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In 2008, Scott Rettberg undertook an ambitious constraint-based writing and poetic generation project based on the 200 most frequently used words in the English language. The result is a database of poetic lines written by Rettberg, a poetry generator, and a website that randomly cycles through a published sample of the generator’s output in a variety of poetic forms.
I (Leonardo Flores) wrote a series of 5 daily entries published on February 12-16, 2013.
- “Frequency” by Scott Rettberg and the machine (part 1 of 5)
- “Frequency [Tanka, Haiku]” by Scott Rettberg and the machine (part 2 of 5)
- “Frequency [Terza Rima and Sonnets]” by Scott Rettberg and the Machine (part 3 of 5)
- “Frequency [Snowball, Doubling]” by Scott Rettberg and the Machine (part 4 of 5)
- “Frequency [Four Square, Two Towers]” by Scott Rettberg and the Machine (part 5 of 5)
Read the entries in sequence to join me in a fascinating journey into Rettberg’s e-Oulipian tour de force and discover some of the insights that arise from generative creative writing in traditional and new poetic forms.