It will be minus 3 tonight.
The light
Dies fast in winter.
There is a splinter
Of ice in my heart
With which I make art.
True, sometimes the sun breaks through.
But for now I rhyme
Of wintertime.
Spring will bring birdsong
But winter’s splinter is forever part
Of my poet’s heart.
Though birdsong does not last long
It may live on
When I am gone
In a rhyme of my wintertime.
Beyond the light
Of the commuter train
The falling night
Is full of rain.
I came
From this night
To play in sunlight,
But must return again
To night.
Men may choose Chinese
Or whatever they please
For in the great marketplace
A girl’s legs and face
Can command a price
(Which some call vice).
The girl studying for her degree
And the single mum provide fun
But the fun
Commands a fee.
In what some call work
A pimp may lurk
Somewhere in the dark shadow.
Perhaps it isn’t so
But how do men know?
A wicked young lady known as Follett
Has relieved many men of their wallet.
But me, being pure
I am perfectly sure
That my wallet is safe from Follett …!
—
A wicked young lady known as Follett
Has relieved many men of their wallet.
I hide mine behind the curtain
With a girl called Miss Person,
Where its perfectly safe from Miss Follett …!
A gossipy young lady known as Nell
Likes to claim she knows me well.
I remember Miss Jane
With her mean cane,
But I really don’t remember that Nell!
On a day
In late November
A cold autumn breeze
Rustles through the trees
Seeming to say,
“A freezing December
Is on its way”.
As those of you who follow my blog will know, I have been experimenting with Google Bard. This morning I asked Bard whether AI poetry will replace human generated poetry and received a response which can be accessed here, https://g.co/bard/share/074f2caef001
The final few sentences of the AI generated essay sum up Bard’s response:
“Ultimately, the future of poetry will likely be a collaboration between humans and machines. Human poets will continue to bring their unique creativity and emotional insight to the craft, while AI will provide new tools and techniques to help them express their ideas. Together, humans and AI can create poetry that is even more beautiful and meaningful than anything that has been created before.”
Whilst I am sure that many humans will use AI tools with increasing frequency in their writing (including poetry), I am not convinced that this will lead to the composition of poetry even more beautiful than that hitherto created. As the AI response acknowledges, AI lacks human experience. Consequently, unless AI is able to fully comprehend human experience in the same manner as we humans do, it will never be able to surpass Shakespeare, Tennyson or any other of the poetic greats.
Furthermore, the appreciation of any art form is to some extent a matter of subjective judgement. To take a concrete example, I believe that Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” is a wonderfully powerful poem, whilst a dear friend of mine (who is also a lover of poetry), is left cold by Thomas’s work. There will therefore no doubt be readers who will praise AI generated poetry and poems created in collaboration with AI tools, but others will be left cold by such creations.
The creation of mass produced pottery has not killed the craftsman who produces beautiful pots using his potter’s wheel. Nor, in my view will AI poetry destroy the poet who continues to write from the heart rather than utilising tools such as Google Bard or Open AI’s Chat GPT.
As always I would welcome your comments.
Do you remember how we
Sat on that fallen tree?
I love the wood
In which that tree stood.
All must decay.
Though we had no love
To fade away.
Just my middle-aged lust
And fear of dust
And your need
To somehow feed.
Now that fallen tree
Reminds me of thee.
When a young lady named Miss Foster
Said, “sir, come with me to Gloucester.
Me and my girlfriend
Want a dirty weekend!”,
It ended with hot coffee in Costa!
Continuing my experimentation with Google Bard, I asked the AI to “write a poem in the style of poet Kevin Morris”. For any of my readers who are interested, you can read Bard’s poem here, https://g.co/bard/share/44ce659bcef2
I don’t think I need worry about Google Bard plagiarising my work, nor do I believe that any other poets need be concerned, at least for the foreseeable future.
K Morris - Poet 