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by Joshua Zelesnick (Author)
In Insert Coin the reckless project of American capitalism and imperialism is felt through four characters-a contestant, a drone operator, a monster, and a prisoner-who interact in a world of game shows, chain-of-command killing, and confusion around the virtual and the real. Through video games, fantasy, and drone warfare by joystick, the book chronicles dissociation and denial as well as a soul longing for meaning in a world whose absurd violence and demand for profit feels simulated but is all too real. Insert Coin launches an experimental syntax with strict formal constraints, such as a 6-syllable line by 8-line stanza sequence to suggest the unbearable dimensions of a solitary confinement cell. In these poems, a civilization that can only imagine destruction asks, "how do I get to the next level?"
