“Hey, I wrote something. Would you read it? Let me know what you think?”
When you have a friend that is discovering the art of expression in the form of novel or memoir writing, or perhaps poetry, this may be a question you are asked. You should be flattered by this request. It means they trust you and value your opinion. It can create a cringe moment for either of you, but just accept it, this friend likes you.
So this is me today, asking my followers to listen to my poems. Sweet Lord, I discovered Suno. Suno is a site where you can paste lyrics and select any type or combination of music genres, and an A.I. engine will pop out a complete song. Snap. So I totally did this.
I immediately heard places in my poems, my precious published, completely already out there poems, that needed to be tweaked, and adjusted. The rhythm on a few lines is off. It is a new perspective on poem crafting.
Beats = Poetic meters
I can hear it. Often when writing a poem I will read it out loud, occasionally counting the syllables. I’ll listen (not just look) for alliteration, assonance, and consonance.
Many writers have strong opinions about the use of A.I. Is it a tool or just pure evil? As you may remember the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike.
Writers also wanted artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, to be used only as a tool that can help with research or facilitate script ideas and not as a tool to replace them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Writers_Guild_of_America_strike
Do you have an opinion about A.I. in the creative world? I enjoyed listening to my poems as songs, I can’t lie. It was easy to generate, took less than 2 minutes and it was free. Is it low-hanging fruit, another tool in the toolbox, or just pure creative laziness? I will not sell these songs. Today, I see them as something fun I am sharing with friends. Oh– and I do have a few essays if you ever want to read them, you know, when you have the time.
The four poems are:
“Monday Night and I Missed the Last Bus” in electronic trap, klezmer form
“Fire Works” set to techno mutation funk, dubstep
“Last Hour of the Night” as a Blues Funeral Doom song
“Thailand Rug” as a Celtic Sea Santy
shannon p. laws 