Power Buttons

This week Desperate Poets were challenged to a high-noon slam with the Ai oracles who appear to be forcing their way into the neighbourhood. It would seem that robots are starting to write poetry. It’s true. No, I don’t know what they hope to gain.  

…

I was strapping on the guns, kick-boxing the heavy bag and nun-chucking the nunchucks when Poetry came strutting in. Rattlesnake wrapped ’round her finely curved neck and a crown of fireweed gracing those lightning white locks. 

What’re you doing, she asked. I faked a few jabs in her direction. She rolled her eyes, did some fancy-pants thing and put me arse over tea kettle dumbfounded in the corner. Totally in love as usual.  

Prepping for the big battle, says I. Desperate Poets bustin’ chops, head to head, eye to eye, puttin’ the boots to the gang from Ai.   

Her laughter was geese at night through an open window. A little stream mumbling away. One firefly in the woods. Lucid silence. She parts her lips and the wind blows warm. 

Intelligence doesn’t write poetry darlin’. Artificial or otherwise. It’s just one part of being human. And if you look around, it seems to be a very small part these days. Your lot appear to be struggling just understanding the workings of a power button. 

We love you, she says, looking up, down and all around. But you are just a season. A fine little moment in time. Tipping the balance a bit much though. A dangerous, hungry bunch. Blind as newborns. 

For one long and lonely heartbeat she became a black hole and I was just a man. Then she helped me up, brushed me off and growled; if never a word was written – I’d still be around. Now, don’t go getting yourself hurt.

…

Author: chrisbkm

Chris Morrison was born on the north shore of Lake Superior and currently lives within moments of the Atlantic in Nova Scotia, Canada.

21 thoughts on “Power Buttons”

  3. Wonderful! And hat’s off to these lines, “Intelligence doesn’t write poetry darlin’. Artificial or otherwise.” So perfect! Also, ” if never a word was written – I’d still be around.” What a fantastic read.

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  4. Thanks so much Bob! Glad you enjoyed this and really appreciate the lines you noted. Good to have finally pulled off a bit of spontaneous writing again.

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  7. I love how you take up this Stetson sibyl with an ambivalent, judicious and ever-careful brush — truly who or what are we facing off with here? It’s not a matter of heroics (an immediate ass-kicking) or intelligence (silenced by quiet recesses of the world, albeit imagined) but a mastery of language which exceeds all poetry and yet is so vulnerable to it … How to wrestle an angel to a fall? Forget mastery. Surrender is the only escape. AI’s poetry voice IMO will become huge, our only recourse will be smallness articulate to the edges of silence. I’m fucked. Intelligence sure isn’t what we thought it was … Thanks so for finding razor edges in the challenge.

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    1. Thanks Brendan. The community of poets and those who appreciate poetry is small (in the throbbing eyeballs of the great big fucked up world) and exists on the outskirts in any case. The vast majority of us don’t make a lot of money doing this. Fame and prestige? Hmmm. No one is waiting for us to come up with the next big idea for making them rich or beautiful. I don’t feel threatened as a poet. I do feel threatened as a citizen. I believe there’s probably going to be a lot of amazing word extravaganzas. People may or may not consume them. Sure the robot will be able to write poetry but will people actually give a shit? Because in general the masses care so deeply about poetry? Some will find a use and may put Hallmark out of business. Maybe I’m just old fashioned or something, but I think poetry needs poets and anyone who appreciates and actually reads poetry knows that.
      I’ll tell you one thing – it sure has been a highly thought-provoking week for me!

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      1. Yes – poetry is another disrupted industry like steel and newspapering, squandered by its seeming ease of use (widely posted online) and having zero true material reward. So it’s moot as art … and yes, perilous to the weal where we are citizens. Digital life back through the launch of the internet and wide spread of computers can be blamed for that, but the step off the cliff is now, into the upward torrent of the singularity. I surely don’t know how your grandkids will fare in such a whirlwind, but hopefully they will find a poetry for it better than ours. Maybe we were just waiting for a more prescient Thou to battle in our poems. Well, we’ve found it … Anyway, thanks for all the hard thought and response. It’s making Desperate Poets a hoot.

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  8. I love the sense of deadly serious playfulness behind the face of Fate, who knows we are only a season. This is full of evocative images and phrases, “..Her laughter was geese at night through an open window. ..” Full of poetry herself with her switchblade and ashen hair…and full of that doom we carry around in our back pockets with all the foolish hedgefund managers and real estate bubblers who think you can eat money. I love this dance, from first to last, even if it’s our last waltz.

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    1. As Jack Gilbert’s somewhat drunken Ovid in tears says – ” Both the melody and the symphony. The imperfect dancing in the beautiful dance. The dance most of all.” Thanks hedgewitch!I love it too.

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  9. if never a word was written – I’d still be around… woah!!! Poetic silence or silent poems… I want both. There is the aesthetic of poetry that we want to keep safe and are defending against “heartless” machines but there is also the commerce of poetry, I wonder about that. Though I shouldn’t. I like your personification of poetry and her confidence 🙂

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    1. Thanks Rajani. The commerce of poetry? For most of us, it’s rather slim in any case. I have a hard job seeing that changing. Will there be a market for robot poetry? Possibly, maybe even probably. But the people buying it, I “think” will have consumer motives rather than an appreciation for the art. This isn’t actually a market I’m that interested in. I think poetry as a product for mass consumption isn’t the type of poetry that poets are writing. I also think whether we’re writing it, or a robot – the masses just aren’t that interested in poetry. Maybe robopoetry will create more interest in the real thing? Wouldn’t that be an unexpected twist.

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      1. Absolutely true… masses aren’t into poetry. Maybe the novelty of AI writing poetry may be of some interest…but that might die down too. But there is a certain type of poetry that is marketable even now – short, simple, feel good, instagrammable… and AI will figure that out eventually, I suppose.

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      2. Agree, masses are just not interested in poetry. Maybe the novelty of AI generated poems will last a while… but there are still some types of poems that are hugely marketable – short, simple, feel good, instagrammable… so maybe AI will figure it out eventually!!

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  10. I love this piece of writing, especially this line that I think sums it up so well:” Intelligence doesn’t write poetry darlin’.” Thank you for sharing it, and I will think of it in the future.

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