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.

OctPoWriMo Day 9. Barometer Test

OctPoWriMo Day 9. From the Depths of Hell

Good and evil are abstractions, words that represent concepts that are not perceived by the senses and cannot be physically measured. When exploring abstractions it’s important to show how you define those abstract concepts using concrete sensory details. You may want to use similes and metaphors. Or you may want to use lists of objects with sensory details that represent that abstract concept for you.

Example Poem: “The Genius of the Crowd” by Charles Bukowski from All Poetry

The Genius of the Crowd

there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art

~Charles Bukowski

How does the poet use abstract nouns and concrete nouns in this poem?

Prompt: Write a poem about the contradictory nature of human behavior. Even without possession, the battle of good and evil rages within each one of us. Like the example poem, use anaphora (repetition of the first word of the line) to show patterns in these contradictions.

Possible form: The Bop. The Bop form, created by Afaa Michael Weaver, is a three stanza poetic argument.

~

Barometer Test

Stanza I (the problem)

They ask for a test: Bechdel for my mirror, a ruler for my skin.

They laugh when I powder; they laugh when I don’t.

They measure my hem, my hush, my hurry with a busted tape.

They call my bare face “virtue,” my lipstick “war paint” that stains the rim of a glass.

They tune my small voice to static, then broadcast it as proof.

They wind the key in my back and grade my waddle.

Refrain:

I am not your barometer of good or evil.

Stanza II (the turn of the screw)

I refuse your yardstick made of other women’s ribs.

I refuse your “natural” badge pinned to my unplucked arm.

I refuse your mascara math: too little, too much, never right; like black flakes on my cheek become your tally marks.

I refuse your wax strips, your tally marks, your purity punch-cards.

I refuse your decibel meter pressed to my throat like a threat; like its cold disk pressed to my throat, clicking like a Geiger counter.

I refuse your coin flip: good woman when I serve, evil when I say no.

I refuse the way you quote me to quiet her, then quiet me.

I refuse the crooked scale that calls my freedom “weather.”

Refrain:

I am not your barometer of good or evil.

Stanza III (toward a resolution)

I start at choice: click of a compact, slip of a dress, or neither.

I start at thought: a long, slow simmer under a rattling pan-lid of shame.

I start at duty: to widen the aisle, not guard the gate.

I start at voice: low as fog, loud as noon, mine either way.

I start at kinship: the rainbow of she’s, they’s, and I’s un-dulled.

I start at flesh that refuses to be a measuring device.

Refrain:

I am not your barometer of good or evil.

~ Oizys.

A note after you read about the mechanics of the poem: Bukowski weaponizes concrete images to prove his abstractions. Abstract nouns he argues about are treachery, hatred, violence, absurdity, murder, peace, god, love, genius, solitude, art. Concrete nouns he uses to make them felt are army, books, crowds, man/woman, diamond, knife, mountain, tiger, hemlock. The mechanism is he states a claim about an abstraction (“their hatred will be perfect”) and then grounds it with a string of physical similes (“like a shining diamond / like a knife / like a mountain / like a tiger / like hemlock”). He also uses anaphora (“beware… beware…”) to hammer the idea into a bodily rhythm and the pulse keeps saying beware. So, I am doing the same move in the above poem of mine, often very effectively [I think...], by yoking “good/evil womanhood” to tactile, visible, audible stuff (makeup, tape measures, wax strips, decibel meters). My abstractions are womanhood, good, evil, freedom, choice, duty, virtue, shame. My concretes & sensory anchors are Sight/Touch (“powder,” “lipstick,” “hem,” “busted tape,” “wax strips,” “tally marks,” “purity punch-cards,” “coin flip,” “compact,” “slip of a dress,” “rainbow,” “flesh,” “barometer”); Sound (“tune my small voice to static,” “decibel meter pressed to my throat,” “broadcast”); Kinetic/object (“wind the key in my back,” “yardstick made of other women’s ribs,” “key,” “scale”). The mechanism is I name the abstract (“barometer of good or evil,” “freedom,” “duty”) and then argue with objects such as measurement tools, plastics, metals, cards, weather instruments, so the reader can touch the argument. I am using Bukowski in strategy, but keeping it distinctly me in material.

[A post-poem prefatory note: How do I measure my womanhood... is there a Bechdel test? A non-patriarchal test that would rate my womanhood? I never wore makeup until recently. I never wore dresses until recently. I never waxed until recently. I never felt like a woman until recently. I would put on makeup and be shamed and laughed at by men; I would go bare-faced and be commented on for not being “enough.” I would be bare-faced, and, rarely, I was used by men as a “natural” example to police women who wore “too much” makeup. That last one is the ultimate desecration of womanhood, even for someone like me who rarely feels her womanhood. I was shamed, mocked, talked over for speaking slowly, shyly, and small. But I was also used as a role model by those same men to silence other women who spoke unabashedly, unapologetically, uniquely. So, how do I rate this womanhood of mine in this “barometer of good or evil”? I rarely stop at making a choice. I start at making a choice, because that is the beginning: the inherent starting point of freedom. Then comes the duty to think critically about that choice. I refuse to let men use my bare face as a covering to dull the diverse rainbows of beautiful women. I refuse to let men use my low voice as white noise to drown the distinct volumes of outspoken women. The contradictory use of me by men puts me in a battle of “good woman” and “evil woman.” I am raised by them when I speak for them against other men, and I am overpowered and repressed when I speak against them. This seal of womanhood is a conspicuously convoluted game set up for the failure of women.]