Gene, I said the poem was "workmanlike." To me -- a published poet -- it reads like a very good try by a talented seventh-grader as an assignment. The phrasing is flat with a few tries at spookiness and a few discordant touches of light verse. The vocabulary is meh. No reason for the seventh-grade English teacher not to give it a B+ -- but the soul is missing. Compare (and especially contrast) it with Marcus Bales' excellent "in the style of" poems, and you'll see what I mean. As for the illustration, it feels off, not right, but I'm a poet, not a painter, and I can't critique it. Bottom line: I'm 72, and I do not believe AI will accomplish human art in my lifetime, though I don't rule it out in my grandchildren's.
Sharon, please send me a poem of yours that is better than this seventh grader's B plus. Only condition: It must rhyme. I don't mean this snidely. I'd like to see it.
It’s not a great poem, but it’s decently written. If you grabbed 100 people off the street and asked them each to write a poem in the style of Poe, it’s unlikely that any of them would write anything close to this good, and it’s very likely that the source of terror in their poem would be something less obscure and more concrete, e.g., a rando who yanks people off the street and forces them to write poetry.
I should add, as someone who regularly reads metrical poems submitted by published poets, that if you took 10,000 random people off the street, you might find one or two with this steady a hand at rhyme and meter.
The mechanics are excellent, as one would expect from a machine. The meat of the poem though felt soulless, like something dead emitted from an intellectual corpse. I couldn’t even read it the first time through, I skipped down to the AI reveal afterwards. Only then did I go back and try to see the light that Gene saw, or at least figure out why it had turned me off so.
I thought that the poem was straining after a kind of profundity that the author didn’t quite have. Like a smart college student in an all-night bull session.
Here is another question that your brother might pose to "Mike": Write a poem in your own style on a subject of your own choosing. Do not reference or imitate any published poetry to which you have access. Fully explain the source of your own inspiration.
Is the singularity upon us? Ask it to write poems in the style of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, reflect upon what it wrote, and then justify its continued existence. If that doesn’t work, ask it to rewrite well-known jokes as poems and ask for suggestions for prank calls to consumer help lines.
Even before I got to the "It's AI" part, I was thinking "Gene LIKES this?" I found the meter clunky and the poem over-long (like much of Poe, truth be told. The classics slap but they aren't all classics). But I'm still worried about it taking my creative pals' jobs.
Yes, definitely much too long for what it's trying to accomplish. And poetry should be economical, unless it's an epic. A great point I missed in my criticism.
Yeah. Poe's a favorite of mine, but I can't claim to have read EVERYTHING he wrote. And I could imagine this as something he'd dashed off but never even second-drafted, maybe late in his life (such as it was).
This isn’t Poe—it’s Edgar A. Guest with a hangover. Saccharine with a splash of arsenic. Besides, poetry threw away the metronome when it climbed down from Mount Parnassus.
I'm not sure the question is if it is a good poem or a bad poem, or if you like the poem, or don't like the poem. I think the important takeaway is, like it or not, it is a real poem and it is good enough. And very likely to get better, probably much better.
Which is a the real car? A 1967 XKE Jag or a 2025 Lexus? ... They are both real, both work, just as the poem is real and it works. One car is designed and made mostly by human brains and hands the other designed and made by a ton of computer aided robots using a lot of AI. I'd drive either one home if given the chance.
Most poems written by humans are average to bad, most artwork by humans is average to bad. Maybe it should be the same for computers? Are all motherboards the same? Or is there a Shakespeare or Sylvia Plath motherboard out there rattling down an assembly line waiting for it's chance at creative fame? My focus is this machine can make a "real" poem essentially without a human. It still needs a prompt, but for how long? At what point will it cut out the computer jockey and go freelance, beginning to write it's own prompts for its own poems while chain smoking Gitanes in a cheap garret on the the west bank of Paris?
Good or bad? That has always been a subjective matter, the point is it is real and it will be used.
I'm no good at poetry, not writing, understanding or even appreciating it. But Gene, you should have done the poll BEFORE you revealed that it was AI. You just poisoned the well. And then maybe have done a second poll afterwards.
I will grudgingly admit that this poem was well composed and held my interest. If you had not told me, I would not have known it was composed using AI. I also would not have mistaken it for a lesser known poem by Edgar Allan Poe (its tone is closer to Emily Dickinson).
But it is still empty. Empty as the room it describes. There’s no coda, no denouement, only an irresolute close. The poem ends not with a bang, nor even a whimper, but at best a clearing of the throat.
And without a human to prompt it, I submit the poem would not exist.
This stanza is why I voted for "very good" instead of "spectacularly good." Why is it the only stanza with four lines instead of eight? And speaking of eights, why does the final line have only seven syllables--the only one to come up short?
Putting aside such quibbles, I agree that it is a very well-crafted poem. I also have no idea what it's actually meant to convey.
Replying only to your quibble on the syllables. "It only asks that I stay here" does have eight syllables, and in fact has the perfectly strong "metronomic" meter that another commenter here disparages as old-fashioned (though of course the assignment was "in the style of Poe," who was dogmatic about following writing rules). It's ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM for all four lines.
I would argue that this one stanza has four lines because it's highlighting the epiphany -- the aha! moment.
Thanks, Pat. I hang my head in shame at miscounting the syllables!
And yes, it makes sense that the stanza with the message would be distinctive, both in terms of the length and the italics. But since I find the epiphany more confusing than illuminating, I'm still not convinced the departure works. (Which I freely admit probably says more about me than the poem, but there it is.)
"Thanks" and "I hang my head in shame"... poetry aside, this is why I often find joy in reading the responses on this substack, and why I do hope that should the world eventually be ruled or at least led by AI, that they are AI trained on the human traits of grace and humor such as often enriches the discourse here.
I think you heard a real problem -- or at least a real disruption, since a disruption could be intended for effect, if written by something capable of intending. "I stay here" should be spoken as three, consecutive, strongly stressed syllables, which is what makes it stand out from the rest of the poem.
Honestly, I don't read much poetry although I respect the art of it. I thought it was Don's and quite good, and I see the criticisms here of it sort of strained. Rating poetry, or teaching poetry or any art, has to be open-ended and open-minded, IMHO. I was very engaged in the mystery of the images and allegory, if that is the right word, that made me feel it was speaking to the way so many have "stayed in their rooms" rather than reach out to make the world better.
Gene, I said the poem was "workmanlike." To me -- a published poet -- it reads like a very good try by a talented seventh-grader as an assignment. The phrasing is flat with a few tries at spookiness and a few discordant touches of light verse. The vocabulary is meh. No reason for the seventh-grade English teacher not to give it a B+ -- but the soul is missing. Compare (and especially contrast) it with Marcus Bales' excellent "in the style of" poems, and you'll see what I mean. As for the illustration, it feels off, not right, but I'm a poet, not a painter, and I can't critique it. Bottom line: I'm 72, and I do not believe AI will accomplish human art in my lifetime, though I don't rule it out in my grandchildren's.
Sharon, please send me a poem of yours that is better than this seventh grader's B plus. Only condition: It must rhyme. I don't mean this snidely. I'd like to see it.
I'll send you several, right after dinner (it's 7:45 PM in Israel). Look for an email at your address that has a (Fahrenheit) fever temperature in it.
Thank you. Looking forward to it.
Sent!
It’s not a great poem, but it’s decently written. If you grabbed 100 people off the street and asked them each to write a poem in the style of Poe, it’s unlikely that any of them would write anything close to this good, and it’s very likely that the source of terror in their poem would be something less obscure and more concrete, e.g., a rando who yanks people off the street and forces them to write poetry.
I should add, as someone who regularly reads metrical poems submitted by published poets, that if you took 10,000 random people off the street, you might find one or two with this steady a hand at rhyme and meter.
The mechanics are excellent, as one would expect from a machine. The meat of the poem though felt soulless, like something dead emitted from an intellectual corpse. I couldn’t even read it the first time through, I skipped down to the AI reveal afterwards. Only then did I go back and try to see the light that Gene saw, or at least figure out why it had turned me off so.
How many of the hundred would even know who Poe was?
Any fan of Kung Fu Panda would know.
Good question. 25? 🤷♂️
I thought that the poem was straining after a kind of profundity that the author didn’t quite have. Like a smart college student in an all-night bull session.
Here is another question that your brother might pose to "Mike": Write a poem in your own style on a subject of your own choosing. Do not reference or imitate any published poetry to which you have access. Fully explain the source of your own inspiration.
Then, let us see what "Mike" comes up with.
That is the point that I was going to make. There is no creativity. Only imitation.
Same thought here. And to note, in 7th grade I was good at mimicking good poetry. My own attempts were sad.
Is the singularity upon us? Ask it to write poems in the style of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, reflect upon what it wrote, and then justify its continued existence. If that doesn’t work, ask it to rewrite well-known jokes as poems and ask for suggestions for prank calls to consumer help lines.
Even before I got to the "It's AI" part, I was thinking "Gene LIKES this?" I found the meter clunky and the poem over-long (like much of Poe, truth be told. The classics slap but they aren't all classics). But I'm still worried about it taking my creative pals' jobs.
Yes, definitely much too long for what it's trying to accomplish. And poetry should be economical, unless it's an epic. A great point I missed in my criticism.
I thought it was a poem by Poe that I had never encountered. Full of dread in the way his poems are.
Same.
Yeah. Poe's a favorite of mine, but I can't claim to have read EVERYTHING he wrote. And I could imagine this as something he'd dashed off but never even second-drafted, maybe late in his life (such as it was).
This isn’t Poe—it’s Edgar A. Guest with a hangover. Saccharine with a splash of arsenic. Besides, poetry threw away the metronome when it climbed down from Mount Parnassus.
Edgar A. Guest is nothing to sneeze at: I wish I could write like Edgar A. Guest.
Just a thought:
I'm not sure the question is if it is a good poem or a bad poem, or if you like the poem, or don't like the poem. I think the important takeaway is, like it or not, it is a real poem and it is good enough. And very likely to get better, probably much better.
Which is a the real car? A 1967 XKE Jag or a 2025 Lexus? ... They are both real, both work, just as the poem is real and it works. One car is designed and made mostly by human brains and hands the other designed and made by a ton of computer aided robots using a lot of AI. I'd drive either one home if given the chance.
Most poems written by humans are average to bad, most artwork by humans is average to bad. Maybe it should be the same for computers? Are all motherboards the same? Or is there a Shakespeare or Sylvia Plath motherboard out there rattling down an assembly line waiting for it's chance at creative fame? My focus is this machine can make a "real" poem essentially without a human. It still needs a prompt, but for how long? At what point will it cut out the computer jockey and go freelance, beginning to write it's own prompts for its own poems while chain smoking Gitanes in a cheap garret on the the west bank of Paris?
Good or bad? That has always been a subjective matter, the point is it is real and it will be used.
It had a feel to it I couldn’t put my finger on, until I got to the poll and saw the option “workman-like”.
It is a McDonald’s burger to a proper hamburger.
That is not reason for reassurance; McDonald’s is wildly popular.
I'm no good at poetry, not writing, understanding or even appreciating it. But Gene, you should have done the poll BEFORE you revealed that it was AI. You just poisoned the well. And then maybe have done a second poll afterwards.
Ah, but we know readers cheat and peek and don't always read the online version!
AI, You’re no Edgar Allan Poe. You’re not even a good steak sauce!!
I will grudgingly admit that this poem was well composed and held my interest. If you had not told me, I would not have known it was composed using AI. I also would not have mistaken it for a lesser known poem by Edgar Allan Poe (its tone is closer to Emily Dickinson).
But it is still empty. Empty as the room it describes. There’s no coda, no denouement, only an irresolute close. The poem ends not with a bang, nor even a whimper, but at best a clearing of the throat.
And without a human to prompt it, I submit the poem would not exist.
I first thought Dickinson for tone, and Frost for sound.
This is beginning to recall Asimov's 3 Rules of Robotics, and actually in his later books, the "Zeroth Rule". It's coming.
"Then came the thought—complete, entire,
Unbidden, flawless, cold, and clear:
This place does not intend my death.
It only asks that I stay here."
This stanza is why I voted for "very good" instead of "spectacularly good." Why is it the only stanza with four lines instead of eight? And speaking of eights, why does the final line have only seven syllables--the only one to come up short?
Putting aside such quibbles, I agree that it is a very well-crafted poem. I also have no idea what it's actually meant to convey.
Replying only to your quibble on the syllables. "It only asks that I stay here" does have eight syllables, and in fact has the perfectly strong "metronomic" meter that another commenter here disparages as old-fashioned (though of course the assignment was "in the style of Poe," who was dogmatic about following writing rules). It's ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM for all four lines.
I would argue that this one stanza has four lines because it's highlighting the epiphany -- the aha! moment.
Thanks, Pat. I hang my head in shame at miscounting the syllables!
And yes, it makes sense that the stanza with the message would be distinctive, both in terms of the length and the italics. But since I find the epiphany more confusing than illuminating, I'm still not convinced the departure works. (Which I freely admit probably says more about me than the poem, but there it is.)
"Thanks" and "I hang my head in shame"... poetry aside, this is why I often find joy in reading the responses on this substack, and why I do hope that should the world eventually be ruled or at least led by AI, that they are AI trained on the human traits of grace and humor such as often enriches the discourse here.
I think you heard a real problem -- or at least a real disruption, since a disruption could be intended for effect, if written by something capable of intending. "I stay here" should be spoken as three, consecutive, strongly stressed syllables, which is what makes it stand out from the rest of the poem.
Thanks, David! You said it much better than I did.
Note the singular, startling use of italics. That stanza, I think, is meant to stand alone in its significance. And to interrupt, and disturb.
You're probably right about that, Gene. It just doesn't work for me.
Honestly, I don't read much poetry although I respect the art of it. I thought it was Don's and quite good, and I see the criticisms here of it sort of strained. Rating poetry, or teaching poetry or any art, has to be open-ended and open-minded, IMHO. I was very engaged in the mystery of the images and allegory, if that is the right word, that made me feel it was speaking to the way so many have "stayed in their rooms" rather than reach out to make the world better.