“You do not have to be good.” -Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese” What kind of poetry will people be reading 100 years from now? It is impossible to predict for sure. Yet certain quantifiable trends in the poems published over the past hundred years give a definite indication of where poetry has been, and may give […]
The idea that analysing poetry with computers could teach us anything about the art is controversial. A recent survey I conducted of more than 300 tech-savvy poets confirmed that–while they generally agree that technology has been good for poetry in terms of fostering community, creating networking opportunities, and providing remote learning–they would rather computer scientists
“The dose makes the poison.” -Paracelsus In response to my recent analysis of the frequency of words used in past issues of Poetry magazine, current editor Don Share issued me a good-humoured challenge: @PeakePoetics Um, not anymore, I'll wager. Try it with issues published since I became editor. — Don Share (@Don_Share) November 26, 2014
Having counted the occurrence of words in nearly 3,000 poems published in Poetry Magazine to create a parameterised random word generator, I am making some other interesting discoveries about these words. First, as one Twitter user pointed out, the words that come up at each “frequency of occurrence” setting on the generator have their own
Sometimes I need a little help turning over the creative engine when starting a new poem. I have developed a tool that helps me to do just that, and am sharing it with the community in case it helps other poets to ignite their muse as well. Poetic constraints–such as patterns of alliteration, metre, and
