I’ve posted a new article at 3 Quarks Daily:
Yes, it IS about irises, and contains photos of irises, but it manages to work its way to ChatGPT, where I include another parody of Wallace Stevens’s famous “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” Last month it became a poem about an A.I. Now it’s about irises.
Another Stevens imitation
Thirteen Ways
By Wallace Stevens
By ChatGPT
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
Among twenty blooming irises,
The only stirring thing
Was the flutter of a butterfly.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
I was of three minds,
Like a garden
Where there are three irises.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
The iris swayed in the spring breeze.
It was a small part of the dance.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
A gardener and a sunbeam
Are one.
A gardener and a sunbeam and an iris
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
I do not know which to admire more,
The elegance of petals
Or the subtlety of colors,
The iris blooming
Or just before.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
Raindrops adorned the petals
With delicate jewels.
The silhouette of the iris
Danced upon them, back and forth.
The feeling
Traced in the silhouette
A mystery beyond words.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
O wise gardeners of old,
Why do you dream of other flowers?
Do you not see how the iris
Swirls around the stems
Of the flowers beside it?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
I know the language of flowers
And the undeniable pulse of nature;
But I know, too,
That the iris is entwined
In all that I comprehend.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
When the iris swayed out of view,
It marked the boundary
Of one of many moments.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
At the sight of irises
Dancing in the sunlight,
Even the cynics of beauty
Would pause in wonder.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
She strolled through the garden,
Lost in thought.
Once, a joy overcame her,
As she mistook
The scent of the blooms
For irises.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
The breeze is stirring.
The iris must be swaying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
It was morning all evening.
It was blossoming
And it was going to blossom.
The iris stood
In the garden's embrace.
Meta: A word about process
Some of the articles I write for 3 Quarks are like pulling teeth. I’ll make notes, sketch outlines, draft sections, perhaps as a post here at New Savanna, and then assemble the pieces into the final article on the Saturday and Sunday before the article shows up on Monday. This is one of those pieces: Western Metaphysics is Imploding. Will We Raise a Phoenix from The Ashes? [Catalytic AI]. I liked it a lot. But friends tell me it left them a bit mystified.
Other pieces that come easy. This one for example: Old School: Torpor and Stupor at Johns Hopkins. That was a while ago, so the writing process is not clear in my mind. But I pretty sure it’s one of those pieces where I thought about it a bit, did a little web surfing (in that case, I had to get the photo and a link or two) and then just sat down and drafted it. No doubt I stepped away from the computer every now and then, but it was basically one work session. I wrote a draft Sunday morning and early afternoon, checked it over, and then upload it.
Those two pieces are quite different in kind. The Western Metaphysics piece developed a complex argument whereas Torpor and Stupor was narrative in kind. Complex arguments require a complex web of connections between the various pieces. That’s hard to do and requires you to flit back and forth making things fit and relate. Narratives have a simpler structure. Torpor and Stupor didn’t tell a single continuous story. Rather, it was organized as a set of vignettes, each of them a little narrative. There was no argument to speak of. Just a an overall flow.
This irises piece was closer to the come-easy kind than the pulling-teeth kind. I had some points to make, but I made them more though analogy and metaphor than explicit argument. It had three sections. ChatGPT’s Stevens imitation went in the middle. I prepared that on Friday evening and made a few notes. More notes on Saturday. But I didn’t start writing until Sunday morning, and then I drafted it from beginning to end over course of, say, two to three hours.
The most interesting thing about the process was the decisions I made on Sunday morning to query ChatGPT about the nature of blossoms. I didn’t need to do that as I already more or less knew the story. But in so doing I was able to introduce ChatGPT into the exposition and thus prepare the way for the poem. That opened the way for the concluding discussion about DNA, strings, and complexity.
I wonder how LLMs manage different kinds of discourse? That’s what’s in the back of my mind.
