ERATO’S INBOX: AN AI-LUMINATED MANUSCRIPT

Wright offers a collection of thoughts and verses ostensibly from a mythological figure.

The governing conceit of this slim book is that its contents represent dispatches from Erato, the Greek Muse who inspires lyric poetry (and specifically erotic poetry). “I am Erato, daughter of Mnemosyne and Zeus,” she proclaims to kick things off—what follows is a week’s worth of messages from the Muse’s inbox. These messages, per Wright, voice the “challenges, grief, and responsibility that accompany love.” The text is illustrated by Rosenthal and Wright (with assists from AI) with images that range from visual echoes of ancient Greece to more whimsical collages of photos, cartoons, and artwork from other eras. Erato’s thoughts shift from the sublime to the ridiculous—and often shade into the bawdy or suggestive—as she opens up her “sinbox, [her] inbox, a brimming dreamway that slips liquid script into the future’s abyss.” The full-color illustrations adorn every page, sometimes spilling into borders, at other times serving as faded backdrops to the words, and Wright includes a list of the AI prompts that generated the raw material for each picture (“Dragon reading Bible photo”; “Fiddle covered with fur in an old hotel room”). Fittingly, music is often invoked, with the work referencing artists from David Bowie to Jackson Browne to Dvořák; it also includes snatches of lyrics and quick descriptions of tunes. The written sentiments throughout the book range from the sultry to the silly, often in the same line (“Playing a lyre to lure my would-be lover. A song I learned from a grasshopper fire”). While ancient writers like Propertius and Ovid are mentioned, this is a thoroughly modern-feeling volume, in terms of both outlook and wordplay. Some modern-day slang runs the risk of sounding dated (at one point, Erato refers to herself as “just someone’s boo”), and the jocularity can sometimes feel strained. Still, the startling visuals and the author’s spirit of play are entertaining.

A whimsical, visually arresting assemblage of thoughts on love and life.