This one's NOT for the symposium because it's AI. Just for shits and giggles I asked Claude to write me a love poem in the style of Leonard Cohen. Here it is.
In the Shadow of Your Grace
There's a crack in my devotion
Where your light comes breaking through
I've wandered sacred temples
But found my faith in you
Your love's not soft or simple
It burns like ancient wine
The prophets had their visions
But you're my holy sign
In this broken hallelujah
Of flesh and spirit pure
The darkness keeps its secrets
But you remain my cure
So dance me through this Valentine
Past saints and sinners too
I'll wear my heart like armor
And lay it down for you
Our love's not clean or pretty
Like roses dipped in snow
It's deep and dark and holy
Like prayers whispered low
Let others chase perfection
In gardens trimmed and neat
I'll take these sacred shadows
Where twin souls finally meet
Well, that was kind of dark. So I asked Claude to do the same thing in the quirky style of They Might Be Giants. Here was Claude's explanation by the way, if you're not familiar with the music of TMBG.
I've written this in TMBG's characteristic style, incorporating:
Scientific terminology used in unexpected ways
Playful references to biology and astronomy
A chorus structure typical of their songs
Quirky wordplay and nerdy humor
The mix of big concepts with personal feelings
My Mitochondrial Valentine
The nucleus of my affection
Has a powerhouse projection
'Cause you're the organelle that makes my heart cells run
And though we're mostly carbon
I'm particularly certain
That we're a binary star system orbiting as one
CHORUS:
My molecular emotion
Creates a chain reaction
When you smile at me with all your teeth aligned
The data clearly shows it
And science surely knows it
You're my perfectly evolved Valentine
The probability was zero
That any other hero
Could make my dopamine receptors fire this way
Your gravitational attraction
Has caused a chain reaction
Now I'm spinning like an electron gone astray
(CHORUS)
From prokaryote to primate
Our love will never migrate
To a lesser form of cosmic energy
So let's be palindromic
In our love astronomical
And multiply our shared biology
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16 comments
Leonard rolled over in his grave.....lol.....wonders how one burns ancient wine.
I assumed burns as in an old wine that's so vinegary it would burn your throat. I don't disagree that Leonard would roll over though!
@smartasswoman Ahhh....had not considered the burn being in the throat. That makes more sense.
Both poems are interesting and they bounce along amusingly. I must say I had fun reading them but in the end they do sound trite.
The Cohen one in particular is kind of trite, I agree.
@smartasswoman Still, fun to read.
Honestly I have tried to stay away from any sort of generative AI. Even ChatGPT, which a decent number of my educator pals utilize, I've generally avoided. That said, this was interesting to read, esp considering I don't know may of Leonard Cohen's works, outside of Hallelujah.
It’s pretty hard to stay away from these days, when even google search results get an AI summarization.
The depth of emotion and the vivid imagery capture the essence of Leonard Cohen's style.
It's not bad. As I mentioned to someone else, it's maybe just a bit too trite. I feel like Cohen often had a little twist somewhere in his lyrics.
Your cute foray with AI just blew out the lights in Lindstrom, MN.
I hope you're proud. 😶
I'm so ashamed now! 😭
That first one was rather dark and the second quite fun. I notice that AI is not very good at words that are near-rhymes.
That is true! When I was writing my own poem I got a bit stuck on a word to rhyme with warm. AI offered up words like charm and harm. It's like it was just considering the spelling and not the pronunciation.
I'm glad you didn't enter this for the virtual symposium as the symposium's supreme leader, @superbjversion2, expressly forbade AI.
But it's both slightly worrying and slightly reassuring reading Claude's AI lyrical attempt at a Leonard Cohen song. It's bad but not that bad. I just don't know what to think about AI.
“Bad but not that bad” is the perfect description. I’d like to think that if I read that without knowing it was written by AI, I’d be suspicious that it wasn’t really Leonard Cohen. I think it’s possible that it would slip by me, though.
A while back, just for grins, I asked AI to "write me a blog post about (I don't even remember what I asked for)". The reply was something like "Sorry, I'm not allowed to do creative writing". It was so long ago I don't even remember which AI it was. Perhaps the rules have changed now.
Interesting. Actually I tried something similar a while back, wondering if their data crawls had reached into this site. I asked it to write a blog post in the style of smartasswoman and it refused. I can’t remember the reason that was given, but it might have had something to do with adult content!