Robot Poetry

Via Lockergnome Bytes comes this link to Darwinian poetry. From the site’s description:

Ok, here’s the idea: starting with a whole bunch (specifically 1,000) randomly generated groups of words (our “poems”), we are going to subject them to a form of natural selection, killing off the “bad” ones and breeding the “good” ones with each other. If enough generations go by, and if the gene pool is rich enough, we should eventually start to see interesting poems emerge.

The cool part is that YOU are the arbiter of what constitutes “good” and “bad” poetry. Once you start, you will be presented with two poems. In all likelihood they will both be abysmal pieces of nonsensical garbage. That’s ok. All you have to do is read them both and pick the one you find more appealing, for whatever reason. Your decision might be based on a single word that you happen to like. It doesn’t matter. Just pick whichever one strikes your fancy.

Here is one of the poems I found myself voting on, as better than the alternative. In fact, I just plain like it.

into the soullessness
berry fire on toiling horses sight
sword covered bodies
guiding some
guiding nothing
stricter blood of quieting tressed
prince devoured
loved
for jest sword forgotten

soulful in eyes for
this else in of life

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dave

Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.