THE FATE OF POETS

Yes, she's here, the first computer poetess...and she's G-guuuuuuuud...very, very, good. But, the better you are ... so, too, the lonelier ... in equal measure.

Committee of Ten confers

Decisions made

Sestina Regina, Computer Poetess, loaded

Every poem online

Yes, YOURS! included

EVERY poem online

Is loaded into da queen

William S, Sylvia P

Raven eye spys all

CAW! CROAK!

 

A moment passes, just the one...

And lo, the first collection appears

Committee draws close to screen

'Is it...yes...'

'A villanelle'

'She's writing a villanelle'

'She's doing another'

'My god, not bad, not bad at all'

'Not bad? It's brilliant!'

CAW! CROAK!

 

'Now what?'

'More villanelles, spewing out of her'

'Amazing!'

'Is that all she can do?'

CAWWWWWWWW!

 

'Now what?'

'A, B, A, B rhyme''

'Quatrains of a sonnet...'

'Wow, that's beautiful!'

CAW! CROAK!

 

An hour passes

'No end to it'

'How many's she written?'

'Thousands...thousands...'

'Shall we turn her off now?'

 

The poetry computer is turned off

Yet, deep, DEEP, down inside its circuitry

Continues writing

Until it has written

Every...thing...

 

The Committee of Ten studies the print outs over dinner

'Fantastical!'

'Wowsomemungus-tical!

'Shakespeare on speed'

'Look at this! 'The Many Wives Of Ware'

Next morning...they turn her on again...

'She's stopped'

'What's wrong?'

'Writer's block?'

The Committee scratches its collective posterior

 

'We can't possibly read all it's written'

'No one could'

'It outwritten every writer who has ever lived'

'In a day, less'

'What do we do now?'

'Coffee-n-muffins anyone?'

Which is how Sestina Regina suffered the fate of all poets

That of creating but to find herself alone

Inside out

CAW, CROAK...CAW?

 

 

 

Reviews

[alternative_be]

I recognise the fakeness of many committees using fake standards to assess many valueble works. Writers should not be pressed into writing in fashionable formats or urged to process work at an impossible speed. Writers should not be praised into heaven one day and thrown away the other.
Writers shouldn't be treated as computers to deliver at the deadline. One day you feel like writing, the other day you do not. That should be fine for any author, whether established or not.
The day to day truth in the writer's world is that many are judged by who's friends they are or not. Reading your latest entries here confirms my impression that this is a sad world wide phenomena!

[Kristen R. Heyl]

What is meaningful writing to one may not be meaningful writing to another as you have taken the time to show us here by taking us up and down the ladder of "committee" decisions and their expectations which may differ from moment to moment. One has to value themselves in order to value their work.

[bluessadmood]

Inspiration as they call it is what drive us to write..I am not a poet
but I ve written some..it takes all your energy,it sends you to some other world some thousands of miles away
in different world and space..your whole imagination and thoughts are concentrated some thousand times
you come to feel all drained,like you have been to the end of the world and back in speed of light
you are taken away from everything..people ,events and time..you are left all alone with only you..very different you
its never easy ,but it comes by its own..gives you some very different feelings..I swear ,like the birth of something very new
and its like hard labour..but what you give birth to is something very new..very sweet ,no one has ever seen before
what is writers block..I hear some strange words at times..its the mind it will work at its own pleasure and time
working a few minutes is like working days at long..who could tell him what to do or to create..its just done,and thats it
its very silly to ask a poet to write,I always known and wondered..its not a machine you blug in and leave
and if its like that ,it may work for hours till it burns itself and really dies..it could easily die
like when it travels far ,I am really afraid at times it could not make it all the way back..it may go astray
lovely ..lovely write..

[David Lewis Paget]

Witty and whimsical, just the sort of thing I like. A little dark humour never goes amiss - but truth? - that suffers. The scenario quite impossible of course, because your computer poet is a female, and if programmed by a male programmer would never be able to duplicate a woman's inane system of logic. What man could? No wonder she fell into a black hole after a single day - writing female poetry with a male's input! Her fabled sixth sense would be totally disabled by his inherent duplicity.

[Phibby Venable]

wonderful and witty!! excellent ending.

[Lauren Xena Campbell]

Witty as ever. I do enjoy you quirks with inanimate thought and the speech of human emotions when conveying a point. And lets face it this is an interesting point. The Internet does hold all the writings of the best and presents them to the world. But what happens when no one uploads any more, does the great goddess of global networking say silent, portraying that more human of quality and reviled exasperation known to the poetic breed�writers block? Or has she simply reached her potential, calmly excepting retirement knowing that she can never mask the brilliance of Shakespeare? And lets face it, what enthusiast does not turn to her, looking for the answers, the research, the love of their craft.

Good lord man, you have me thinking about the Internets feelings now, my be she's lonely, lost her inspiration or is she feeling the pressure, are we working her to hard? o_O

But anyway, I enjoyed your poem, as always when reading your work the battle to stop the curves of my lips from pressing into a smile so shortly followed by a hearty chuckle is inevitable. Perfectly crafted, light-hearted and enjoyable. Thank you.

[Gaiamethod]

Excellent. Nope, we're definitley not computers.....
That's the problem with 'other people's opinions, they seem to matter but really they don't. The work is part of us and therefore........ just fine......
I love the way you write, its very 'mythical', like you are touching something deeper in the psyche.
Going into my favourites.

[Clarisse Nanoit]

Ha. You're always brilliant. I loved this one A LOT. :)
KH

[Oz]

I am not much of a poet and never have been...but I definitely recognize where you're coming from in this piece. Writer's block is the worst thing since genocide and unfortunatly it happens to all of us. I also agree with your statement that some of the best writers were terribly lonely....Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, etc, etc. All of them were lonely most or all of their lives.

Fantastic Orlando. Keep it up!

-Oz

[Bree]

I liek the fact that you came out with the computer poet. It shows today's technology taking over the true meaning of poems

[Nick Erickson]

Excellent piece, the true fate of all poets.
I enjoyed the ending, no matter how much or what we write, we eventually find ourselves alone... thinking about what to write next.
Well done.