Virtual Muse

by Hartman, Charles O.

• ISBN13: 9780819522399
• ISBN10: 0819522392
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-08-01
• Publisher: Wesleyan Univ Pr

Summary

In this engaging, accessible memoir, Charles Hartman shows how computer programming has helped him probe poetry's aesthetic possibilities. He discusses the nature of poetry itself and his experiences with primitive computer-generated poetry programs and -- illustrated with sample computer-produced verses -- traces the development of more advanced hardware and software. The central question about this cyber-partnership, Hartman says, "isn't exactly whether a poet or a computer writes the poem, but what kinds of collaboration might be interesting." He examines the effects of randomness, arbitrariness, and contingency on poetic composition, concluding that "the tidy dance among poet and text and reader creates a game of hesitation. In this game, a properly programmed computer has a chance to slip in some interesting moves."

Author Biography

CHARLES O. HARTMAN is Professor of English and Poet in residence at Connecticut College, author of Glass Enclosure (Wesleyan Poetry, 1995) and Jazz Text (1991), and coauthor of Sentences (1995). His prose program is available on the World Wide Web.

Hartman's memoirs about how computer programming helped him probe poetry's aesthetic possibilities.

Table of Contents

Note to the Reader	ix
Introduction	1	(6)
Start with Computers	7	(9)
Start with Poetry	16	(12)
The Sinclair ZX81	28	(10)
The Scansion Machine	38	(16)
Travesty	54	(11)
AutoPoet	65	(8)
Prose	73	(15)
Avenues	88	(15)
Unconclusion	103	(8)
Appendix: Poems	111	(38)
Monologues of Soul & Body	113	(16)
Seventy-Six Assertions and Sixty-Three Questions	129	(5)
Dance Text	134	(2)
Sentences (excerpt)	136	(4)
Extraordinary Instruments	140	(6)
68	146	(3)
And Finger Light Because Almost Finger Elsewhere	149