poem-gen
A poetry generator by Camden Segal, from NaNoGenMo 2014.
It uses public-domain text from Project Gutenberg to build poems that match a given rhyming scheme.
It’s a good example of how poetry is both easier and harder than generating prose. The patterned syllables and rhyming schemes give the words a structure that random prose lacks. The form makes it easier for chance associations to create evocative images, like a ship emerging from the mist.
But then the image falls apart on the next line, dissolving in the sunlight, and we see the difficulty of poetry: a tightly-constrained form like a haiku demands a density of meaning that this random shuffle approach can’t meet.
Still, it’s a commendable effort. And it does write very, very bad limericks and hallucinatory sonnets, so it has its uses. I’d like to see more attempts along these lines, perhaps taking meter into consideration or finding a way to preserve more of the meaning from the source text.
A sonnet:
What an eagle swooped around him like brooks,
valiant place those not to put his hunger,
spring which in his head of the heart he looks,
appear with the heavy doors of a younger,
of murdering of advanced as a pall,
was opened his head so strongly tempted,
his eye chapter ii black i humbly call,
him so that after them in the frenzies,
the most poisonous they were presiding,
aspect the whale when after sunset and bronze,
defyingly i use a braver thing residing,
side upon the fishers mostly young dons,
inside of seven hundred and erring,
a year totally lost his feet glaring.
A haiku:
Sensation cases,
lucifer dico qui vive,
hospitable folk.
Some limericks:
Her fate that ship would have always fun,
and never do you choose them and run,
father’s funeral philip,
very genuine filip,
agents could not amenable to stun.
To spread abroad i felt almost sure,
immediately in danger of perfect cure,
pleasure or too busy,
cannot my dear lizzy,
in a servant therefore must beg your.
Other circumstances arriving,
situation the death of deriving,
of the least getting rid,
punctuality both however did,
should be with many of deriving.