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I’ve created a Monster...
Dawn of the Algorithm is an illustrated poetry collection about the end of the world. It’sabout giants, robots, aliens and dinosaurs; disasters, catastrophes andspectacular cataclysms. By analogy, it is also about rupture: themicro-apocalypses that spark when you throw together love, longing, friendshipand loss—what some might call The Dark Side of the human experience.

We cultivate a morbid fascinationfor the Apocalypse, the foretold End of All Things. The very notion is a vectorfor self-analysis—a snap judgment of humankind by projecting into the future. What form will it take? Natural selection or pure self-destruction? Which sin of man will cause the downfall of mankind? Who, or what, will survive?

Unsurprisingly, the poems are a tad cynical, but with a dash of hope and often, if not always, a fluorescent silly streak. The collection is visually quite hyperbolic and literally quite offensive, but always with the best intentions. It will provide you withhealthy food for thought and a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. As a bonus, it may help to make pop-culture taste less vapid and the Internet less depraved—or more so; it’s all a matter of perspective.

Stranger Danger! Who is this stranger?
My name is Yann Rousselot. I’m French/British but most people think I’m American because I sound like one. (It’s a long story involving diplomats, international schools and locations with otherworldly names like XaiXai, Nosy Bé or Bashundhara.) I have two Masters Degrees, one in languages and another in translation, and my daylight trade as a technical translator involves selling products and managing projects in which the hard currency is words.

My moonlight trade is writing prose and poetry, performing at poetry readings, and working to hone my craft. Over the past few years, this has resulted in my contribution to a variety of publications, both in print and online.

Living here in Paris I fell into a dangerous subculture of spoken word poetry in the underground cave of a little café called Au Chat Noir,and most of this work is the net result of me falling in with this community. I dedicate this book to them all.

With your Money
The bulk of the capital will go to the physical/digital book production: a top-tier editor, marketing campaign, printing, distribution... The remaining slice, and every dollar over the funding goal, will allow me to give a little something back to the (amazing & generous) illustrators who will be interpreting specific poems in hand-drawn or digital artwork. I like to think of this as a form of translation: a technical, very pragmatic process, but also an homage, a nod of the head to another human being that says: I see what you did there.

Why I do what I do
I like to write poetry for those of you who don’t like poetry. I like to find meaning in the least poetic things. The disreputable, mass-market, pop-flavoured things. In the words of a famous medical practitioner: these things are fun, and fun is good. I want to make readers think, explore the existential void within us all, but always with a smile.

There is a lot of myself in these works and in that sense I believe there must be a piece of you, reader, as well. Think of it as a private cup-and-string telephone from your skull to mine because that’s what poetry, and art in general, is really all about.

This is where you come in. Our generation is ushering in a new, democratic publishing model, and I believe this to be a noble cause. Become a patron of the arts. If you are willing to bloody your hands with me and midwife this infant alien chestburster into the world, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. In return, I give you my best writing. Now put on those latex gloves. We have work to do.

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