Poetry Generators | Electronic Literature Directory

As a tool for the creation of electronic literature, poetry generators are often randomized or algorithmic authoring systems used to create generative poetry (or generative literature more generally, though the generators used to create short narrative works are usually called "narrative generators" or "story generators"). With their roots in Christopher Strachey's love letter generator and other early algorithmic generators like Alison Knowles and James Tenney's "House of Dust," poetry generators engage in a style of experimental authorship that questions the role of authorial agency and creative vision in the poetic text. Poetry generators often encourage the appearance of a kind of "randomness" in their output, as Mark Sample has clearly documented in "An Account of Randomness in Literary Computing." Many poetry generators are and produce born-digital poems, like "Taroko Gorge" by Nick Monfort, or "Sea and Spar Between" which Montfort co-wrote with Stephanie Strickland. But, generators also have a long history of use in transmedial works that translate digital processes into print-based texts, as with Erin Moure's Pillage Laud or as far back as Jean Pierre Balpe's Babel Poesie.