in late photos, it attained a tropical effulgencesilver fronds blossomingeach pronging a different directionplants that flower before dyingmast seeds at prolific intervalshorticulturalists explain the phenomenonas a form of speciateddice-throwingthe seeds not finding skybecoming a forked beneficenceto rats and passing crowsWarhol’s wig restedatop the samepocked circumstancein his final self-portraits,we see the face abraded by human weatherexposedat the surfaceit is the face that grows all our lives,the one that only emerges the closer we get to skullWarhol’s faceseeded from a bullet to the ribspupils widening around usglance erasing our glanceas if wefingering metalone foot from nightmare, even when awakein the final silkscreens,Warhol’s wig bledin colored wavelengthred, bluegesture toward departure,toward arrival
[0222] Warhol’s Wig: 1986
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“[0222] Warhol’s Wig: 1986” from /FACE: by William Lessard.
Published by KERNPUNKT Press on April 14, 2026.
Copyright © 2025 by William Lessard.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
William Lessard is the author of /face (KERNPUNKT Press, 2026). His writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, McSweeney’s, The Seneca Review, Best American Experimental Writing, and JACKET2. He is the Poetry & Hybrids editor at Heavy Feather Review. More about him: www.williamlessardwrites.net.
What does poetry mean in the age of artificial intelligence and the fracking of selfhood? Enter /face (KERNPUNKT Press, April 2026), the debut collection from underground poet and digital theorist William Lessard, featuring poems collaged from Google Patents of facial capture technology. Called “a devastating critique of digital surveillance, facial recognition, and monetization of online user data and identity through advertising” by JACKET2, the book includes work that has appeared in American Poetry Review, the Beloit Poetry Journal, the Southwest Review, Posit, and Action, Spectacle. At a time when basic human value is being questioned, /face is essential work that channels Warhol, Nancy Spero, and Don Mee Choi.
“Lessard’s work is as much a series of ecstatic, poetic lightning bolts as it is a no-holds-barred criticism of the tech world and our Matrix-esque future. Lessard has chosen not just to describe the nightmarish evolution of technology before us, but, like the Futurists 100 years ago, to proclaim its damnation."
—Rain Taxi
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