Comments on: Poetic Machines 07

By: Christian Bök

Christian Bök — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 19:22:04 +0000

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.
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By: Alicia (AE)

Alicia (AE) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 08:29:54 +0000

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.
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By: jane

jane — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 20:49:24 +0000

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.
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By: Don Share

Don Share — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 11:41:10 +0000

All this seems – deliberately – to beg the question of what “style” is.
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By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 01:10:08 +0000

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.
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