Jackie Kirby18+MARKOV Act 1 is a hybrid book of poetry and historical fiction. The narrative aspect tells the story of an affair between Zaklina Marshevska, a time-displaced version of myself, and A.A. Markov, a Russian mathematician whose discoveries facilitated the creation of a Markov chains, at the Russian Imperial academy in 19th century Saint Petersburg. The lyrical aspect presents a collection of poems written using a Markov chain text generator. The original input text was formed by compiling the writing of a number of friends in late 2016 based on the prompt “How does the relationship between memory and community reflect itself in your life?” and a short biography of Markov. The output text was then used as the source material for the language of the poetry included here.
