson Mac Low and a Million Random Digits |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43908416 |journal=Paideuma |volume=42 |pages=333–367 |issn=0090-5674 |jstor=43908416}}</ref> The ''Stein'' series, between 1998 and 2003, marks one of his final projects.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Spinosa |first=Dani |title=Anarchists in the academy: machines and free readers in experimental poetry |date=June 22, 2018 |publisher=University of Alberta |isbn=978-1-77212-405-7 |oclc=1083882356}}</ref>
Despite their mechanical nature, many of these chance poems open up space for sentimentality and delicate interpretation. One example of this is Jackson Mac Low's "Light Poems" that consisted of sentences randomly chosen from a chart documenting different kinds of light. In "32nd Light Poem: ''In Memorandum'' Paul Blackburn 9-10 October 1971," Mac Low uses this system of chance to pay respects to a late friend. The poem goes: "Let me choose the kinds of light/ to light the passing of my friend."<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Brown |first=Brandon |date=January 2017 |title=Music of Chance |journal=Art in America |volume=105 |issue=1 |pages=54–57 |via=Project MUSE}}</ref> Although the process appears mechanical, the poems themselves reveal grief and other emotions that appear to be at odds with the process by which they were developed.<ref name=":2" />

=== Connection to anarchism ===
Jackson Mac Low was invested in pushing the boundaries of author and audience. He regularly asserted that the author is not responsible for producing meaning, but rather creating the environment for the audience to extract a unique interpretation.<ref name=":1" /> He was interested in the dynamic between chance and choice within syntax. Works produced by chance allow the performers of the poem to have their own sense of determinism, which reflects Mac Low's own anarchist affiliations. Speaking on this dynamic between the author and performers, Mac Low stated:<blockquote>"Although performers are not directly regulated by a central authority, eventually they are, since I as the composer am giving them the materials, procedures, rules, etc. This is why I usually say these days that such performances are "analogies" rather than "paradigms" of free communities. Nevertheless, they're exercising their own initiative within the situation, the given materials being analogies of the real-life conditions provided by nature and society."<ref name=":1" /></blockquote>Within Mac Low's work, he disrupts subjectivity through the use of chance operations and the responsibility to extract and enact meaning falls on the role of the reader. Because of this, the reader functions more as performer than the author. For Mac Low, this method of producing poetry reflects his [[Anarchism|anarchist]] engagements because it dismantles the power structure between reader and author and serves as an analogy for a free community in which people make their own choices for how to live and structure their thinking and decisions.<ref name=":1" />

=== Connection to Buddhism ===
Mac Low used chance operations as a way to distance himself from choice, therefore habit. Whether conscious or unconscious, these habitual decisions rooted in personal history create limitations for an individual. Mac Low rejected choice in order to reduce the habitual process of decision-making. This idea is rooted in [[Buddhism]] in which one achieves enlightenment through discovery outside of one's habits, culture, and personal history and the achievement of a greater sense of generality. Mac Low's use of chance operations allows for a greater degree of universality. Although the language used is not universal, the operations used to produce the poems can be applied to a variety of contexts.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zweig |first=Ellen |date=1982 |title=Jackson Mac Low: The Limits of Formalism |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1772391 |journal=Poetics Today |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=79–86 |doi=10.2307/1772391 |jstor=1772391 |issn=0333-5372|url-access=subscription }}</ref>