AI Plus Poetry

Since April is National Poetry Month, I have been participating (silently) in the Writer’s Digest Poetic Asides Poem-A-Day prompts as I have for many years.

I began the first half of the month crafting poetry from my own minute storehouse of creativity. However, with the onslaught of AI, I decided to play outside my sandbox.

Yesterday’s prompt was to write a form or anti-form poem. I chose to write a Triolet.

First I wrote my own then I gave AI my opening sentence and asked it to write its own Triolet beginning with my line.

The result was pretty good and consistent with the form parameters. I then asked AI to generate an image to accompany the poem it/we wrote.

First I’ll post my version:

Now AI:

I like it. It’s kind of fun and interesting to view what AI generates. It’s super fast. Much faster than I am.

But that’s it.

Asking AI to write for me does not engage my sentient hunger and anxieties. AI’s poem didn’t arise from the depths of anything internal. It’s purely external. It leaves me dry and thirsty. Worse, utilizing AI to craft poems for me seems to foster laziness on my part. Also, it doesn’t satisfy my creative spirit.

I did enjoy the image generator and the process of integrating the poem with the image much like visual poetry.

I can see the possibilities for utilizing AI to generate ideas or inspiration or as, dare I say, a writing partnership. It’s a tool that is evolving ever so rapidly.

Have you attempted an AI poem yourself? What are your thoughts?

(In full disclosure, in this instance, I used Microsoft Edge CoPilot and Designer.)