Last year was as wonderfully productive for my creative work as it was politically challenging, leading to a record number of works created and published. Here's a brief writeup of my published creative work from 2025 in the order I wrote them, and three works written before 2025, but published or re-published this year. The titles link to the works. Go read them!

Consequences

"Consequences" critiques Trump's first 100 Presidential Actions taken in his first 14 days in office by taking their titles (from the White House website), extracting their nouns, verbs, and adjectives and using them as data to generate new speculative Presidential actions. The emoji choices are a reference to Signalgate, which offered insight into the government officials and President responsible for these actions.

Published in Taper #14: Sonnets.

Anti-Woke Lullaby

"Anti-Woke Lullaby" is a generative digital poem that repurposes the structure of the traditional lullaby "Hush, Little Baby" to critique political complacency. It was written as a response to all the right wing attacks on so-called woke culture. My idea was to unpack and reverse the metaphor: if seeing injustice and deciding to do something about it is to awaken, then those who benefit or from or don't care about the injustice must want to go back to sleep. This lullaby is for them.

Published in Michigan Quarterly Review. Issue 64:4. Fall 2025 online folio.

Punch Flag Fire

"Punch Flag Fire" is a critique of the measures enacted by President Trump and his government that results in the massive loss of immigrants and citizens, impoverishing the U.S.A. through workforce, talent, and brain drain, while attracting and enriching oligarchs. Michael Waltz's now viral emoji trio (👊🇺🇸🔥) represents the attitude (and ineptitude) of Trump and his administration, as they do lasting damage to the country through measures meant to further their toxic agenda.

Published in Michigan Quarterly Review. Issue 64:4. Fall 2025 online folio.

No Kings Haiku

"No Kings Haiku" makes a selection of real slogans from the No Kings protests, organizes them as short and long (variables a & b, respectively) and randomly generates haiku with a minimalist Python script. The resulting haikus draw attention to the common ideas and the use of the poetic function of language used in protest slogans. Here's the Python script, which you can run in your computer's terminal or an online Python compiler:

a=['NO KINGS','NO DICTATORS','NO TYRANTS',
'SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY','LOVE TRUMPS HATE','NO FAUX KING WAY',
'NO KINGS IN AMERICA','FAUX KING FASCIST','ABOLISH ICE'
'WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS','VETERANS AGAINST TRUMP',
'POWER TO THE PEOPLE','WE THE PEOPLE ARE PISSED',
'NO CROWN FOR THE CLOWN','PROTEST IS PATRIOTIC',
'TRUMP IS TOXIC','HISTORY IS WATCHING','NO FASCISTS']
b=['AMERICANS OVERTHROW KINGS','ICE IS THE NEW GESTAPO',
'NO FELON IN THE WHITE HOUSE','RISE UP AGAINST FASCISM',
'NO THRONES NO CROWNS NO KINGS','NOT MY CIRCUS NOT MY KING',
'WAKE UP & SMELL THE FASCISM','HISTORY HAS ITS EYES ON YOU',
'EL PUEBLO UNIDO JAMAS SERA VENCIDO',]
import random
c = random.choice(a)
d = random.choice(b)
e = random.choice(a)
print(c+'\n'+d+'\n'+e)

Published in Run Run Run.

Tiny Protests: No Kings

"Tiny Protests: No Kings" makes use of emoji, animation, and the passage of time to tell a story, much as I did in earlier iterations of Tiny Protests & Protestitas. It commemorates the No Kings protest movement in the USA, particularly the massive nationwide protests on June 14 and October 18, 2025. All the slogans are drawn from signs in photos documenting these protests across the nation. The work also critiques how President Trump has responded to peaceful protests in Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, and other locations. The work has 5 movements, so it takes about 3 minutes to get a sense of the narrative arc it is presenting and critiquing. The work restarts after 6 minutes.

Published in RE-MEDIATE #4. Fall 2025.

Encounters

"Encounters" offers generative emoji-driven narratives about the impact (every pun intended) encounters with other people can have on our state of mind. The work unfolds endlessly, producing many stories of how people are affected by the people they encounter at a crossroads.

Published in Taper #15: Crossroads.

Juracán Borinqueño

I first wrote this piece as a Twitter bot in September 2018 to commemorate the anniversary of Hurricane María's devastating passage through Puerto Rico in 2017. When Twitter was destroyed by Elon Musk (X marks the spot where Twitter is buried) and Cheap Bots Done Quick! became inoperable, I ported it to a standalone HTML piece in early 2023 (read about it here). This work generates speculative scenarios before, during, and after the passing of a hurricane through Puerto Rico, based on my vivencias (lived experience). The work is in Spanish, but the browser can translate it automatically, if needed.

Published in Antología Lit(e)Lat, Volumen 2.

Protestitas 2023

"Protestitas 2023" generates an endless protest march on your browser in which angry Puerto Rican protesters march down a street chanting protest slogans on a variety of topics they are angry about. All protest slogans are drawn from real protests in Puerto Rico. This is partly a rescue from the original Twitter bot @Protestitas, partly an updated work and HTML reimplementation dealing with issues in 2023.

Published in Antología Lit(e)Lat, Volumen 2.

It's Complicated

"It's Complicated" is inspired by a lifetime of considering and debating the issue of Puerto Rico's status in relation to the U.S. The work generates a hypothetical Puerto Rican who talks about their provenance and then expresses an opinion for or against statehood, commonwealth, or independence for Puerto Rico. It was originally published in 2023 in The Los Angeles Review.

Re-published in Antología Lit(e)Lat, Volumen 2.

All of these works were vibe-coded using Chat GPT, except for "No Kings Haiku" which was hand-coded. They are all examples of what I call Cyborg Digital Writing. If you're interested in learning how to do it, check out this resource I created.