This chapter focuses on the poetry that Vito Acconci wrote around the time of 0 to 9 period. Acconci’s work is seen as highlighting some mutual concerns among of the time regarding deixis, concrete language, impersonality, and the use of systems and schemas to either organize or generate material. This chapter also considers how Acconci’s poetry, by evoking the tropes of detection and surveillance, develops a systems aesthetic based on notions of parasitism and noise which critiques the homogenizing effects of technocratic systems of control and coercion. Comparing this aspect of Acconci’s work to the work of William Burroughs and Jean-Luc Godard, it argues that such parasitism not only helps explain Acconci’s transition from poet to performance artist but also emphasizes the extent to which his work was dependent on “hosts,” be it the particular magazine or book where his poems are printed or the strangers and phenomena found in the street.