The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil is, I think, one of the really important books to come out this year. My review of it appears in the Health & Science section of today's Inquirer.
Ray Kurzweil is very smart guy. But don't take my word for it. Listen to what he had to say in an interview I had with him last week.
Over the weekend I took a look at Ray Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet.
Yes, our intrepid inventor has devised a program that enables a computer to write poetry. The link explains better than I ever could how it works and let me say, before the sensitive plants among us flex their tendrils in exasperation and rage, that it's worth your time. I suspect a published poet who had a sufficient body of work in hand could use the program to flesh out a too-thin new volume. Problem is, I suspect critics would complain that old territory was being explored in much the same way.
What I think might be interesting would be to acquaint the computer with one or more poets, then feed the computer data about a particular subject, as well as ideas and images suggested by same to the person using the program. I would also program the computer, if possible, with information about certain strict forms -- the villanelle, say. And see what comes of that.
But, you wonder, a machine writing poetry? Well, the more intimate the machine and its operator become, the more personal and orginal the poetic output might become as well. At present, the poems Ray's program has generated strike me as skillful, but cold. My God -- has he tried language poetry, I wonder?
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