{"id":436,"date":"2020-02-23T14:17:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-23T14:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/?p=436"},"modified":"2020-02-23T14:17:38","modified_gmt":"2020-02-23T14:17:38","slug":"the-future-of-poetry-in-the-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/2020\/02\/23\/the-future-of-poetry-in-the-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"The Future of Poetry in the Digital Age"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was slightly taken aback at Rettberg\u2019s suggestion that a new role for the human poet could be editing \u201cpoetry entirely generated by machine intelligence based on a process that remains both invisible and largely incomprehensible for the human poet\u201d (53). Typically, I feel that we steer clear from or at the very least caution against giving artificial intelligence space with which it can overtake humankind (Hello Disney\u2019s Smart House and Wall-E), but here Rettberg, by impartiality, seems open and even acceptive of the notion that artificial intelligence could further develop and become sophisticated enough to write poetry for us.<\/span><\/p>\n

It should be emphasized that Rettberg is not, indeed, for or against the processes which he describes, as his book explores electronic literature rather than advocating for it (although the exposure garnered from writing about it could very well be considered advocacy), I began to think about the process of getting to the point of wanting to develop some sort of computer software that could write something we consider as intellectually engaging as poetry. More specifically, I want to know why. Are these people ruining the integrity of human-made writing? Computer-made poems aren\u2019t thought to be the most profound, but Rupi Kaur\u2019s <\/span>Milk and Honey<\/span><\/i>, a book of poetry mimicking the most famous six-second vine video scripts, isn\u2019t either. Computers aren\u2019t that smart when it comes to syntax, but neither are we nowadays; who is go say what has or hasn\u2019t been written by a computer nowadays. Or are these people just interested in exploring the limitations of computers and thought that poetry would be the easiest thing to start with? After all, it isn\u2019t that hard to find an assortment of words to go together and make a haiku and many of the computer programs that create poems hardly make sense. Or are they exploring a rebranding or redefining of poetry, one without preconceived constraints placed on it from practically the beginning of time? Up until this new digital era, poetry was permanent once it was printed on the page; now, it can be changed at the drop of a hat with a delete key or, in the case of Abra, a swish of a finger. It will certainly be interesting to see where poetry goes with this added technical nuance.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was slightly taken aback at Rettberg\u2019s suggestion that a new role for the human poet could be editing \u201cpoetry entirely generated by machine intelligence based on a process that remains both invisible and largely incomprehensible for the human poet\u201d (53). Typically, I feel that we steer clear from or at the very least caution …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-c"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/elit20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}