Sonnets for Computers
ARTificial Intelligence
When Alan Turing did an interview
About computers way back when, he said
That they could do whatever we can do,
Most likely… yep, what any human head
Can handle. Pressed by that reporter, he
Insisted, yes, these thinking gadgets might
Some day even master real poetry.
Specifically he said that they would write
Some sonnets but he doubted humans would
Be very good at understanding what
These poems mean. We wouldn’t be so good,
Less like a show dog, more like a mutt.
The only reader of them that could glean
Their import would be … another machine.
A Vast and Numerate Audience
The only people who read poetry are at funerals, in classrooms, or at weddings—
or for beddings. ~ Phillip Whidden
The readership of poetry is small,
Quite miniscule in fact. A microsope
That God might focus on the world could trawl
Around forever in it in the hope
Of finding some but would detect so few
That He could easily be quite dejected.
So, if a bright computer wrote a slew
Of sonnets and weblinked brothers connected
Together in a global network, and
They all enjoyed those sonnets, then that group
Would be the largest one, a crowd more grand
Than all the humans reading verse, a troop
More numerous than any paltry lot
That mortal sonneteers have ever caught.