The Art of Poetry Machines

Abstract

The history of machine-aided poetry from Swift to Roussel, Bense, the Oulipo-group and David Link's Poetry Machine 1.0* represents the idea of aesthetic creativity as an interplay between ‘poetic’ algorithms and ‘human’ control of the poetry-generator, with more or less interesting results. By examining Christopher Strachey's Love Letter Generator and confronting it with traditional poetry, the talk attempts to ascertain whether in this way it is possible to isolate or retrieve the literary process.