--author Clarissa Littler (left_adjoint) --title Poetry in Partnership --date today --newpage --heading Me and my talk --center Me * My background is in diff geo/particle physics/programming language design * Worked for the last few years in education * Computation ∩ Arts --center This talk * A little on poetry * A little on things I tried * The experience of partnership * What else I want to do * Lessons learned --newpage --heading The why and wherefore I love writing poetry but I often feel stuck in creative ruts Why not work on a procgen project to help me * feel more creative * think more about what makes poetry, poetry --newpage --heading Not generated poetry, generated shapes The goal isn't to generate poetry per-se but rather to generate the shapes of poetry that the authors writes themselves --newpage --heading Version 1 Observations: * Limited scope: Only talking about poetry in english * The base unit of (english) poetry structure is the syllable * Poetry comes in a terrifying array of forms, anti-forms, styles, and philosophies * Need not just one generator but a family of them --newpage --heading Version 1 Observations cont.: * The simplest generator creates stanzas and chooses line lengths in syllables * Unconstrained variation is too ugly * Variation around a mean --newpage --heading Example: form ------: 6 ---------: 9 ------------: 12 -----: 5 ------: 6 ----: 4 ------: 6 ---------: 9 ------: 6 -----: 5 -------------: 13 -----------: 11 --newpage --heading Example:poem Nihilism and the End Times, we're all prophets of a dead God damn we're empty in intention and becoming more hollow by the hour. I don't know when we stopped believing that we had a future but I--- I think too many are proud of seeing the end at hand, of sneering that they're not surprised but when we survive 10000 years, humanity's lease renewed birth by birth: who did you help live? --newpage --heading Example: form Very first poem on project ---------: 9 -----: 5 ----: 4 ------------: 12 ---------: 9 -----------------: 17 -----------: 11 -------------: 13 ------------: 12 -------------: 13 --newpage --heading Example Very first poem on project If I had been in the Garden that day and I'd seen Eve before her first bite. I would have grabbed on tight and I would have told her "don't stop, no matter what he says" Because we talk an awful lot about Eve's foolishness about her sin, but we never talk about how scary it had to be, terrifying it had to feel to defy your god and only family you knew to take a snake's word that it could be better than this --newpage --heading Version 2 Observations: * This already produces something kinda okay! * In only a few lines of code! * It's enough to get the ol' bean working * But it's a tiny sliver of what poetry can be --newpage --heading Version 2 What to change: * Arbitrary functions of line and stanza number * Generate random functions from pieces * Can create waves, shapes, pictures --newpage --heading Example Superposition of sine waves, randomly generated 8: -------- 9: --------- 8: -------- 7: ------- 7: ------- 10: ---------- 12: ------------ 13: ------------- 12: ------------ 9: --------- 7: ------- 6: ------ 6: ------ 5: ----- 3: --- --newpage --heading Example: cont. 2: -- 2: -- 2: -- 4: ---- 7: ------- 8: -------- 7: ------- 6: ------ 6: ------ 7: ------- 9: --------- 9: --------- 7: ------- 6: ------ --newpage --heading Example I worship the moon and the stars, I lose myself in the sacred void that swims with endless energy the infinitude: holy beyond our comprehension. I was taught to worship a righteous God, a being of absolute power, wrath, envy His jealously intertwined with his love-cruelty He was a God who I tried to love, a father I wanted to please and a distant listener always holding every thought captive I was trapped and alone I was emptied out a vessel --newpage --heading Example: cont. Nothing Can grow Nothing Can build itself back up because nothing is really ever just nothing and the vaccuum pulses with life and the universe is never empty but is full of creation, breathing in & out, rising, falling, being Nothing is ever lost or wasted and all the time I mourn is endless fabric of space --newpage --heading Version 3 & 4: Modern poetry First tried generating indentation as well. Okay but not right! Modern poetry treats the empty space as as much a part of the line as the text itself Generate text and space interleaved Signals to generate space: >= 0 text, <0 space --newpage --heading Example Forms get more interesting, representation gets harder | |-|-| | | |-|-|-|-|-| |-|-|-| | | | | | | | | |-|-| | |-|-|-|-|- | | |-|-| | | | |-|-|-| | | |-|- |-|-|-| | |-|-|-| | | | | |- | | |-|-|-|-|-| | | |-| | | | | |- | |-|-|-| | | |-|-|-|-| |-|-|-|-| | | | |-| | | | | |-|-| |-|-|-|-|-|-| | | |- | | | |-| | | | |-|-|-|-| |-|-|-| | | | | | |-|-|-|-|-| | | | |-| | | | |-|-|-| | | |-|-|-| | | |-|-|-|-|-| |-|-|-| | | | | |-| | | | | |-|-| | |- | | | |-| | | | | |-|-|-| | | |-|-|- |-|-|-|-| |-|-|-|-| | | | | |-|-| | |-|- |-| | |-|-|-|-|-| | | |-| | | --newpage --heading Version 5: Metre Everything we've considered is free verse Free verse has metre just not prescribed metre Most classical anglophonic forms are described in two-syllable feet: spondee: strong-strong pyrrhic: weak-weak iamb: weak-strong trochee: strong-weak iambic pentameter: five iambs per line --newpage --heading Example: Form |-*| | | | | |-*|--| | | |*-|*-|-* | |-*|--|*-|*-|-*| |-*|*-|*-| | | | | | | | |-*|--|-*|-*| | | |-*|--| | | | |-* | | | |-*|*-|*-| | | --newpage --heading Example: Poem The fall of man. this the love/fear, our motiva- tion. I've been a woman---always? perhaps but I haven't ever ____________ do you know who you are? will you be assured when they ask your name? Can you even ______ --newpage --heading Version 6: Rhyming To this point I've neglected rhyme Historically important, but less a part of modern prosody Easiest approach: generate rhymes by random assignment --newpage --heading Example: Form (2,5) c: ----- (2,12) c: ------------ (4,8) a: -------- (0,10) b: ---------- (3,13) a: ------------- (0,14) e: -------------- (2,11) a: ----------- (2,12) c: ------------ (3,11) d: ----------- (3,9) c: --------- (2,10) b: ---------- (2,10) c: ---------- (2,9) c: --------- (3,13) c: ------------- (2,6) a: ------ (3,13) d: ------------- --newpage --heading Example: Form Sometimes odd results (5,11) a: ----------- (5,11) a: ----------- (4,9) a: --------- (3,7) a: ------- (4,8) a: -------- (5,11) a: ----------- (7,15) a: --------------- (8,17) a: ----------------- (7,15) a: --------------- (6,12) a: ------------ (4,9) a: --------- (4,8) a: -------- --newpage --heading Example: Poem But I tried it anyway: The reciprocity of our mutual destruction, eternity ensured in full avarice--consumptive--future cull and the world replaced. dull flesh has become vestigial this the promise of a god so genial he would wipe out all that has been so he can make his will inviolable and we must accelerate extraction of the biological for when the world is burned and hope gone, we escape: raptural the new heaven and earth/a paradise/a lull salvation ours, stasis makes will null holy statues, immovable --newpage --heading Lessons learned * You can do a lot with a little * Sweet spot between freedom and constraint * Constraining too much is interesting exercise ** but not terrible practical --boldon * It felt good --boldoff --newpage --heading What's left? So much to do! * Constraint handling * Concrete poetry with p5.js * Concrete poetry with *LaTeX* * More writing * A better UI for people who aren't me * Generation of LaTeX templates --newpage --heading Me & my code * on twitter as @ClarissaAdjoint * and elsewhere on the small internet as left_adjoint * github repo: https://github.com/clarissalittler/PoetryForms