A Writer's Warning

If my calendar is correct (and it usually has a better accuracy rate than I do), my next post will be in May, and National Poetry Month will be over. Of course, this will be a bittersweet moment for me, mostly because April gives me a formal reason to lobby for poetry - for reading, for writing, for thinking about, and for exploring the many different poetic forms. Now, I do not claim to be a poet in the deeper sense. I have written poems but I don't feel I have built up those skills enough to deserve the title - yet. However, I have written enough verse to offer fair warning about something I think is a big threat to poetry, and that is AI.

To be clear, I am no Luddite. I use AI for various functions. I let different AIs examine my writing, search for themes in my longer works, and map out plot arcs when I feel they might be wandering. However, some people fall into the habit of letting some bot take the next step and start creating things, and poetry is, unfortunately, the easiest target. Since many forms of poetry work within a format and structure, they become easy prey for people to create through even simple AI use. And having seen a number of specimens of AI-generated poetry, they have the look, shape, and even a surface feel of a legitimate poem. However, don't be fooled. Poetry is something more than just finning in the blanks of some formula. It's not a Mad-Lib, it's an art form.

I am reluctant to suggest this, but it might get the point across. Go to the AI platform of your choice and ask it to write a sonnet about unrequited love. Within seconds, you will likely get a 14-line poem, probably in iambic pentameter, discussing that very subject. The rhyme scheme will work, the words will flow nicely - mission accomplished. You will, in fact, have a sonnet. However, dig into it. Search for the underlying heart of the poetic AI slop you just created, and see if you feel a pulse. Do you see the subject the poem discusses? Do you connect to the underlying meaning? Or do you just find some words triggering emotions, like a verbal ink-blot test where you see what you want to? That's where the difference lies. Ten people can read an AI sonnet and come to the same conclusion about it. A human-generated sonnet will get a variety of reactions, and often disagreement. There's a pulse with the handwritten poem. The AI piece is lifeless.

So, if and when you write a poem - sonnet or otherwise - remember that you are performing a very human task, and your humanity is a part of your creation. Pour in whatever it is that makes you a human being, and let that do the speaking. Make mistakes, have fun with it, and remember you are creating something very personal that some AI cannot match with depth of feeling.

On that note, I close with this untitled piece of freeverse:

Words.
Building blocks of communication.
Description.
Capturing what we perceive with those words.
Narrative.
Explaining the world to each other.
Stories.
The events of our world, as we see them.
Writing.
A tool for filling the space between us.

Surrounding this galaxy of words lies the interstellar force of poetry and everything it encompasses.
Poetry is the language of the soul, the quantum forces explaining life beyond just living.
We describe things outside the tactile, capturing feelings, concepts, states of being.
Poetry bridges the gaps between our worlds, connecting you and me, making us.

The abstract becomes concrete, the breeze captured, the sunlight embraced.
Writing shares our worlds, poetry unites us into something greater than our little selves.
For all of the things writing can accomplish, poetry alone makes us whole; makes us complete.
With poetry, we are one. 

(No AI here)