Poetry News

Autocomplete into Poetry

By Harriet Staff

Matt Petronzio at Mashable sends us searching for poetry through Google’s autocomplete:

Remember those magnets that had random words and phrases written on them, helping you to create works of poetry on your fridge? Well, now there’s a new way to put together snippets of poetic genius — and all from your web browser.

The Tumblr blog Google Poetics documents autocompleted search terms as if Google were writing a poem on relevant topics. Created by Sampsa Nuotio and Raisa Omaheimo of Helsinki, Finland, Google Poetics shows that the web giant’s search suggestions can offer hilarious and sometimes poignant stanzas of insight into a variety of topics.

Petronzio goes on to say that autocomplete poetry is “reminiscent of the cut-up technique — when a writer cuts up text and rearranges it to create a new text. The literary concept is often attributed to the Dadaists of the 1920s and popularized in the early 1960s by William S. Burroughs.” Also reminiscent of… FLARF!

Posted in Poetry News on Friday, November 9th, 2012 by Harriet Staff.