Book cover of How to Tell If You Are Human: Diagram Poems

Book description

With an entirely new approach to poetry and the art of collage, Jessy Randall transforms diagrams, schematics, charts, graphs, and other visual documents from very old books into poems that speak to the absurdities, anxieties, and joys of life in this modern age.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked How to Tell If You Are Human as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book will challenge your notion of what a poem is or can be. Let it. Subtitled “Diagram poems,” these works mix both word and illustration to get at their playful effects. The illustrations come from “found” or ephemeral sources, e.g., a manual on textiles, or a guide to common beetles of North America, or a grammar on computer languages, or the layouts of American playgrounds. The interplay in the poems creates a wonderful uncanniness. The friction, say, caused when you read “You are special” next to a few numbered puzzle pieces in Figure A. and “Everyone is…

If you love How to Tell If You Are Human...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

Want books like How to Tell If You Are Human?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like How to Tell If You Are Human.

Browse books like How to Tell If You Are Human

Book cover of A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry
Book cover of The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara
Book cover of Sleeping with the Dictionary

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,340

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like How to Tell If You Are Human, you might also like...

Book cover of Murder, Lies and Chocolate

Murder, Lies and Chocolate by Sally Berneathy,

Book 2, Death by Chocolate series.

Rodney Bradford comes into Lindsay's restaurant, offers to buy her small house for double its value, eats her brownies, and drops dead on the sidewalk in front. Next, her almost-ex-husband offers to sign the divorce papers, but only if she'll give him her small,…

Book cover of Tangle of Time

Tangle of Time by Maureen Thorpe,

A spellbinding journey through time and cultures.

When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…

5 book lists we think you will like!