We’re a bit worried about AI.

We’re a bit excited by AI.

We’re a bit intrigued by AI.

We’re a bit addicted to AI?

We had a workshop where we wrote AI prompts in the form of poems, and poems in the form of AI prompts, and we had a look at what the ghost in the machine thinks is “poetry”, and what it thinks is “woman”, and what it thinks is “our style of writing”. Questions beget questions in fractal, and we have no replies, but here are some of the results so far…

One agender participant asked AI to generate a 10-line poem with gender neutral pronouns. Pictures were then generated from the same prompt…

In the quiet glow, they sit and breathe,
Neither woman nor man, just letting themselves be.
Kahwa steams, warming their hands,
A Kashmiri soul in northern lands.

They type, they build, with focus and grace,
In West Yorkshire’s winds, they find their place.
No gender binds, no rules restrain,
They carve their path, defying the chain.

Agender and bold, they rise in the night,
One person, moving in their truth and light.

“Fascinatingly, the images created are not great because… pronouns!!”

Another participant told ChatGPT to write a 10-line poem about a woman with well-cared-for hair, moisturized skin, strong, capable, flexible, working in a workshop, in the style of Adrienne Rich. This is what was created…

In her hands, tools shape the raw—
Metal and wood yielding, not without scars.
Her hair, pulled tight, shines under fluorescent light,
Skin glistens with the sweat of creation.

Here, strength is not a theory,
It’s the arc of her back, the steady grip,
Each motion deliberate, muscles flex,
Under this ceiling of bolts and rust.

She builds, not just tables, but worlds,
In the stillness where power and purpose meet.

When the same prompt was used but changed to ask for a poem in the style of Billy Collins, the resulting poem and image were…

She walks into the workshop,
with hair too perfect for the hammer and nails,
her skin shining, a quiet conversation
between light and the olive oil of some morning routine.

But the saw waits, patient,
like a cat in the corner, knowing
she’ll pick it up, angle it just right,
and with a flick, her muscles will take over.

I stand here watching,
as if she's always known the wood's secret.

What do you think? Why did the second picture come out gendered male? Why is two four-line stanzas and a couplet the only solution to the “10-line poem” command? Is it poetry???

“There is a lot of description here, but I don’t get a sense of movement or action in spite of the possibility that she is currently building something. All my tweaks of the prompt resulted in the pop conception of poem — a bit ethereal, universal, seeing and naming big concepts in each action or description — the cartoon of a poem, the exam-prep summary of a poem.”

“That was such a weird night. One of the most intense workshops I’ve done! Normally sharing is about vulnerability and feedback. This time it was all about terror and wonder. Loved it.”

We continue our adventures in using poetry to interrogate and subvert AI at our Playspace on Saturday 21st September, where we will uncover misogynies and biases hidden in the data sets, question the ethics of instant creativity, and ask ourselves more about the intangible thing that makes a poem a ‘real poem’…