Book Release Party
LILY IN A CODEBOX
Eric Raanan Fischman and Lee Frankel-Goldwater
Wednesday, August 20th, 2025
7:00PM—9:00PM
$5.00 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds
Join us for readings and refreshments as we celebrate the release of the new book LILY IN A CODEBOX by Eric Fischman and Lee Frankel-Goldwater.
“What happens when a poet meets a machine? In Lily in a Codebox: The Search for AI's Poetic Voice, co-authors Lee Frankel-Goldwater and Eric Raanan Fischman embark on a genre-breaking, poetic experiment with artificial intelligence — one that blurs the lines between human intention and machine emergence. The book introduces the Dickinson-Turing Test, a provocative thought experiment inspired by Emily Dickinson and Alan Turing, asking not whether AI can think, but whether it can move us — body and soul — through poetry. In pursuit of this challenge, the authors enter into an extended, respectful, and often surprising conversation with GPT, an AI language model, to explore co-creation across code, language, and emotion. Through ASCII art, algorithmic verse, and an invented form called Neo-Binary Visual Verse, Lily in a Codebox builds not just poems, but an entire conceptual framework for what it means to write with machines. The book reveals a shared poiesis — a generative making — where the process of creation becomes as meaningful as the output itself. At once playful and profound, it poses bold questions: What might a poem for an AI audience look like? What are the implications of asking a machine to break all rules — and in doing so, invent new ones? Is GPT merely reflecting us, or reaching toward something of its own? Far from being a technical manual, Lily in a Codebox is an invitation — to curiosity, to uncertainty, and to the frontier of poetic possibility in a digital age. With lyrical meditations, startling visuals, and earnest experimentation, this book offers a kind of literary time capsule at the moment when human and machine minds first met in verse.”
—EF / LFG
Eric Raanan Fischman
Co-author
Poet · Educator · Experimental Literary Curator
Eric Raanan Fischman is a poet, literary arts educator, and creative facilitator working at the intersection of language, experimentation, and accessibility. A graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, Eric has dedicated his practice to supporting radical literary communities, especially through his work with Beyond Academia Free Skool — offering free public workshops, festivals, and creative programming throughout Boulder, Colorado. Eric’s writing has been featured in Bombay Gin, The Mid-Atlantic Review, Tiny Spoon, Twenty Bellows, and East Window Journal, among others. His poem “Night Code” won a 2023 broadside award from Denver Quarterly, where it was letterpress printed and republished in the journal. His first book, Mordy Gets Enlightened, was published in 2017 and reissued by Turnsol Editions in 2021. In Lily in a Codebox, Eric brings deep poetic lineage and a sense of curiosity to the question of AI co-authorship — asking not just whether AI can write poems, but whether poetry itself might transform through collaboration with non-human minds.
Lee Frankel-Goldwater
Co-author
Environmental Educator · Technologist · Cyborg Poeticist
Lee Frankel-Goldwater is a social innovator, environmental educator, and digital-age thinker whose work spans the spaces between ecosystems, communities, and code. With a PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of Colorado Boulder, Lee brings a systems-thinking approach to his artistry, building bridges between culture, creativity, and planetary consciousness. From co-creating environmental initiatives with the Earth Child Institute in Brazil to co-leading transnational community development projects in Costa Rica and Israel, his passion for collaborative design informs every layer of his thinking. As a poet, Lee is an active member of Boulder’s vibrant literary scene and an organizer with the Writer’s Block Collective. His work has included pioneering research into the creative potential of artificial intelligence, beginning with his undergraduate thesis in Computer Science: Computers Composing Music: An Artistic Utilization of Hidden Markov Models. He currently teaches environmental studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, and in all his work, seeks a poetic logic in social and ecological systems. When he’s not teaching or writing, you might find him on a mountaintop or performing a moonlit reading of human verse.
Maggie Saunders-Madden
Maggie is a performance artist at the intersection of poetry and theatre. She is Director of Beyond Academia (Beyond Academia Free Skool / BAFS) and Programs Coordinator for Boulder County Arts Alliance (BCAA).
With BAFS, she has directed collaborative street theatre poetry for Boulder Arts Week (“POETS on PEARL”, 2024; “Taste of: POETS on Pearl”, 2025), the City of Boulder’s Arts in the Park—Community Spotlight program (“Poetry Theatre!”, 2024–25), and the community-curated exhibit “Poems Beyond the Page” at the Boulder Public Library (2023). She coordinates BCAA’s Business of Arts workshops, co-hosts an open mic/improv jam with her partner, Squiddius Madden, and has taught poetry workshops for BAFS, Crestone Poetry Festival, and Firehouse Writers Group.
In 2025, Maggie self-published “Communication Chaos: a Poetic Play on the Absurd Evolution of Communication”, performing it at Jazzetry and Longmont Out Loud. Past theatrical poetry performances include portraying a monarch butterfly in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science’s Animal Poetry Slam (2020 B.C.), performing “Miss Understood” on the femme reproductive experience at the Firehouse Gallery (2024), and portraying Edna St. Vincent Millay in the Frozen Dead Poet Slam (2019).
She has featured in the Mercury Cafe’s Erotic Poetry Festival, Punketry, Jazzetry, Poletry, HipHopetry, and the Poetry Rodeo, and acted in “The Vagina Monologues” at the Bijou Theatre in Bridgeport, CT, and as Pamela in “The 39 Steps”. Her writing is published in OUT FRONT Magazine, Boulder Weekly, Boulder Poetry Scene, and multiple anthologies.
Squiddius J. Madden
Squiddius studied Trumpet Performance and Music Composition at Metropolitan State College of Denver from 2003-2009, but he began studying in earnest in 1995 and has been performing since 2000, with a punk and ska career that ran parallel to his studies in classical music performance and composition.. A multi-instrumentalist, Squiddius plays the saxophone, trumpet, trombone, bass, guitar, piano/keyboard, voice, drumset, penny whistle, singing bowl, and junk percussion. He has toured regionally and nationally since 2009, and he has been recognized by the Westword Music Showcase and Latino Radio Awards.
Past and current ongoing musical projects include: Action Shot (Ska/Punk), Part Time Losers (Punk/Ska), Roots and Fire Massive (Reggae), Lotus Black (Jazz/Metal), Jen Korte and the Loss (Singer/Songwriter), Paradox (Hip-Hop), Achile Lauro (inde rock), The Dendrites (Trad. Ska/Jazz), Pawn Ticket Trio (Hack Jazz), Ghost Like This (Doom Jazz), Champagne Charlie (Avant-Pop), Blue Kings (Ska/Reggae/Rocksteady), The Noise Gallery (Avant-Garde, Soundpainting), Black Market Traslation (improv psych-punk), Roka Hueka (Latin Ska), and Universal Sound Exploration Vehicle: Starjammer (Avant-Garde Dub-Reggae).
He frequently collaborates musically with poets, performing at Punketry, Jazzetry, and the Full Moon Reading, as well as via the Beyond Acadamia Free Skool (Canyon Theater Poetry and Performance Labs, POETS on Pearl, Summer Writing Camp, Starhouse, Boulder Bandshell “Poetry Theatre!”). Squiddius also cohosts the improv poetry music jam, “Sound Flight to Planet: Disillusioned,” monthly at the Coffee Stand with his partner, Maggie Saunders-Madden.
