AI Poetry/Obituary Poetry/Laureate to perform to Music – Poetry News Roundup – 10th July

Today’s news roundup takes stories from Pennsylvania, Cambridge and King’s Lynn.

University of Cambridge Researcher Claims AI can write poetry

Former Cambridge Researcher, Jack Hopkins, has developed a system using Artifical Intelligence to write poetry. The system, which has been ‘trained’ to write by being fed thousands of lines of previously written poetry, can adapt to write on specific themes, or within a specific rhythm. However, the system has been criticised by poet Rishi Dastidar, who claims that AI cannot deal with emotion and ideas, saying that the system simply puts words after eachother.

However, when snippets of the AI system’s output were shown to a group of 70 test subjects, many were fooled into thinking they were written by humans.

Dastidar, however, claims that the AI system is unable to truly create anything innovative or novel from a base of poetry written by others.

Here, we reproduce a snippet of the AI system’s poetry. What do you think?

Drug addiction victim’s poetry shared in her obituary

A Pennsylvania couple have shared their daughter’s poem about heroin addiction in her recently posted obituary, in an effort to help other people going through the same thing.

Delaney Farrell sadly passed away last week, 5 years into a heroin addiction. Her mother, Bridget Farrell, revealed that Delaney often wrote her thoughts on scraps of paper, and it was a fitting tribute that her words be used on her own obituary. The poem, reproduced here, documents the young girl’s thoughts as she battled her addiction. Delaney’s mother revealed that if the obituary could help just one person struggling with addition, then it would have been worth it.

Roger McGough to perform poetry to music at popular festival

The King’s Lynn festival has received a big boost to ticket sales this year, after poet Laureate Roger McGough was confirmed to perform his poetry set to music at the festival.

Roger, who has had 50 books of adult and children’s poetry published, will collaborate with Little Machine, a three piece group specialising in putting classical poetry with music. The 67^th annual festival will run from 16^th to 29^th July, for any poetry enthusiasts visiting the area.