When I first began working on digital found poem, it was supposed to be 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 would be worth the reading. Good luck! After years of trying, I realized that a totally random poetry generator would never be able to generate readable poems. So what to do? Give up? Or see if by adding a bit of order, I could improve the quality of the poems. And you guessed it--order and less randomess is what I chose for. And the poems that digital found poem generates these days are readable and perhaps even enjoyable for those who take it for what it is--computer-generated poetry. (To see some examples, open and read or download Fifty digital poem examples.pdf)
If you're intrigued by how a computer can be used to generate poems, give digital found poem a try and see if by pure chance (that's called aleatory, isn't it), it will generate a poem for you that you'll find worth your while. Or better yet, let digital found poem inspire you to try to use a computer to generate digital poems of your own.
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.
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.
Digital found poem is an extremely simple, single-file text editor (think 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 and 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.
To see digital found poem in action, download it by clicking download digital found poem(Updated July 1, 2021). If you need download instructions, see the download info page.
