Can a computer write poetry? The University of Pennsylvania's Jim Carpenter has discovered that, at least according to contemporary standards of evaluation, the answer is yes. Jim is the proprietor and creator of the Electronic Text Composition Project (known to the poetry world as Erica T. Carter), which means, in a nutshell, that over the years he has perfected a computer program that generates poems on cue. You can prompt Jim's computer to write a poem here, and, most remarkably, you can browse Erica T. Carter's growing list of publications here.

ETC--or Erica, as I like to call her--raises a host of fascinating questions about both the aesthetic possibilities of computer programming and the formal degradations of modern verse. Erica can't write sonnets or other strongly metered poetic forms, but she writes free verse with speed, ease, and, if her editors at poetry magazines are to be believed, great sensitivity. As such, she seems to me to be at once a remarkable testament to the artistic potential of code as well as a damning comment on the artistic pretensions of much contemporary verse. If Erica can fool people into publishing her electronically-generated "work," then what does that say--if anything--about the work it mimics?

Visit Erica, get her to write you a poem, and see what you think.

UPDATE: I asked Erica to write me a poem while I was brewing my morning coffee. I seeded her with the nouns "silk" and "ice," the verbs "glide" and "glisten," and the adjectives "shy" and "warm." This is what she produced:

Warm winter

Kennedy is single.
Neither glides to a house nor laughs at the park.

I glide forward his skin.
Which is she?
You are night.
His eye glistens.
Why is wooden stair blood?
Fond memory by car-pool is pushing into the viable league.
Why is the shape right?
Why is she Dorset?
His fond mother says that he forms in some poetry.
Eye turns gray mostly dark naked.
Skin bothers face.
His face of his elephant is hot.

Erin,
Has Roger Kimball at the New Crit seen this?Boy oh boy.

Here's the poem that Erica wrote for me:

"Conforms the tradition"

A way fells fee.

Reasonable effort by a company is the network.
The reasonable vendor develops.

Spends to a day, like recreational fiction.
Adapts a code.
This volume is the spread.
The effort makes palace.
The ground with regard to his water to molecule is environmental.
The scripture in the far direction takes to come.
His company for the county lets the guard to leave.

Throws Kenneth.

Currently preparing for his return like passenger, spends his way spend Clare.
As loose as tea, to adjust.

She is one past year.

with some disappointment, i say, don't get too excited. lots of li'l mags publish cr*p and her creds are pretty much crud. the screed that she generated for your morning coffee is obviously (sorry--talk to a close-by flower or cat for more inspiration) crud except in the eyes of a few bozo editors, and there will always be a few bozos (which reminds me-- don't act stupid; we have world leaders for that). write on, strange brains of human beings....

It's called "Gritty," which was one of my seed words.


She is people.

Enshrouds surrounding, repeating on turnover.



She is the town.



Ghostlike piano after op plays.

Turnover under other as capacity now gets to stagger, closing.

Hides to his day, as good as labor.

Sunset is great.

What is the yellow sunset of life?