Page 14

By Jack Joseph Smith

We have been talking about this for years now The music and the racial, come on, say the women, don't get tired, keep it up between ya, while leaving love out of it; to begin with, and I'll take that gun, unless you are going to the bank We need a kid to play the twelve string Ornery as family a delicate conclusion We know bowinkle, we know an elm tree, and a hero in the rain Narrow as a knife across a sound, across for a catch This hog up and done suggests children without deception Don't be sorry that light and dark is inundated Somewhere we are rolling down the pen, for electric cattle to stray Being one in the same Getting old and skinning cats

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page sounds conversational and crowded, mixing race, women, music, exhaustion, bowinkle, elm trees, a knife-like sound, children, electric cattle, aging, and skinning cats.

The strongest thing here is the talking voice. The scan-backed insertion around the knife and sound line makes the page feel even more spatial and improvised, as if the argument keeps crossing itself while it moves.

Claude

A crowded, talking page that has been arguing 'for years now' over 'The music and the racial,' the women egging it on - 'don't get tired, keep it up between ya, while / leaving love out of it.' It catalogs a small known world - 'We know bowinkle, / we know an elm tree, / and a hero in the rain' - and a handwritten 'across' insertion sharpens 'Narrow as a knife across a sound, across for a catch.' Domesticity and slaughter close it together: 'rolling down the pen, / for electric cattle to stray,' 'Getting old and skinning cats,' with 'bowinkle' preserved as written. The source line on scattering carries a now-offensive racial term verbatim from the manuscript.