Chat GPT can now write poetry … and I am baffled as to why anyone thinks this is good news. It’s not as though the world is down to its last few barrels of poetry and is desperate for a new technology that will boost its supply. Writing poetry is a time-intensive process, but we don’t need timesaving technologies to eliminate the work of creating it. It’s the human effort that goes into producing it that makes poetry special.
Millions of people write poetry every day. Only a few of them write it with the hope of winning the Nobel Prize for literature. Some of them write it with a goal of becoming rich. All of them write it for reasons that are deeply human.
Some people write poetry as a way to express their feelings about their life experiences or events in the world around them. This may help them heal from a traumatic experience or feel gratitude for a satisfying one.
Some people write poetry in the hope of inspiring or encouraging other people. To do that, they may have to wrestle with their negative feelings and focus on the positive, which may change their own perspective.
Some people write poetry for the thrill of finding exactly the right word to express a thought or to perfect a rhyme scheme. That can generate a buzz of satisfaction that will last for hours.
Computers don’t have feelings to share, and they don’t have a need to inspire others. They might be able to find a perfect rhyme, but they will never experience an “aha!” moment when they find it. Computers will also never feel anxious about reading their work in front of an audience and then feel a warm glow when their poetry is well received.
I’m appalled by the idea that children could be taught that using AI is the best way to write poetry. That would be robbing them of one of the greatest pleasures of being human, not to mention an opportunity to sharpen their critical thinking skills. I’m greatly relieved that reading and writing human-generated poetry is still promoted in school curricula and in the world of children’s books.
Writing poetry is very much a part of the stories told in the books below.
Daniel Finds a Poem
By Micha Archer
Found poetry is poetry made from words or phrases taken from newspaper articles, letters, pamphlets, shopping lists, or anywhere else the poet happens to find them. Daniel Finds a Poem is about writing a found poem, but with an interesting twist to the idea.
Daniel knows all the trees, animals, and rocks in the park he loves to explore, but he’s puzzled by a sign on the park gate that reads: Poetry in the Park, Sunday at 6 o’clock. He asks out loud, “What is poetry?” He’s surprised when Spider answers from a web above his head, “To me, poetry is when morning dew glistens.”
Daniel is intrigued, and over the next five days, he asks Squirrel, Chipmunk, Frog, Turtle, Cricket, and Owl the same question. It turns out that each of them is a poet in his or her own way, and they add to Daniel’s understanding of what poetry is.
On Sunday, Daniel has a poem to take to the park, and he reads it to the people who have gathered there. I’m not going to reproduce it here because that would spoil the joy of reading it for yourself, which I wholeheartedly encourage you to do.
To illustrate her lovely story, Micha Archer created some of the most poetic illustrations I’ve ever seen. She created them with oil and collage, using tissue paper and patterned papers that she created by hand. I especially love the way she created Turtle’s shell with collage. Her illustration of the sunset sky reflecting in a pond is exquisite.
You can learn more about Micha Archer here.
The Year of Billy Miller
By Kevin Henkes
The Year of Billy Miller is 229 pages long, the length of a middle-grade novel, but it’s actually a collection of four chapter books. Together, they tell the story of one (school) year in the life of Billy Miller, a rising second-grader as the story begins. It is divided into four parts, each devoted to one of the primary people in Billy’s life: his teacher, his father, his sister, and his mother.
Only part four is about Billy’s experiences with writing poetry, so I’ll focus on that. To many adults, poetry written by children can’t possibly be important. You’re supposed to expose children to poetry, of course, but only so they’ll know what it is when they’re old enough to write poetry that really matters. In the hands of Kevin Henkes, however, Billy’s experience with writing poetry is every bit as significant as it was for Robert Frost.
Billy’s assignment is to write a poem about someone in his family. That creates a dilemma that every poet faces — what to write about. If he writes about his sister Sal, she’ll be on the platform when he reads his poem, which would be a disaster. He’s afraid that if he picks one parent, the other will feel hurt. He resorts to having them guess a number, but he cheats just a little to make sure Mama is chosen.
He wants to keep the poem short because he’ll have to memorize it. He doesn’t want to choose free verse because to him that seems like ordinary writing broken into lines. He writes a poem about his mother liking volcanoes, but he has to admit that he only knows that his mother might like volcanoes.
Billy’s poem ultimately comes from his experiencing helping his mother bury a robin that died when it flew into a window. Together, they stand quietly, almost reverently, at the bird’s grave, and Billy listens to the sounds around him. Then his mother says, “Of all the things I like, quiet might be my favorite.” Billy is inspired to write a poem called Quiet Mom, and it is exactly what a poem should be.
Billy still has to get through memorizing his poem and reciting it in front of a crowd, and those details are described in careful detail from a child’s viewpoint, although they are remarkably similar to what adults experience when they first read their creative writing for an audience.
To many adults, it might appear that nothing much happens in The Year of Billy Miller. To them, second grade is just something to get through on the road to something more important. Because Kevin Henkes has an uncanny insight into the minds of young children, we know that second grade was actually a time of extraordinary change for Billy Miller. Henkes’ skill as a writer lets us savor the moments of that year instead of rushing through them.
You can learn more about Kevin Henkes here.
Hate That Cat
By Sharon Creech
If you’ve noticed a theme in the images on my blog, you might wonder why I’m reviewing a book called Hate That Cat. Remember that you shouldn’t judge a book by its title. I’m a fervent lover of cats, and I also love Hate That Cat.
Hate That Cat is a sequel to Sharon Creech’s book Love That Dog, and it continues the story of Jack, who is now a fifth-grader. It’s not necessary to have read Love That Dog to enjoy Hate That Cat, but it’s certainly worth reading it simply for the pleasure of reading it.
In Love That Dog, Jack dealt with his grief over the death of his dog through the poetry assignments of his teacher, Miss Stretchberry. In Hate That Cat, Jack is still grieving (because do we ever stop grieving over the death of a beloved pet?), but now he has an adversary in the form of a black cat that seems to be waiting to pounce on him from the branches of a tree above Jack’s bus stop.
Part of the charm of Hate That Cat is that it’s in the form of a poetry journal in which Jack records his responses to the poetry studied in class. Because he happens to be an insightful and introspective boy who hasn’t yet learned to censor himself, his responses reveal as much about his inner world as they do about the poems he reads for school. His reactions to the poems are sometimes hilarious but always honest, unlike most poetry reviews written by adults.
Although Jack insists that he does not not not want another pet after the death of his dog, his parents give him a tiny kitten, which he names Skitter McKitter. Not surprisingly, Skitter McKitter begins to make regular appearances in Jack’s poems. Another issue he addresses is his mother’s deafness. In fact, he describes signing a poetry reading for her, and he dedicates his last poem in the book to her.
Hate That Cat appears deceptively simple because it’s written in verse form and is a “fast read,” but some very deep ideas are expressed within it. It’s also a very sneaky way to get young readers interested in poetry without subjecting them to overly enthusiastic lectures from adults.
Hate That Cat includes bits of many well-known poems by famous poets, all of which are included in an appendix. One of my favorite things about the book is that Jack’s poems are included in the appendix side by side with the famous poets.
You can learn more about Sharon Creech here.
Some Places More Than Others
By Renée Watson
What Amara Baker wants for her twelfth birthday is a chance to accompany her father on his business trip to New York City. She wants to see the city, and she wants to meet her cousins and her grandfather. Her mother is adamantly against it.
That changes when Amara’s class at school starts a Suitcase Project, one in which she will decorate a suitcase with “personal artifacts, poems, and essays about where you’re from and what you’re dreams are for the future.” Amara starts asking her mother questions about her family history. She wants to know why her father hasn’t spoken to his father since the day she was born, which also happened to be the day her grandmother died.
When her mother realizes how little Amara knows about her father’s side of the family, she agrees to the trip. Before Amara leaves, her mother entrusts her with a special mission: to get her father and grandfather to spend some quality time together.
The trip is not at all what Amara expected. One of her cousin’s is openly antagonistic toward her. This is a business trip for her father, who doesn’t have time to spend showing her the city. She’s a bit overwhelmed by New York City, having lived all her life in the small town of Beaverton, Oregon. She even gets lost while trying to navigate the subway system on her own.
Amara is also enthralled by what she learns about African American history. Her cousins are blasé about Malcolm X Boulevard and the Apollo Theater, but she wants to take pictures of everything. Her grandfather gives her an in-depth introduction to the Schomberg Center, where she begins to feel a connection to “the activists and artists, politicians and preachers and teachers” who have come before her.
Suffice to say that Amara acquires more than enough material to complete her Suitcase Project, one that I’m sure received a grade of A+. She includes places that are important to her, stating “Some of these places I am still getting to know, some of these places I have known all my life. All these places made me, are making me.” She also includes a poem she’s written herself.
As to the project Amara’s mother entrusted in her, Amara learns that the schism between her father and grandfather was related in part to her father’s wanting to be a poet, which her grandfather didn’t think was what men should do. While a twelve-year estrangement isn’t healed overnight, Amara efforts were successful in starting the process.
In the back matter for the book, Renée Watson includes instructions for The Suitcase Project with a list of interview questions, writing prompts, and things to include in your suitcase. She also provides her lists of the Top Ten Places to Visit in Oregon and Top Ten Places to Visit in New York City.
You can learn more about Renée Watson here.
As these books show, writing poetry is more about the journey than the destination, and the journey is one that a computer can never make. If a poem “speaks” to you, you should feel free to enjoy it whether it was written by a human or by AI, but the idea of being moved to tears by a poem created by a computer seems a little bit creepy to me. If you want to be sure you’re reading “real poetry”, you can attend a poetry reading or workshop, where you can listen to poetry straight from the poet’s mouth — and maybe try your hand at writing a poem or two yourself.