TNR Online | Automatic Writing by Keith Gessen In the late 1980s, Deena Larsen attempted to construct a spatial epic in her room by linking poems, which were glued to model railroad houses, with thread and train tracks. Around the same time, the poet Robert Kendall was supporting himself by writing reviews of new presentation software; with the software already on his computer, he began to experiment with turning his poems into visual presentations, lugging the (desktop) computer to his readings to show animated text synchronized with music. Something was in the air.