Imitation Game
"I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'"
—Alan Turing
This is what I remember:
your face pale, eyes
screwed shut. An empty
yellow bowl. Lemons
on the floor. The way the light
touched you like something
sacred. Then, the window & its view
of the hills & the screeching sun--
just another burning star,
burning body, my burning body.
Screeching like an afterthought.
I am waiting, I think, for my body
to put itself out, to sing itself
to sleep.
//
This is what I remember:
Your face empty. Your bowl
pale. Window screwed
shut. The way the light touched you
like something scared. Lemons
stacked up to my shoulders. Yellow
again. Yellow like so many screeching
stars, too many to count,
not enough digits. Someone’s body
tinted warm with light. I hope
yours. I am waiting, I think, to be
loved. I am still waiting.
Analytic Component:
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun is a text that grapples with the intersection of humanity and loneliness, personhood and absence. In many ways, it is a heartbreaking story, especially when considered from Klara’s perspective. In the poem “Imitation Game,” I attempted to recreate Klara’s state of mind by writing a poem that questions humanity from the outside in, with a reference to the Turing test, originally dubbed the “imitation game” by Alan Turing. The imitation game grapples with a similar question as the novel: whether or not machines can ever become “human” as we know it.
Memory is integral to personhood, and I wanted to reflect how it acts as a vehicle that reinforces identity, even for Artificial Friends like Klara—especially for Artificial Friends like Klara. As an observer to humanity, Klara often describes new experiences in terms of events and objects she herself has already encountered. For instance, she returns again and again to the stories she experiences while residing in the store: those of the Beggar Man and his dog; of the Coffee Cup lady and Raincoat Man. Similarly, she describes the sky in terms of “the color of the lemons in the fruit bowl” or “the gray of the slate chopping boards.” I wanted to reflect this tendency in the poem as well; the two stanzas respectively reflect the narrative progression from the beginning of the novel versus its end. As a result, the images change as Josie changes: at first, she is something “sacred,” but still suffering from illness, her “face pale, eyes / screwed shut.” I wanted to repeat and superimpose images atop one another, as well as keep the Sun an important figure throughout the poem. By the second stanza of the poem, Klara’s memories have changed, resorted over her time at the junkyard: although healed, Josie’s face is now “empty,” the “[w]indows screwed shut,” the light touching her like “something scared.” Moreover, the scattered nature of the lines reflects Klara’s sacrifice for Josie, and how some of her capabilities were lost as a result.
Like in the novel, the Klara of “Imitation Game” approaches loneliness from the lens of a machine, and implicitly shows how love can be weaponized as a kind of violence, as seen in the dynamics among its characters, especially through Klara and Josie. Ultimately, through this poem, I wanted to pay homage to Klara’s unflinching loyalty and dedication to Josie—the startling extent of her love, and how it simultaneously reflects the most human part of her and the least human part of her.