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Monday, February 28, 2011

MORE ACCIDENTAL "POETRY"

I had an extra half-hour of prep-time available today, and so thought I'd try the random poetry thing again, only this time with just one book: my The Annotated Alice, the Definitive Edition.  Using only Carroll's words, and randomly generating page, line, and word numbers from which to start my word count for each "phrase."

Here are the parameters and their results, all randomly selected by the generator at random.org:

number of phrases (10-20):               12
words per phrase (3-5):                       5

Wonderland (1&3/5); page (7-127); line (1-38); word (1-10)
Looking-Glass (2&4/5); page (133-274); line (1-38); word (1-10)
"Wasp in a Wig" (5/5); page (293-298); line (1-38); word (1-10)


book
page
line
word
phrase
1
4: LG
175
4
5
body is a crust, and
2
2: LG
229
33
6
a fabulous monster! the Unicorn
3
4: LG
158
14
3
you! cried the Tiger-lily, waving
4
5: WW
297
29
10
Wasp went on: but the
5
1: WL
62
5
8
be listening, so she went
6
5: WW
294
28
8
spread out the paper on
7
2: LG
198
10
1
What is the matter? she said
8
4: LG
188
8
2
he ate as many as
9
3: WL
9
24
1
rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket
10
1: WL
113
27
3
at the Hatter, who turned
11
3: WL
23
3
7
the great puzzle!  And she
12
5: WW
283
23
3
only shook his shoulders, and

What are you able to come up with if we allow that these phrases be organized in any order, so long as the 5 words for each remain contiguous?

3 comments:

  1. The great puzzle! And she
    Only shook his shoulders, and
    Spread out the paper on
    a fabulous monster! The Unicorn,
    he ate as many as
    you! cried the Tiger-lily, waving
    rabbit with either a waistocat pocket
    at the Hatter, who turned
    "What is the matter?'" she said.
    Waspn went on: "But the
    "body is a crust, and
    "be listening."
    So she went.

    Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it sort of works!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ha! That's awesome!

    In the long run, though, accidental art is, I think, necessarily accidental, and this isn't accident, but contrivance via random assignments.

    ReplyDelete

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