Digital found poem is a random poetic text generator that tosses tens of thousands of pieces of language into the air, then rearranges them programmatically into millions of combinations of free-form text that is syntactically varied and semantically believable (much of the time) .
For me, this app represents the extreme joy of using a computer to play with language. In what other poetic form can you input a short string of words such as "the child i was," and then click a button and watch the words transform into endless variations such as:
the child i was is putting on make-up/the radical surgery/slowing the plain folk down
the child i was is human frailty/all torn up/in fairyland
the child i was is roaming the streets/with destinations unknown/cataloging the dreadful guilt
the child i was is reruns again/forced back across the border/in a bankrupt light
and
the child i was is a sin/watched by an unloved reality/that replays everything
For you (and your students, if you teach) this app can be an endless source of poetic text that can be perused (and perhaps even used) on days when there's nothing better to do. I think you might enjoy this program in which it is language itself that takes a crack at serving up the poetry -- unless, of course, you're a poetry purist who turns up the nose at the concept of random poetry and won't even give its playfulness a try.
Digital found poem is a simple, single-file text editor 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 with a single click.
If you want to know a little about how digital found poem generates its text, see how digital found poem text is generated.
If you want to see a few examples of poems digital found poem has generated, see examples of digital found poems.
Note Digital found poem is programmed for Windows PCs/tablets only and won't work on mobile phones. And it will only work on a Mac if the Mac can run Windows.
To see digital found poem in action, download the digital found poem app (Last updated September 17, 2017. Size: 3.85 MB.)
If you have a question or want to send a comment, see the questions or comments page.
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