Codework: language contaminated by the machine

Sondheim developed the term codework for writing that places ordinary language and computer language in direct contact. Rita Raley describes it as experimental writing that uses the contemporary idiom of computers and computational processes. It can include actual programming code, simulated commands, technical notation, network output, or natural language altered by the structures of code

1. Permission denied

I cannot forget you.

if(memory.you != NULL) forget(); // permission denied

love.exe has stopped responding
body = body - absence;
while(breath) { remember(); }

delete loneliness
file not found

restore childhood
access denied

A line such as:

I cannot forget you.

might become:

if(memory.you != NULL) forget(); // permission denied

This version does not simply decorate the sentence with computer symbols. The failed command expresses emotional inability. “Permission denied” becomes both a system message and a statement about grief, obsession, or memory.

This technique can be applied to poetry by treating code as a second vocabulary:

love.exe has stopped responding
body = body – absence;
while(breath) { remember(); }

The code does not necessarily have to compile. Sondheim’s broad understanding of codework includes code as an executable program, code as a carrier of meaning, command-generated reports, and conventional writing that imitates or comments upon code. He was especially interested in the unstable boundary between formal systems and the “dirty” world of desire, sexuality, bodies, mistakes, and consciousness.

Glitch, error, and broken commands

In ordinary computing, an error is something to correct. In Sondheim-inspired poetry, the error can become the poem’s emotional center.

A broken command suggests the difference between what a person wants and what the system permits:

delete loneliness
file not found

restore childhood
access denied

Misspellings, incomplete tags, corrupted syntax, and failed processes can represent memory failure, bodily vulnerability, interrupted communication, or unstable identity. The machine appears orderly, but its breakdown exposes human disorder.

This should not be done randomly. The error must contribute to the poem’s subject. A poem about disappearance might use missing files. A poem about failed intimacy might use a broken connection. A poem about identity might contain conflicting usernames or passwords that no longer work.