As I continue to play with AI-generated images, text, and voice I thought I would put my own work to the test. Spoiler: the bot is better than me.
The experiment: I took the first half or so of my poem “Argus” (full original reprinted below) and dropped as much as was allowed into Writesonic, an AI text generator. Writesonic then essentially added a new second half to the poem (also below). As I did with “The Red Wheelbarrow,” I then entered the texts into Midjourney (an AI art algorithm) to render images of the two poems. Then, just for kicks and in the spirit of Laurie Anderson, I put the new version’s text into a voice synthesizer and megamixed it for all my readers in the clubs. So let’s get to it!
Here is the original poem “Argus,” which is the opening poem in my collection Tongue and Groove.
Argus Sometimes I'll drop by the department store, stare into an open lens and locate myself on as many TV screens as possible. The foreign angle, the dull back of my head, I dumbly signal with bird-flapping arms that it is indeed me, fifty times over. I listen to the pitch of fast-paced salesmen who preach the virtue of devices-- how they mount perfectly on any surface-- then float the phrase "worst-case scenario" to convince me I might lose track of myself, that today's head scratch and second guess die in the crosshairs of global positioning. I suppose I go there to be invisible once I leave. The yawn of automatic doors turns me over to the world, the anonymous parking lot and traffic. But on the road home I drive beneath perched cameras and picture the grainy photo of my passing: the license plates, my glorious head outlined above the dash, my mouth framed in a portrait that proves I'm no lead singer. Once, when I questioned my bank about a withdrawal I couldn't account for, I received myself in the mail. I sat in the driver's seat, arm frozen in its reach toward the camera eye. My tongue pushed from the corner of my mouth, a measure of deep concentration in the retrieval of forty dollars, immortalizing that I need guidance nickel and diming my way through the calendar. The note from the bank asked, "Is this you?" When did the world become so jealous of itself? Watching for the flinch or whisper that leads to our undoing? At night, I stand on the balcony and try to separate stars from satellites. A live feed of my upturned face scrambles and recomposes across the cold, empty sky where emotions are frozen to facts. I'm somewhere, waiting to be needed.
Below is the new version with the AI-added text. The text of the orignal poem remains in stanza form (tercets), and the AI-generated text appears in paragraph form. The generated text did not include line breaks, so I decided to keep the text in the format in which it was rendered. (It’s also just easy to tell them apart this way.)
Argus AI Sometimes I'll drop by the department store, stare into an open lens and locate myself on as many TV screens as possible. The foreign angle, the dull back of my head, I dumbly signal with bird-flapping arms that it is indeed me, fifty times over. I listen to the pitch of fast-paced salesmen who preach the virtue of devices-- how they mount perfectly on any surface-- then float the phrase "worst-case scenario" to convince me I might lose track of myself, that today's head scratch and second guess die in the crosshairs of global positioning. I suppose I go there to be invisible once I leave. The yawn of the salesfloor stretches into the sidewalk outside. I want to be seen but not heard or felt by the people who pass me by. Who knows me but doesn't know me. I am the man on the street. The one who is always there but never quite noticed. Just a face in the crowd. I am the city's heartbeat. The pulse that keeps it alive and moving. A constant hum in the background that people tune out but can't quite ignore. I am the symphony that plays in everyone's head. The one that they can't quite name but always remember. I am the light that shines in the darkness. The hope that flickers in the bleakest of moments. I am the love that people search for their entire lives. I am everything and nothing all at once. I am the one who is always there but never quite noticed. Just a face in the crowd.
Judge for yourself! Has my poetry been bested by the algorithmic bard? I confess to once again being impressed. There is no doubt that the spirit of the speaker and their movement through a Prufrock world + surveillance is on point. “I am the symphony that play’s in everyone’s head.” Solid stuff!
For step 2 of the AI adventure, I entered the text of both versions above into Midjourney. And guess what? The AI kicked my butt again! See for yourself.
I mean, Rybak + Writesonic + Midjourney nailed the spirit of the original “Argus” more than the original “Argus,” no?
Now, not content to be fully bot-handled by all these algorithms, I once again ventured to murf.ai and ran “Argus AI” through a voice simulator. The sections of the original poem are spoken in a synthesized male voice, while the AI-generated text is flavored with a female, UK accent. The music was created in GarageBand. Enjoy.
