Computer Haiku

[Maud Fitch]

Blogging on Arts on 'The Independent' website, Matilda Battersby, who turned to Haiku - which as we know is a Japanese form of poetry consisting of 17 syllables (or moras) in three lines of 5,7 and 5 - recently homed in on the Haiku Laureate website.

The Haiku Laureate website generates "the strictly formatted verse via internet algorithms and not through inspiration of truth or beauty". Matilda explained the website's concept "Users can type the name of a place or an address into a text box, click 'go' and a perfectly formed Haiku will be delivered after the system has used Flickr to find images near that location and skimmed through the titles of those images to form a list of associated words."

She tried it out using several place names and then typed in 'Outer Hebrides', in an attempt to confuse the Haiku Laureate generator, and within seconds it produced:

the lewis sunrise
and snow mountains majestic
of harris cairn wire

"Poets beware," Matilda warned.

(Taken from the Miscellany page of 'Writing Magazine' December 2011)