A somewhat random poetry generator that generates a zillion dark, existential e-poems at the click of a button
When I first began working on digital found poem, i was trying to create a random poetry generator that tossed tens of thousands of snippets of language (words, phrases, clauses) into the air and then dropped them programmatically onto the computer screen in an unending stream of digitally created poems that were worth the reading. Good luck! After years of trying, it became clear that a totally random poetry generator would never be able to generate readable poems. So what to do? Give up? Or see if by imposing a heavy dose of order, I could improve the quality of these random poems? And you guessed it--much more order and much less randomess is what I chose for. And as consequence, the poems that digital found poem generates these days are much more readable and perhaps even a bit enjoyable for those who take it for what it is--poems programmatically created by weaving words/phrases/clauses from thousands of list into hundreds of varying line patterns. To see some examples, see thefound poem examples page. Or you can download these examples by clicking Fifty digital poem examples.pdf.
If you're curious about how a computer can be used to generate poems, take a look at the how text is generated page to see about one way to do it. Then think about how you would do it if you were to write a computer program to write poetry.
If you're a poetry teacher and are looking for a way to spice up your poetry writing class or workshop, digital found poem may just be the tool you're looking for. Let students play with digital found poem, shaping and molding words and lines that they see poetic potential in and discarding the rest. (Think erasure poems, blackout/redacted poems, found poems, and so on.) For a beginning poet, a few minutes of tinkering with text provided may be a more enjoyable and productive way to start each writing day than to have to stare at that proverbial blank page and hope that somehow the words will come.
Digital found poem UI
The user interface (UI) of digital found poem looks as follows. Click the generate new poetic text button and you'll get completely new text to read or play with.
Download digital found poem
Digital found poem is an extremely simple, single-file text editor (think Windows Notepad) that won't add cookies, mess with your registry, or collect any personal information. If you download it and it's not to your liking, you can delete it in one second with a single click.
Note 1: Digital found poem is programmed for Windows PCs/tablets only and it won't work on mobile phones. And it will only work on a Mac or other operating systems if they can run Windows.
Note 2: Although digital found poem doesn't contain "four-letter" words, it's intended for a mature audience. Its dark and adult themes make it inappropriate for those too young for all that misery. For an explanation of why digital found poem is so dark, see the how text is generated page.
To see digital found poem in action, download it by clicking download digital found poem(Updated September 13, 2021). If you need download instructions, see thedownload infopage.
