This curious poem/document was sent to the CEO and is certainly worth our publishing. It was created by one D Seth Horton. He explains its nature below (slightly paraphrased).

“Here are a series image-texts that are all centered on the U.S.-México border, which can be related to your recent interest in Carlos Castaneda given that his work was situated in the borderlands.

The text is sourced from various U.S. Customs and Border Patrol documents.  In terms of composition, I deleted most of the original material until I was left with the poem that had previously been hidden within the bureaucratese.  To be clear, I added no words, punctuation, or capital letters to the body of these poems, nor did I change the original word order in any way.  Instead, I simply erased what was in the way and then moved the words that remained into appropriate line breaks. 

Other than my drawing, the images all come from the National Archives.

In case readers are interested in comparing “my” texts against the original source material, I have included notes at the end of my submission with all the necessary details.”

Biography

 D. Seth Horton’s work has appeared in more than forty publications, including the Michigan Quarterly Review and Glimmer Train. Two of his stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His latest book is a forthcoming collection of stories set throughout the U.S.-Mexico borderlands entitled, On a NASA Flight to Heaven (TCU Press, 2024). He currently teaches creative writing and American literature at the University of Virginia.