Darwinian poetry

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Darwinian Poetry is a web project[1][2] created in 2003 by David Rea to determine whether "non-negotiated collaboration" could evolve interesting and intelligent poetry using a process akin to natural selection. Visitors to the site are presented with two poems, both arbitrary splicings of two 'parent' poems. The visitor is asked to select the more appealing, and poems that survive the process of voting went on to be spliced into other 'healthy' poems. Unpopular poems eventually "die". The intent is to create, in the long term, poems that were progressively more interesting and sensible.

According to the introduction to the site, the poems will, "(i)n all likelihood . . . both be abysmal pieces of nonsensical garbage. That's ok. All you have to do is read them both and pick the one you find more appealing, for whatever reason. Your decision might be based on a single word that you happen to like. It doesn't matter. Just pick whichever one strikes your fancy." The original poems were constructed from a group of 1,000 words selected from such sources as Hamlet and The Iliad. After a year of interbreeding, poems such as these two began to emerge.

Contents

[edit] Poem #12592 (generation 15)

first snowfall
beating beyond the head
that
with cold knowledge

revealing
one dream is and
was again

[edit] Poem #14438 (generation 12)

the clouds in deaths
lives of
little meaningful mood and shroud
miserable
indelicate oracles enchanting the clanging of
time

A number of widely known publications, including New Scientist and Discover magazine, featured this site[citation needed].

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ ONLINE DIARY.New York Times, August 28, 2003. Accessed May 21, 2008
  2. ^ 'Darwinian poetry' seeks to evolve verse. ABC news. July 24, 2003. Accessed May 21, 2008