Posted by David Vincenti on July 27, 2003 at 19:15:57:
In Reply to: Re: Question of originality posted by Geraint Luff on July 27, 2003 at 11:23:27:
Poems already carry links to their past: the words they use. What makes poems original is the making new (to quote Williams) of the old through new phrasings of existing words. So this variety of poem generation, while more mathematical and mechanical, isn't less original than me and my little notebook.
In another perspective, poems are merely vessels which tap into the common human experience to convey an emotion. This, actually, requires common ancestry, though in the readers, not the writing.
Or am I taking this too seriously?
: Maybe poems should carry information about the poems they descended from. Then there could be some mechanism for making sure users were given a spread of poems that lacked a recent common anscestor. Just a thought...
: --Geraint