Reflections of a Computer Poet on American Social Dynamics (Or How This Makes Sense)

Abstract

We analyze computer-generated poems written with a mesostomatic algorithm. We show that computer-generated poetry is meaningful in the same way as human-generated poetry and that this poetic meaning must renounce one-to-one correspondence to reality, objective or subjective. We further show that the ability of a computer poet to produce meaning is stable with respect to a change in language. On this basis, the computer poet’s reflections on some events in modern American history are analyzed by close reading.