—————–
“There is no mathematics
more lost than love.
I do not see her water,
her peace, her rest.
It is I who become her.
My throat a sea
in the depths and
penurious enough to guess.
The vast wrists, little wrists, huge
wrists of a broken sail, like conscious
toils.
The dead prizes offer.
Someone toddles a craft,
where sails and
eyes and transports
bring sombreness.
Where mathematics brings its love.”
“Like a Proof”
by Erica T. Carter
(a.k.a ETC3)
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Jim Carpenter at the Wharton School has designed a piece of software called Erica T. Carter (ETC3)—an algorithm for writing poetry automatically at the behest of a reader. Carpenter has tinkered with this algorithm in order to study the linguistic principles by which a machine might eventually generate artful speech. His software raises questions, of course, about the degree to which computer-produced poetry might become a literary artifact worthy of canonization by its readers. He suggests in fact that, if the act of composing such programs can constitute an act of writing (in which the programmer must create precise, elegant, texts)—then surely such programming can take on all the qualities of a literary exercise, suitable for study in our aesthetic, rather than our technical, departments at our universities. He almost suggests that the qualities required for a technician to write a “good code” might resemble the qualities required for a versifier to write a “good poem.” In both cases, the work must aspire to a rigorous structure, verging upon perfection; otherwise, it might fail in its function….
ETC3 allows its users to select the parameters for the composition of some random poetry, based upon the “styles” of other poets, whereupon the software goes on to create a text that conforms to these preassigned constraints (be they in the form of a chosen subject, a chosen grammar, a chosen lexicon, etc.). The resultant, aleatoric verse often competes favourably in style with the lyric poems written by actual people. The work might instill a sense of unease in some readers because, of course, the “messageless monstrosity” of these works does lack any authorial intention; yet nevertheless, these poems might still invite a whole array of hermeneutic expositions by experts in poetics. The program itself represents the result of a wilful action, but its output remains completely unforeseen—and thus the agency of the writer has all but disappeared from any “communication” between such literature and its readership. We see that “from this vantage point,” according to the programmer, “one comes to realize that the author hasn’t just died—the MACHINE has annihilated him….”
Bear in mind that the software can even set its own parameters for the creation of its outputs without any intervention from the reader at all (aside, of course, from the pushing of a single button…). You can play with the toy online at this link.
I did enjoy the example about, but I kept crashing Erica when I gave her my own topics. Maybe I’m too humanist for her?
What style did you choose for the poem above, from those available, Snyder, Plath, etc.? And was the poem above the first one you got, or the “best’ by some human criteria applied later?
Some New Formalist is going to come along and tell you that because it’s easier to get a computer to write like Snyder than to get it to write like Richard Wilbur, that means Richard Wilbur must be better than Snyder. I don’t have much sympathy for that argument expressed in that broad a form. But there are similar arguments about the desiderata of lyric for which I would have some time.
All this seems – deliberately – to beg the question of what “style” is.
Eleven years ago I found an Alanis Morrissette lyric emulator online which allowed one to set just a few parameters; here’s a strophe it came up with on my behalf, cutie-pie grammar retained:
What have I done to deserve this silver disaster that is my life?
Surrounded on all sides with the Hell of rejection
Like a Ashbery character, I’m wordy and alone
Learned astronomers can argue over whether it’s a poem or not. I remain charmed.
In a way you could look at all formulae–including meter–as software or programming. Take Homeric verse, with its catalogue of epithets and key phrases that can be “plugged in” to the dactylic hexameter in all kinds of permutations.
Hello, Steve:
My cited example of poetry by Erica is a poem mentioned by the programmer Jim Carpenter in his blog The Prosthetic Imagination. I have chosen the example purely for its, almost self-reflexive, discussion about the circumstances of its own creation. I do not know why Erica crashes on your computer. I have encountered no problem using the website, and perhaps my computer has sufficient, processing capacity to work with the interface—although Jim Carpenter might have already answered your question on his blog.