Fascinating and apparently beautiful. Thanks for posting this.

The overall voice reminds me of poetry written by a child - but a kid with some promise. Some of it gave me a chuckle. I don't know. It would have been interesting to read this without knowing it was generated by AI.

If I wanted to get a little more in depth, I would wonder what eras and traditions the poetry the AI was fed come from. Poetry is so dependent on cultural context. If you read Paradise Lost today, you might appreciate it or even love it, but the style, and even the content will feel removed and sort of academic, in the sense that it's not so visceral to your own real experience; in contrast to something like the John Ashberry stuff you've been posting, for instance. So that being said, if doing this is just a fun game, then whatever. But if there's any hope of actually generating compelling poetry, you would need to take cultural context into consideration...but philosophically, I'm pretty opposed to this sort of thing myself. I wanted to avoid pulling the "those deng compooters can't replace the human spirit dammit!" card, but that's where I stand...anyways.

I think this is really interesting. When you say you found this in your first foray does it mean you sifted through a bit to find it?

I don’t agree with on cultural context. Has the AI just done what so many poets do, which is raid the pantry. Or am I mistaken in what he was getting at?

Can you provide support for the idea that poets "raid the pantry", and maybe define what that means?

That they work in a tradition with a long unbroken tail. They steal from the past and reposition it in relation to cultural contexts. They “Make it new” and refresh our perceptions and experiences.

Yeah sure, all I'm saying is that a studied poet understands it's history, and their place in that history, and their work will probably flow naturally from that historical position that they occupy. AI on the other hand, if it's referencing a boat load of poetry from the past 1,000 years, would do so seemingly at random...unless there are elements in the code that delineate eras and styles. But reading these examples from the OP, there's absolutely no tone or style. It's completely flat. So if there is an element to the code that generated those poems that did take style and era into consideration...it certainly doesn't come across at all.

Here's a further wrinkle beneath a wrinkle: we're so far only dealing with the English language here. To say nothing of the notorious untranslatability of poetry.

Which actually brings up something else that was bothering me with the AI poems; there aren't many metaphors or similes. Ironically, if anything, the oblique language of the second poem almost reads like a bad translation.

But reading these examples from the OP, there's absolutely no tone or style. It's completely flat. — Noble Dust

I’d agree to some degree. But there seems to be contemporary ideas in the lines. Of course these are the lines given to us by so she may have lifted the work that she relates to.

True, it does read like a bad translation. On the other hand if it was regarded as a first draft with work to be done then that could change. Metaphors and similes might be formed at that stage.

There's contemporary information in the lines, which I assume was part of the information the AI absorbed. That doesn't equate to a style.

I'm not sure if you've ever written a poem or not, but metaphors and similes (i.e. poetic language) generally are not added later...

I just realised it might appear that I’m arguing that an AI can write poetry, which I’m not. It’s more like William Burrough’s “cut ups”.

but metaphors and similes (i.e. poetic language) generally are not added later... — Noble Dust

There’s no correct way to produce art.

I didn't think you were arguing for anything in particular necessarily; just responding with some thoughts.

I agree. But there are more genuine and less genuine ways.

Of course.

We crossed over there. My comment was in regard to “...some thoughts”.

“Genuine”. This is getting tricky now. Isn’t it possible a metaphor may come to mind spontaneously while in the process of writing or playing with an idea? Is that not genuine simply because it was spontaneous?

Of course I don’t believe that an AI could go on to create a metaphor.

“Genuine”. This is getting tricky now. Isn’t it possible a metaphor may come to mind spontaneously while in the process of writing or playing with an idea? Is that not genuine simply because it was spontaneous? — Brett

I'm not sure how it's getting tricky, because what you described there is basically what I meant. So going back to you saying "On the other hand if it was regarded as a first draft with work to be done then that could change. Metaphors and similes might be formed at that stage", what I meant in responding was that metaphors are generally spontaneous, rather than requiring drafts. That may be an oversimplification; of course new metaphors could spring up on repeated drafts. But in my own experience of writing poetry, poetic language does tend to be spontaneous, and not something that is improved much with drafts; usually a few simple versions, maybe, but generally, the original "inspiration" of the language is what sticks; drafts only refine, they don't redefine.

“Tricky” was in relation to “genuine”.

of course new metaphors could spring up on repeated drafts. — Noble Dust

That’s my feeling. I don’t mean that a metaphor is formed later as a conscious act because the writer felt a metaphor was needed at a certain point, but that the creative act creates its own momentum and throws up new, unexpected possibilities. Maybe my use of the word “first draft” was wrong and instead I should have just used “process”.

By "genuine" I was suggesting that a natural creative process will produce poetic language; if it doesn't, it would be more akin to some sort of scientific (AI generated, maybe?) process. Yes, the creative process does throw up new possibilities. In my own experience, the best (most genuine) work tends to be a process of "all the ideas are given at the beginning, and are then refined over time". But there is a mysterious alternative where, occasionally, half-formed ideas that have promise can be slowly perfected over time. EDIT: but the original "genius" (in the original sense of that word) almost always suffers and loses something. But I find this process to be the exception to the rule. But no, any good writer or artist hopefully understands the importance of "drafts", so drafts are absolutely important. As is the process of the whole thing. I think we're mainly in agreement.

90% perspiration, 10% inspiration.

Eh. There are no accurate percentages. If perspiration suggests practice, then of course it's crucial, but I would say inspiration would be more like a 90% cut. But practice isn't only 10%. So the pithy quote breaks down, in my view.

It’s not a rule. It’s for amusement. Perspiration refers to hard work.

Yes, I know. Practice is the hard work of art...

I'm pretty amazed that it's learned devices and tropes.

Enjambment
Thence down the mountain-sides the bright gold sun
Dapples all the valley below

Simile, assonance
Like dew-beads on the feathery grass,

Repetition, consonance, that thing where the narrator addresses an inanimate object - it also uses "hark" for it because that's what poems do.

One old tree, old as the dawn,
Old as the story of the sea
Old as the dawn of days,
That through the twilight with its weight
Was calling to the dawn,
That through the summer with its gifts
Was calling to the fall,
And saying to the land, "Hark!
There is a joy in heaven above!"

It's learned patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables:

The hour, the hour of golden sunshine,
- + - + - + - + - = -+-+-+-+-
The hour of sharper freezing weather,
- + - +- +- + - = -+-+-+-+-
The hour of yonder dark and dreary cloud
- + - +- + - +-? + = -+-+-+-+-+

(that extra stressed bit also breaks the repeated pattern onto the next line)

It can elaborate an image over multiple lines:

Of light unfading, bright and deep;
A golden river flecking the verdant floor.

The overall voice reminds me of poetry written by a child — Noble Dust

A child could not have written this:


If I were of their pride,
If mine were one thought,
If mine were their thought,
O Lord, Who know the secret of the sun

that thing where the narrator addresses an inanimate object — fdrake

An apostrophe.

Poetry is so dependent on cultural context. — Noble Dust

Sure, but are are we not moving away from the classic definition of being able to capture the transcendental, the fixed and unchangeable, as in a mimesis, and more towards continentalist theories of art. A lot of poetry is contemplative, meditative, and does seem platonic in its construct. A friend of mine tells me he primarily reads Paradise Lost because of how it assists his own art today.

Btw, on the AI itself, these poems are better (sort of) , but the TalktoTransformer was nonsense 99% of the time. AI just makes me feel like a nihilist. I recall Wayfarer called it the materialist Ahriman.

In chess, computers (and now AI with AlphaZero) have for decades dominated the game. Today's chess grandmasters don't even come close to the calculating strength of AI.

@Noble Dust I agree that this isn’t poetry per se, but it’s still beautiful at times. I think ‘genuine’ poetry is often something like the smoke generated from an intense spiritual encounter - say smoke rising from an altar, where the sacrifice is the poet’s encounter ( with something) and the poem is the smoke rising up. This would be something like collective smoke filtered through another medium to produce uncanny almost-poem plumes.

The AI was fed poems from many times and genres, and many of the poems it’s produced feel mock-ancient-epic or mock-mannered-Donne or mock-romantic. I have a hunch the selections in the OP stem from post 50s American poetry ( New York School especially comes to mind.)

A lot of times and styles there if you check out the link. This one feels almost like (one aspect of) Wallace Stevens:

Between mouthfuls of apple pie,
they discuss the panda's defection,
the new twelfth-man problem, the low
cardinality of Jesus, and whether
Saint John broke the bread at the Lord's Supper
instead of the guest Aava.
Their talk is either philosophical
on the one hand, or distressing personal
on the other.
Eve, it is whispered, died of exposure.

I think, while agreeing with the distinction between genuine and nongenuine poetry, there’s a beauty here. And formally, technically, this is a wonderful stanza.

Mostly I’ve been slicing and dicing and extracting the good bits while leaving out the AI-junk but it did produce at least one poem coherent from start to finish which, coincidentally, also begins with the death of a woman due (almost) to exposure. The title it chose is odd - ‘Driving to Santa Fe’ - but the rest is a kind of satisfying whole. Here it is:

Driving to Santa Fe

Under the smog of snow a woman
has killed herself because of the pain
she was in. Her husband did not want
to go to the doctor because he said
it wasn't his job to cheer up
people in pain. The tempest is
hiding in the chambers of the man
who keeps the local offices of the Christian
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
The committee is made up of church ladies
from all over the county: Mary Ann Vecchio
from Limerick, Lucille McCann of Morgantown,
and Mrs. Wallace Smyth of Chesterfield.
John Nevin is the investigator for the committee.
The committee keeps trying to get
the coroner to open up an investigation
into the death of Rosemary Phagan,
the woman who died in the tobacco barn
on the Mount of Olives. Mary Ann Vecchio
and Mrs. Wallace Smyth came down
to Phagan's wake and were so overcome
by the magnitude of the loss
that they went back to Limerick and wrote
to the coroner. Now the committee
is trying to investigate the death
of Mrs. Phagan because she is a friend
of Mrs. Vecchio's and Mrs. Wallace
Smyth's son is a passenger on a bus
that was supposed to have taken them
to watch the sunrise on Palm Sunday.
The committee thinks that Mary Ann Vecchio
and Mrs. Wallace Smyth have conspired
to kill Mrs. Phagan in Limerick.



I think this last poem, especially, is truly remarkable.

Yeah, it’s crazy how much it learned. And what’s also crazy is gpt-3 is out, but, from what I understand, it’s not available to the public. This is all on last year’s iteration, gpt-2 (modded) I need to find a link for you because apparently it also, only incidentally, learned very basic arithmetic while learning text-generation, which is interesting from a ‘general ai’ perspective (objections ala it’s only generating correct answers by regurgitating math textbook character strings are addressed- I’ll link when I get home)