Podcast Episode Summary
Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Holly Gattery
Guest: Paul Vermeersch
Episode: Paul Vermeersch, "NMLCT: Poems" (ECW Press, 2025)
Date: December 21, 2025

Episode Overview

In this engaging episode of the New Books Network, host Holly Gattery interviews poet Paul Vermeersch about his new poetry collection, NMLCT: Poems (pronounced "Animal City"). The conversation explores how fables and fairy tales intersect with the digital world, artificial intelligence, and the question of what is real in an increasingly simulated, post-truth society. Vermeersch discusses his creative process, the symbolism throughout his work, and how his poems evoke the blurred boundaries between the synthetic and authentic, inviting readers to dwell in uncertainty and wonder.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Genesis of "Animal City"

• Vermeersch describes NMLCT as building upon his longstanding interest in the boundary between the human and the artificial (03:55).
• The collection responds to modern anxieties—AI, algorithms, misinformation—by experimenting with what feels real in a machine-dominated world.
• The poems aim to probe the experience, not merely represent it:

  “The world keeps changing. So the writing has to sort of keep up with the world … There's the personal challenge of always wanting to develop your art form and take it places you haven't gone before.” (05:29, Paul Vermeersch)

2. Symbolism and the Title

• The title "NMLCT" (Animal City) intentionally fuses the concepts of nature and digital, with its spelling evoking both the natural and the algorithmic (06:02).

• Animals in the book serve both literal and metaphorical roles, representing reality and natural authenticity, in contrast to the synthetic (07:04).

• Vermeersch reads and unpacks the poem "Cubic Wolf," which encapsulates this tension: a wolf both real and geometric, existing in unsettling duality (07:53).

  “It's impossible to know what's real. And that's sort of the problem I'm asking on a larger scale about digital culture and artificial intelligence … the ability to sit with this doubt, and to sit with this sort of illogic and to sit with this mystery is part of the wonder of what poetry is capable of.” (10:00, Paul Vermeersch)

3. Geometry and Form

• The book is permeated by shapes and geometric imagery—cubes, dots, matrices—which function as “meta-forms” representing the synthetic, contrasted with animal/organic forms representing the real (12:28).
• Vermeersch intends these geometric elements to manifest the clash between the digital order and the chaotic richness of the natural world:

  “These shapes are meta-forms … They represent the unnatural world. They represent a kind of limited, synthetic, human-made world... and by comparison, revealed to be flat and lifeless.” (13:50, Paul Vermeersch)

4. Book Cover (COVID) Art and Collaboration

• The book’s cover features a sculpture by David Altmejd, selected for its visual and thematic resonance with the poems (15:33).
• Altmejd’s sculpture, described as a “jackrabbit astronaut,” blurs the line between organic and artificial, echoing the book’s central tension (20:18).
• Vermeersch shares how both the cover and the collection unintentionally converse as parallel explorations:

  "It's nice to have an image on the cover that's not merely decorative, but enters into a kind of dialogue with the writing." (17:36, Paul Vermeersch)

5. Fairy Tale and Fable Motifs

• Fables and fairy tales, especially the recurring image of the wolf, are woven throughout as both familiar and subverted elements (23:01).
• Vermeersch reads “an endless field of identical green dots,” a poem that acts as both a rewriting system for forests and a meditation on the failure to fully capture or engineer the wildness of nature.
• Throughout, fairy tales are recontextualized in digital and geometric spaces, raising questions about authenticity, narrative, and childhood morality.

6. Avoiding Moralizing and Fostering Ambiguity

• Vermeersch is intentional about refraining from explicit moralizing:

  “I want my writing to create an experience... not to be commentary. I think moralizing in a poem has a way of backfiring, or it has a way of eroding the poem's effectiveness.” (29:36, Paul Vermeersch)

• The collection invites readers to inhabit uncertainty and ask their own questions about the boundaries between real and synthetic, rather than offering clear answers.

7. The Power of Play and Experimentation

• Holly praises Vermeersch’s sense of play, particularly in the physical arrangement of poems and in pieces like “Shapeshifter” (a cento).

• Vermeersch explains the cento form—a poem created by collaging lines from other poets—and how it reflects the book’s themes of authenticity and human creativity in contrast to AI.

  Notable Reading:

  “I can make a wolf with my hands and a lamp on the wall. I was a child until I was old. A wolf began my death. I was a boy just once in a little dark house in the woods. I was a powerful, beautiful boy. And I could call down thunder and lightning, you know, if I really wanted to.” (36:47, Paul Vermeersch, reading from "Shapeshifter")

8. Process of Writing and Editing Poetry

• Vermeersch’s poems commonly undergo 30-50 drafts:

  “The real work of writing is rewriting, revising, editing… I try not to have a too definitive picture in my mind of what the finished poem should be. I like to get the raw materials down, then really just move them around until they feel satisfactory.” (46:07, Paul Vermeersch)

• Patience and openness are central to distilling extraneous language and letting a poem “reveal itself.”

9. Future Projects and Thematic Evolution

• Fresh from "Animal City," Vermeersch has just begun probing ideas for his next collection, considering an updated version of the pastoral tradition—“anything that takes place offline is the countryside of the 21st century” (52:31).

Memorable Quotes and Moments

• On literary uncertainty:

  "Can we accept that, even in the logic, the internal logic of this poem, that this creature is both a real wolf and a geometric three-dimensional shape? … Is the doubt I am asking the reader to sit with and accept..." (10:00, Paul Vermeersch)

• On making poetry, not polemic:

  “If you're a poet and your aim is to be ‘good enough,’ quit. Because we are not here to be good enough. We are here to be better.” (49:19, Paul Vermeersch)

• On poetic patience:

  “There's one poem in this book that took me 20 years to write … it wasn't until this book that it finally came together.” (51:21, Paul Vermeersch)

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Main Theme & Introduction: 02:27 – 03:55
• Genesis of Collection: 03:55 – 06:02
• On Animals and Title: 06:02 – 07:53
• Reading "Cubic Wolf": 07:53 – 11:55
• Geometry & Shapes: 12:28 – 14:25
• Book Cover Art Discussion: 15:33 – 18:27; 19:57 – 21:32
• Fable/Fairy Tale Motifs: 23:01 – 28:41
• Avoiding Moralizing in Poetry: 29:36 – 32:43
• On Play & "Shapeshifter" Reading: 32:43 – 39:17
• Craft and Revision Process: 46:07 – 52:31
• Plans for Future Work: 52:31 – 54:45

Conclusion

This episode offers a profound exploration of poetry as a vessel for negotiating the boundaries between nature and technology, reality and simulation. Vermeersch’s NMLCT: Poems is at once playful, unsettling, and full of wonder; it asks readers to experience uncertainty and ambiguity, to engage with poetic forms old and new, and to reflect on what it means to be genuinely alive in a synthetic age.

Recommended Action:
This conversation pairs well with a slow, attentive reading of Animal City. As Holly says, "First of all, get the book in front of you. Buy this book!" (41:56)