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------------------------------------------ This is the ninth of nine chapters of THINK THUNDER! AND UNLEASH YOUR CREATIVITY Copyright (c) 1989 by Thomas A. Easton ------------------------------------------ CHAPTER 9: WRITING COMPUTER-CATALYZED POETRY (Adapted in part from "Silicon Poetry," THE LEADING EDGE, No. 18 [Fall 1988].) Where on the typical American campus will you find all the computers? If you answered, "In the science and business departments," you're right on target. Over in the English Department, chips always have salt on them and screens are large expanses of white that pull down over the chalkboard (you aim movie projectors at them). And CPU is what you say when you wish to call attention to someone's rude behavior. POETRY MACHINES Let's be fair: Humanities types, on campus and elsewhere, do use computers. But they use them mainly for word-processing, rarely for business applications, and never for anything remotely creative. They seem to believe that because computers are artificial, mechanical things, they are alien to the human condition. And that's a shame. It's a shame because a computer is ideally suited to generating new combinations of words, images, and ideas. In fact, it takes only a very simple computer to plug randomly chosen words into sentence frames. Such programs are almost as old as computers. If you have never heard of them, that is because they generally die a quick death. The programmers announce that they have invented a "Poetry Machine." Unfortunately, the poetry they offer in evidence makes no sense. The computer is flipping coins, not thinking or feeling, and it shows. The programmers have missed a bet by trying to make the computer do all the work. The computer can build sentences, and with sophisticated programming it can even produce grammatical sentences that make considerable sense. But no computer (so far) is self-conscious. No computer can deliberately construct strikingly apt images, or tap the springs of emotion. It is--it HAS to be, in the current state of the art--an essentially random device, endlessly generating random combinations of words which, because they are random, are not poetry. But they PERMIT poetry. This is what the creators of poetry programs have not in the past realized. The computer's random output can be winnowed, sorted, filtered, and enhanced by a human mind, and then it can BECOME poetry. Every creative mind begins, just like a "Poetry Machine," by generating vast quantities of random garbage. Then, from all that garbage, human creativity winnows the gems. The final step in human creativity is to assemble the gems into a coherent, polished whole. For many people, the first of these steps--generating the raw material of creativity--is the hardest. But it is also the one that a computer can handle. The individual sentences produced by a "Poetry Machine" often contain vividly original images. And though the images are random nonsense, they nevertheless evoke clear, and even poetic, statements from a human mind--from YOUR mind. Once you have corrected the computer's punctuation and grammar and imposed sense on its random nonsense, you can have genuine, publishable poetry. I have proved it by my own success in using THUNDER THOUGHT to write poetry. One of my creations even made semifinalist in the 1988 Odyssey Poetry Awards Contest at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. And every one of my poems would have been impossible without the program to feed me randomly generated raw material. My mind just doesn't work that way by itself. THUNDER THINKING POETRY How does my "Poetry Machine"--THUNDER THOUGHT--work? You give it a restricted vocabulary of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The words can be anything you like, even phrases, but they should be restricted, at least at first, to a single topic. Next, using the program's "Poetry" option (though you can also use the "Narrative Brainstorm" option), you tell THUNDER THOUGHT to generate some of that raw material. It then picks random numbers, uses those numbers to pick words from the lists and to choose one sentence framework from the several it has available, plugs the words into the sentence framework, and displays the result on the computer screen. At the same time, it stores a copy of the result in a file that you can later work on with a word processor. Once that file contains, say, 200 lines of poetic raw material, I turn off THUNDER THOUGHT, turn on the word processor, and begin to mine those lines for poetry. I look for lines that contain interesting images, that spark some association in my mind, that seem to pair intriguingly with other lines. I throw away whatever seems like total garbage. I keep whatever looks like it might become a poem. I arrange the lines I have chosen in what seems a likely sequence. And then I begin to improve the grammar and sense of these lines. I free associate and interpolate. That is, in the terms of Chapters 6 and 7 of this creativity manual, I edit and elaborate. If necessary, I return to THUNDER THOUGHT. Topical brainstorming can let me rapidly generate many lines built around a specific topic. Among such lines, I may find just what I need to fill a gap in a developing poem. I can even use topical brainstorming to generate a more focused array of raw material. To do so, I begin by choosing a topic and giving it to the program. When the program has then given me several lines that seem useful, I may choose a second topic from something in those lines, or from something those lines made me think of. A third topic follows, and a fourth, and when I go to create the actual poem, I may have much less actual garbage to discard. Are you at a loss for images? Try THUNDER THOUGHT's "IMAGES" option. It may give you just the unique adjective-noun, adverb-verb, or adverb-verb-noun combination that you need. The program's ability to create linked chains can also prove useful. You can, for instance, write an interesting poem by using the words in a chain as the initial words for the lines of a poem, or by using them as topics for topical brainstorms, which then, with editing, become the lines of a poem as in Exhibit 8. ----------------------- EXHIBIT 8: The first line below was created with THUNDER THOUGHT's "Chain Lightning" option. The following lines were prepared by using each link in the chain as a topic for a "Topical Brainstorm." Can you see a poem in this? shareware--gene--gateway--world--maze--mind--lover--map--destiny A fallen slave restfully tempt an torrid shareware. The systematic wisdom greatly launch an darkened gene. We subvert the soldier of an diseased gateway from an fallen life. An ancient slime obviously create a spontaneous world. A alluring snow uniquely dream an bloody maze. An fresh map consciously wander an illuminating mind. Surprisingly, the solitude inspire an achingly empty lover. The steep mountain smoothly celebrate the trusting map. We break the map of an empty destiny from an diseased shelf. If you can't, try changing things around just a bit: The wage-slave, greed-tempted, stole our shareware, Little knowing that our dark wisdom aimed it at his genes, Aimed it to subvert the gates of life And reduce the thief to slime from which to grow new worlds, Impure and bloody in the maze of dreams Mapped out by brilliant minds, Empty lovers, in search of solitude and inspiration On mountainsides awaiting charted glories And true destinies surpassing empty pasts. ---------------------- Toward the end, you can impose rhythm, alliteration, and even rhyme, which may mean that you must drastically rearrange the lines, replace words, and even rewrite the whole thing. And the result is a poem. Usually, it is a poem which owes itself in large part to the computer. At least, when I write poetry in this way, I come up again and again with things I would never have thought of on my own. The process is precisely that of human creativity. There is the random generation of new combinations of words, images, and ideas, many of which are garbage. There is the critical winnowing of this raw material. There is the focusing of the process that comes, for the computer, with the restriction of the vocabulary to a topic and, for the human mind, with the restriction of attention. There is also a crossover effect similar to what happens when you shift your creative attention to a new topic: The ideas you generate for the new topic often have some connection to the old topic, which is still in the back of your mind. With the computer, when I wish to switch to a new topic, I add just a few words having to do with that topic. All or most of the old vocabulary remains available, and as one should expect, the randomly generated sentences now mingle past and present topics. The results can be remarkably original. You're not convinced? Then let's see how it works. At one point, I was using the program to produce poems dealing with the coast of Maine (where I live). When I tired of that, I added to the program's vocabulary a number of words relating to space. Later, I added some medical words, and when I turned it on again, this is what it gave me (the >>>> tags are markers explained below): >>>> An galactic doctor save helpfully in waters. The spontaneous fantasy practically help a mangled dream. The moon enable, subtle, from an tree. A pink thunderhead eat drunkenly in childs. An youthful tail logically waver the soaked doctor. A nurse spread our comic bedpan. Soak the brain the back young! The library ward off its chipped door. Tempt the disease the bedpan slow! An expensive water privately fall a sick downpour. Who secretly brighten the door? >>>> An motel enable, bright, by a needle. A systemic tent save peculiarly in injections. A profound needle choose abrasively in friends. A shiny medicine help sweetly in beds. They comprehensively coddle the injection. >>>> The sentient salvation politely bring a electric tension. An political pine uniquely describe a efficient spine. >>>> Land the health the work expensive! An generous love stupidly choose the slow health. An wise woodchuck notoriously argue an foolish clinic. Who elegantly explode the ambulance? A spontaneous dream rightly babble an nude relief. Defy the fantasy the brain chipped! The boat infuriate, diseased, in the lover. A touring disease fitfully break a automatic table. >>>> Coddle the dream the ocean red! An speedy friend deceptively disable a generous medic. She assiduously listen the mist. A medicine hold its healthy quarantine. >>>> They smoothly seduce a ocean. A religious ocean blast tastefully in boats. A slow plague competently break the aged picnic. Eat a deer a library nude! A broken mist heal unsuccessfully in maps. A map show, comic, over a agony. >>>> Argue the lover the life efficient! A equal leader briefly disable a roaring machine. >>>> Cause an needle an plague reluctant! I politely torment a woodchuck. An distant award astonishingly mistreat the loud tourist. >>>> Sing a work a death reluctant! Who amusingly journey an crime? >>>> A military emergency artistically disable the religious operating room. An navy show, drunken, in the park. The brain speak, galactic, beside a emergency. Decline the tube the dirt green! The fresh door learn ignorantly in downpours. A ambulance deliver its bloody friend. Save a liver a ambulance red! >>>> A grudging lobster disable studiously in fantasys. Jump the park the beach foolish! An sick leaf shine anxiously in navys. Coddle the tube the spine ill! >>>> An arm spread, reluctant, nigh a muscle. It subtly blast an leg. An highway bring his systemic window. A lobster describe your diseased library. Repair a tumor a sweat gregarious! A window land its generous needle. >>>> A expensive floor record thoughtfully in surgeons. There was a LOT of garbage there! But that very first line resonated for me (I am a science fiction book reviewer, and at the time I had just reviewed one of James White's interstellar medical novels, set in the vast hospital satellite known as Sector General). Other lines promptly began to click into place, and I began to drop those >>>> tags to mark lines I might use to write a poem. I worked on the grammar. I free-associated a bit. I added and subtracted and monkeyed around. And finally, I had: CRITICISM In James White's age of Sector General Medics dream of oceans red with lobsters Ill with a nasty plague That they can cure While all the sentient worlds huzzah! White's mind is clean of ills venereal. Nor do BEMs bare muscled arms to needles Filled with strange forms of death, Drugs or virus, Such as we know too well on Earth. His aliens do not live in corners, Do not contaminate all those they love, Or poison medicine With blood they give, Intending life but spreading death. He knows the work of health is expensive, But he ignores this economic fact For ideals of service And tolerance Among the stars at risk of war. Should our author turn to Earthly hazards? I think that all along he has, for though He seems to advocate The fight for health, He really means to fight for peace. The relationship between start and end is clear, even though I have imposed form and sense. What form? What sense? They emerged from what was within my mind, in response to what the computer provided. Given the same raw material, you would surely come up with a very different poem. But you would come up with one. All you need is the kind of open-mindedness that lets you look at the computer output and say not, "What utter nonsense!" but, "How can I MAKE this make sense?" Want to try again? One day, just to see what would happen, I took three poems by Robert Frost ("Mending Wall," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and "Birches"), listed their nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and gave the lists to THUNDER THOUGHT. The program then generated some "Frostian" garbage. Among the results were the following lines: A lovely village make again in fences. I rather mean a place. Drag the flake the hill crystal! A winter heap firmly load a afterwards farmhouse. A sweep please, likely, off the farmhouse. We again subdue a bracken. An boulder please your far place. The birch let, better, from an shade. Take a promise a winter lovely! A far wood move wilfully in darknesses. A love play, sunny, by the wind. The easy stiffness weep again in lines. Learn the snow-crust the work clear! The birch eat, better, beside an boulder. A spring hand exactly load the broken breeze. An easy ice-storm wish again in birchs. Among these syntactic nightmares are some images that Frost might very well have used himself. Granted, they are a function of a very restricted vocabulary, not of highly poetic thought processes, but they are there. And there is a poem within them. To find it, you have to be an intellectual dump-picker. Don't reject the garbage. Look for the sense. Rearrange the lines and fill in the obvious gaps. Add and subtract and monkey around, and even work on the grammar. Surprisingly quickly, form and sense emerge from what is within your mind, in response to what the computer provides, and you have the poem: A DREAM OF FROST Winter is a lovely promise Of forests of green darkness, Of love playing in the sunny wind, And watchful eyes above the hill, All from harm preserving still. Those birches that promised summer shade Were last week wind-sprung hands sweeping Crystal hours on the snow By those boulders in a row. Then came the storm to weigh them down. And bend them stiffly weeping. Crystal flakes pile high the farmhouse roof. Let's sweep them off to cover up the fences That make this lovely village scene. That's the place I rather mean-- All hills, stone walls, snowy woods, Winter airs subduing bracken, High-piled white goods, Clean snow-crust slate Awaiting work to write its lines. The task can be very easy; sometimes a small poem can be drawn almost as is from the computer's raw material. The task can also be more challenging, as in the cases of "Criticism" and "A Dream of Frost," in which the computer's contribution becomes almost invisible. In all three cases, however, the computer is essential. Yet the computer by itself is not enough. The human mind is a crucial part of the system and is in fact the major limitation of the system: Those minds with the greatest tolerance for ambiguity will respond best to the computer's random gabble. To them, the computer's raw absurdities, and even the repetitiveness of sentence structure, are opportunities, not obstacles. Minds with less tolerance for nonsense will catch fire less readily and less deeply. Those with the least tolerance will take one look at all that computer-generated utter crap and say, "The hell with it!" When I sit down to write a poem using my "Poetry Machine," I never know what the poem will be about. I have a vague idea of the general territory it will occupy--medicine, rural winter, gardening, robots,...--because of the vocabulary I give it, but that is all. The specifics emerge from--and in response to--the computer's random gabble. The result is computer-aided--or computer-catalyzed--creativity. It works very much like ordinary, unaided creativity, with the advantage of reliability and speed. No more writer's block. No more waiting for inspiration. The "Poetry Machine" is an electronic muse that never fails to stimulate or catalyze you to come up with ideas--immediately. Used appropriately, those ideas mean computer-catalyzed poetry. It is sad to think that the humanists never will catch on, even though the "Poetry Machine" is hardly artificial intelligence. Creative intelligence is still a human monopoly, for all the computer can do is shuffle word lists and deal out fresh combinations at random. It is up to a human being to pick out the interesting combinations and turn them into poetry. IS THUNDER THOUGHT UNIQUE? Is THUNDER THOUGHT unique? Is it the only "Poetry Machine" that can really help you write poetry, as opposed to pretending to write poetry by itself? Of course not. THUNDER THOUGHT is the first computer program ever to bring true brainstorming to your personal desktop. It is the first computer program ever to be designed as a catalyst for the creative process. But, really, you can use any "Poetry Machine" as a similar catalyst. All you need is the willingness to modify what the computer program generates, whether the program explicitly encourages such modifications or not. Admittedly, that may be harder to do when the computer's sentences are more grammatical and therefore, because of the computer's mystic aura of infallibility, harder to challenge. But it can be done. Remember that the computer has no feelings to hurt when you reject its efforts. One of those "Poetry Machines" is THE POETRY GENERATOR, also available from R. K. West Consulting. It needs a hard disk, uses a large, fixed vocabulary, and produces poetry so finished in appearance that many people say, "Amazing! It IS poetry! I'm beginning to think my computer has a mind of its own!" Unfortunately, the user has no control over the vocabulary or the way the program uses that vocabulary and cannot easily interact with the program (although the most recent version of the program does save the poems it produces on disk for later editing). Another is VERSIFIER, included in R. K. West's "Creativity" package with THUNDER THOUGHT. Like THUNDER THOUGHT, it allows the user to specify a vocabulary, small (like THUNDER THOUGHT's) or large. Unlike THUNDER THOUGHT, it is optimized for generating poetry, not for brainstorming in the broader sense of the term, and it puts several verse forms at the user's fingertips. It also differs from THUNDER THOUGHT in that it allows the user to define not only the vocabulary it uses, but also the sentence frames into which it plugs that vocabulary. The user can define up to hundreds of sentence frameworks containing blanks not just for nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, but also for color nouns, ocean nouns, sex verbs, religious adjectives, and so on. A sentence framework can contain no such blanks or several. (If the user wishes to define the sentence frameworks appropriately, VERSIFIER can thus mimic THUNDER THOUGHT's narrative brainstorming and poetry modes.) From the user's standpoint, the big difference between VERSIFIER and THUNDER THOUGHT is that VERSIFIER requires more user input before the computer does its random stuff. VERSIFIER gives its user the ability to constrain the program's randomness of word choices. In addition, while the user is defining sentence frameworks, it asks the user to do some of the "editing" and "elaborating" that a THUNDER THOUGHT user can do only after the program has generated sentences. It then can do some "editing" and "elaborating" itself. VERSIFIER gives the user a large amount of control over the program's operation, and the resulting "poetry" can often come remarkably close to making sense. But that poetry is still produced by picking sentence frameworks and words at random from preexisting lists and then putting them together with absolutely no regard for sense. The computer is not creative. It takes the user's critical mind, his or her editing and elaborating, to move beyond automated popping, with or without constraints, to true and complete creativity. At the same time, VERSIFIER does exercise the creative mind in a way somewhat different from THUNDER THOUGHT's. "Really creative use of the program," says its author, Rosemary K. West, "requires the ability to see and understand patterns, which seems to me to be one of the processes of creative thinking, especially when the popcorn part is over and the time comes for development, editing, and elaborating." "Someone who is really overwhelmed and confused by the nonsense factor of THUNDER THOUGHT," she adds, "will find a bit less nonsense and more grammatical sentences in VERSIFIER. If he doesn't give in to the temptation to let the poems stand more or less as they come out of the computer (and they aren't really polished enough for that), he may find it easier to look at them and pick out usable stuff." You will find the instructions for using the VERSIFIER program in the VERSE.DOC file on the disk with the VERSIFIER program. SUMMARY Writing poetry with THUNDER THOUGHT or another "Poetry Machine," such as VERSIFIER, is a matter of using what the computer produces not as poetry, but as the raw material for poetry. Edit it and elaborate it just as when using the computer as a source of ideas for other kinds of creations, and then impose suitable poetic form. That is all there is to it, with the added benefit that the computer program's randomness guarantees unusual originality of image and thereby helps you to avoid triteness. And that, in turn, is a big help to getting your poetry published. Hey! It worked for me! THE END ------------------------------------------------------------- Press <ESC> to exit this chapter and BROWSE the next chapter. ------------------------------------------------------------- Complete book and software available from R.K. West Consulting P.O. Box 8059, Mission Hills, CA 91346.