Poetry WTF ?! If

I've always been interested in reading, books and libraries, it is one of my greatest pleasures outside of my children and gambling. I haven't had much time to make art this year, but have snatched an hour a week to help out on the UK Chapbook Chart website. Each chart run-down introduces me to a new author or chapbook and over the past few months I've discovered the poetic work of the Combed Thunderclap. His/her/their work sits, cut and spliced in Issue #1 of the Poetry WTF?! chapbook.

Poetry WTF?! immediately appealed to the discordant nature of my life. In my mind over any normal day I deconstruct and stick life back together like an ugly Lego model. On the site there are a range of categories (Remix Poetry, Sculpture Poems, Mutated Poetry, Neon Light Poetry and Algorithmic Poetry) that any writer can apply themselves to and submit.

The gambler in me was attracted by Algorithmic Poetry and I set up a framework to play a game of poetry. My rules looked like this...
Type line of original poem to seed search engine.
Stop typing before predictive line reverts to original.
Use the predicted line.
Do this for each line in original poem.

After a few rolls of the dice I found the perfect poem for my game was Rudyard Kipling's If.
Read it here on the Poetry WTF?! website.
One of things I like about this approach is that I will be able to re-type the poem each year, or from different locations and a new poem should materialise.

I see from Amazon that Issue #2 of Poetry WTF?! chapbook is ready to be released and I'm obviously excited about getting my hands on a copy.
Next for me is an experiment with film dialogue and speeches using the same algorithmic method.

Where one step before
I'm Spartacus
is
I'm sorry I haven't a clue.

Ed