OctPoWriMo Day 10. The Algorithm Says It’s Fair

OctPoWriMo Day 10. They Said It Would Make Our Lives Easier

One thing that robots and computers are good at is recognizing patterns and repetitive actions. Metered poetry is also based on repetition and variation. The Sonnet, one of the most enduring forms for centuries, was one of the first forms to become predominantly written.

It became popular because it is an argument between the poet and herself. The first part of the poem presents an idea, then the poem has a turn (the volta, usually started with the word but or yet) and then the rest of the poem refutes the beginning. In the Shakespearean sonnet or English sonnet the poem is then summed up in a final rhyming couplet.

Any poem can be read as an argument between the poet and himself, exploring an idea from all angles; arguing that the unanswerable can be answered through poetic exploration.

Example Poem: “Time does not bring relief; you have lied” by Edna St. Vincent Millay from Poetry Foundation.

Time does not bring relief; you have lied

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Are these rhymes unique or clever? How has the poet turned these common phrases so they aren’t cliché?

Prompt: Write a poem arguing that a common saying is a lie, or that the way a new technology has been sold to the public was a lie.

Possible form: Sonnet (Shakespearean or Petrarchan)

~

The Algorithm Says It’s Fair

They say the code is blind, a spotless scale,

a mirror forged from math, immune to sway;

it sifts our faces, futures—strips the tale—

and sets the world to rights the proper way.

It ranks our worth by patterns over-worn,

predicts our crimes by neighborhoods and names;

it shadows mornings with the same old scorn,

then calls the cage a feature, not its frames.

Yet bias seeps where datasets have holes,

through doors of choice, through crooked, missing proof;

the ribs of history brace all our roles,

and “neutral” only re-roofs the old roof.

If weather’s wrong, we blame the sky’s unrest—

the storm is ours: repair the barometer test.

~ Oizys.

An afternote: Today’s prompt asks us to dispute a common saying. I chose a Shakespearean sonnet to argue with the cliché “algorithms are neutral.” The poem treats code as a barometer: it doesn’t create the storm, but it can misread pressure when calibrated to a biased past, then call the cage a feature. The octave presents the sales pitch; the volta (“Yet…”) turns and challenges it with data bias and historical scaffolding; the couplet returns to this week’s weather motif, urging us to fix the instrument, not blame the sky.