On Literature Read online

  "Austin and its venues seem made for performance poetry – small, intimate, good acoustics, low noise levels. They have good coffee and snacks too – after all, poets don't live on words alone," he says. "But I have to accept that I am not comparing like with like. Austin is one of the fastest growing cities in the US, whereas Bradford is teetering on a knife's edge between sink city and slow revival."

  Despite the differences, a connection was made. As Lynette explains: "The best thing about the trip was discovering that poetry is a universal language with a beauty of its own. It cuts across the barriers, regardless of age, sex, creed, colour and any other man-made barrier. It gives everyone who wants it the chance to say what they think and feel about their world, their lives, and their planet."

  Bruce put it slightly different: "I returned from the afterburn of freeways with some photos, a wedge of chapbooks, happy memories and a recognition that behind the hype of a grasping superpower there are folk who are downright hospitable and generous."

  The trip proved to be a rewarding – if exhausting – experience for the both of them. It boosted their confidence and developed them as writers and performers. "I feel that people do want to listen to what I have to say and I developed a more relaxed performance style," Lynette says. "I felt able to talk about my poems, explaining the events behind them, and also discovered that I am a closet comedian – that I could make people laugh with some of the sillier experiences that have sprouted poetry."

  Bruce adds: "I think the more you perform, the more confident you are in reading and in providing the extras, like hanging around afterwards to talk to people from the audience and explaining just what you meant in that last line. I love performing, but I still dread the extras so each time I do them it's aversion therapy."

  Both Bruce and Lynette are looking forward to their next trip in 2002 and are already making plans. Bruce hopes to try different parts of the States and take in a few colleges. He intends to take much more 'page poetry' and hit his US counterparts with some English cerebral experiences.

  "I'll be there for the first event next year," Lynette adds. "Who knows, perhaps I will be 'discovered' and become the new overnight success. After all, it's only taken me 12 years to get this far."

  May 2001

  The above article first appeared on UK Authors Genres

  Chapter 9: Muses From The Primordial S[ub]lime

  HIDDEN in the labyrinth of the Internet, lurks a 'genetics laboratory' that is seeking to evolve and breed poetry from a 'primordial soup' of random words.

  The Muse is being modified quietly and slowly and nobody knows what will emerge from the fermenting vats of literary science. Are the world's poets about to get their own up-close-and-personal GM scare?

  Only time and [un]natural selection will tell if the Darwinian Poetry project will bear fertile fruit, but if you fancy playing mad scientist with the nature of such words then visit the site at: https://www.codeasart.com/poetry/darwin.html.

  The unlikely poetic Frankenstein behind the project is one David Phillip Rea, a senior technology associate with General Atlantic Partners, Greenwich, CT in the USA. The project is the mating of two of his interests: poetry and genetic algorithms.

  But behind the scientific curiosity of this symbiosis is another -- more primal -- motive. One that is a much more traditional urge to wax lyrical: Rea admits that he initiated the project to impress a girl.

  Aside from that, Rea hopes to gain some serious results from the project (as well as provide a bit of fun for visitors to the site).

  "One of my long term goals is to increase my understanding of evolution," Rea says. "I've been playing with genetic algorithms for a decade and it has given me a sense of the power and slipperyness of evolution in a way that a textbook never could. It is fascinating to read the comments on the site's message board because they show a disturbing misunderstanding about Darwinian theory and how it works. I hope to correct that."

  There might be misunderstandings about evolution, but the project has also stirred disagreements between what might called the inspirationalists (poets) versus the evolutionists:

  "Random words are just that but finished poems arise from a vocabulary that has developed over the span of a poet's life," says one visitor. "These words are then selected, filtered and arranged by the hearts and minds of the authors to relay some type of message. Computers can suggest words and spellcheck, but only humans can do the real editing. Rather than waste time on this fluff, why not take a real poet our for dinner and drinks?"

  In defence came the reply: "While we think of poems being created in one person's mind over one life, with vocabulary that is learned, these can in fact be thrown into an evolutionary system, like the one here, and so 'evolve' when natural selection is applied to them... The 'environment' the poems are subjected to is people's likes and dislikes, subtle meanings of words that people find attractive, and other characteristics like poem length that are either selected for or against. We humans are simply choosing; the evolutionary system is producing the new products. This is not 'fluff', but an interesting exercise of designing an evolutionary system."

  This might sound like an arcane argument, but it's worth considering that whether a 'poem' is developed by a living mind or by randomly selected words as on the Darwin page, a kind of evolution can still be see to be at work. The fittest in either case in this argument are selected on the basis of human taste and whim. So, think of the visitor to the site as a predator, pulling down and killing the weak poems while the stronger ones escape and pass on their traits to the next generation.

  The genetic algorithm behind the project is a programming technique that 'evolves' the best program for a job. A 'population' of different programs designed to achieve the same end is tested for 'fitness'. The weak ones are killed and the strong ones are 'bred' together. The process is repeated through successive generations until the goal is achieved and the most successful program emerges.

  "The techniques have been used successfully to solve complex problems such as gas pipeline control, factory floor scheduling and analogue circuit design," Rea says.

  But can they successfully 'breed' a worthwhile poem that will ignite hearts and minds?

  "I am not sure if any complete and valuable poems will result," Rea admits, "but already after a few generations some great phrases, rhymes and uses of words have appeared. Things I might never have encountered otherwise. I don't think poets have anything to worry about, though. First of all evolutionary systems only produce results within a limited domain. You'll notice that evolution never produced the wheel, even though it's a tremendously useful design."

  On the other hand, it might be argued that evolution did come up with the wheel, albeit by proxy, when it evolved humans and their inventive, creative thinking. So, maybe it did create poetry too but that's another story.

  The starting point for the process was a 'primordial soup' of words. These were taken (together with a calculation of the number of times particular words crop up) from the Iliad and Shakespeare. In the second version of the program, the works of poet Simon Koppel were scanned to add to the verbal cocktail. From this the original 1,000 poems were created randomly and then subjected to our – the browsers – selection pressure.

  Browsers are presented with two of the 'poems' from a population of 1,000. They select one to live, while the other becomes 'extinct'. The difference between a living poem and an extinct one could be as simple as a liking for one word. This process is repeated down through the generations.

  The program kills the deselected individuals and then 'breeds' the selected poetry.

  "The software relies primarily on a mechanism called 'crossover'," Rea explains. "[It's] similar to the process that operates on chromosomes in biological evolution, except here the basic units are words rather than nucleic acids. When the program sees there is room in the population for new poems because the unfit ones were culled, it randomly chooses two surviving poems to serve as parents. The
se poems are then crossed over to produce new offspring."

  Crossover works by selecting random 'snip points' in each poem. This creates four 'half poems' which are then merged together.

  It's a complicated way of evolving poetry compared to the time honoured method of inspiration followed by perspiration, but maybe it provides a way at last for a battalion of monkeys to finally get round to completing their recreation of the works of Shakespeare.

  On the other hand, maybe it's the foundation for Orwell's nightmare vision of the Ministry of Truth's story generating machines.

  Perhaps now is a good time for the world's literati to get together and form a 'virtual' asteroid to blast these primordial poems out of existence before they lurch forth to take out the competition; survival of the fittest (poets) might demand nothing less than such an apocalyptic response.

  As for the girl, Rea confesses that she is no longer 'really talking' to him. Oh well. C'est la vie. Perhaps she was a poet.

  August 2003

  The above is an expanded version of an article that first appeared in Tyke Writer

  Chapter 10: Don't Publish My Collected Works!

  EVER tried calling the future collect? It's difficult, and I don't mean because the person at the other end refuses the charges. I couldn't dial because I didn't know the number, and as yet there is no Directory Enquiries for phones still to be.

  So instead, I sent this plea as an email.

  Not that this is a perfect solution because I don't know who it's for. But I can guess at the address and hope that it makes its way to the right recipient. For those who don't know, the address is [email protected].

  That's all I know, other than the resonant echoes transmitted on the retro-tachyon carrier wave emitted by my words. I know from these distant echoes that it's some time in the future, as far away from the here and now as possible (thank you very much), where I am in my grave and not feeling too happy about it.

  My mortality, however, is way beside the point. More important is what is happening in this parallel universe that, for me, is yet to be. I have to tell you that a terrible Crime Against Literature is about to be perpetrated. So I send my message, in the hope that I can prevent a shattering travesty.

  You see, something shocking has happened in the future: I made it as a writer. My words stood the test of time to survive beyond my death. Amazing.

  Now that's not the problem (other than finding as way to collect the royalties in the next world). This is: some bright spark has hit on an idea. It's a real money-spinner, or so this bloke hopes. He wants to cash in on my post-mortal success by publishing the Collected Works of Mark Cantrell, author extraordinaire of the early 21st Century.

  Okay, fair enough, it's some kind of acclaim and I am gracious enough to accept the compliment even it's from some money-grubbing bastard out to rob my tomb -- but it's also a total disaster. I mean this individual cannot be serious, right?

  I hope you see my problem, or at least the first inklings. Then again, looking at your face I can see you're in some doubt. Hang about, you say, I'm dead so my opinion just can't hack it. Well, that's the reason for this -- ultimately posthumous -- message. So stop picking over my corpse and I'll explain.

  Now, when I was breathing I tended to be prolific; I'd heard it said that a writer should strive to write something every day. I did my best to live up to that (and in death I'd quite like to die up to that, thank you very much). I wrote articles, news, comment, stories, poems, novels and stuff I couldn't make head nor tail of.

  And now this bright spark wants to pull it all together?

  Are they mad in this future world?

  Do they have specially reinforced shelves?

  They obviously have no idea just how much crap they are about to unleash on an unsuspecting public. Nor do they seem to care about the bucket of shit they're about to smear all over my reputation as a writer.

  I mean, to create the gems that made my name I had to wade through a lake of slurry. That's the nature of the writing game.

  My life as a writer was not a phenomenon. It wasn't a singular event. It was a process, which like a story had a beginning a middle and an end. And contrary to narrative causality, my beginning wasn't a great hook for the reading public.

  In that literary beginning, I may have got lucky with my words but sooner or later lucks runs out. A writers' development must leave luck behind (in the creation of their words) and develop their craft. And so I did. Learning with each assembled sentence, each completed passage each rejected (or published) manuscript.

  My first words as a literary creature were but the proud products of a newly-potty trained toddler. A milestone in life, a necessary step to onward development, but still essentially a potty full of shit.

  It takes time to hone and develop the scribing skills and it is a learning process that goes on for a lifetime. Even the best of us are but journeymen.

  As for the end, so maybe I got lucky and died face down on that final conclusive manuscript, or truly unlucky and my brain turned to still metabolising jelly. In this worst case scenario, I lost my skills and spent my final years as a dribbling geriatric infant. 'Nuff said on that score, lets focus on the middle. The realm of the great journey.

  Here is where I produced my great works; the ones that caught your eye and emblazoned my name on your souls. This is the realm of my literary life, of so many days spent thinking and living and writing. All of it now to be collated and collected.

  So let me ask you a question, and please think very hard.

  Was everything I wrote a gem?

  No.

  No it was not.

  Others will tell me the proportion, the ratio of crap to gold, but you in your quest to cash in on my fame seem to have lost your ability to appraise. So I say to you, be a prospector, pan the stream of my work and separate the gold from the dross. If I have made my name sufficient for you to consider throwing every word I ever wrote upon the publishing pile, then your task cannot be that difficult for the appraisal has gone on throughout my life.

  Don't, I beg you, poison my work, my legacy, my reputation by polluting the good with the bad.

  Sort them. Judge them. Edit them by all means, but don't mix them up to make a weak alloy. Junk the dross where it belongs: in the backroom archive, a dusty repository of interest only to academics studying my development.

  For in my life I wrote much that was good, but also much that was bad and indifferent. That is the nature of the literary beast. We have good days and we have bad, great words and drivel. We scribes are not Engines of Perfection. Nor should we be.

  So don't poison my oeuvre. Publish the selected works by all means but don't collect every last words I ever wrote. It would bury me far heavier than the earth that holds my bones.

  And I have no wish to spend eternity in my grave spinning dizzy with shame.

  February 2003

  First published in Tyke Writer

  Chapter 11: About The Author

  MARK Cantrell is renowned for seeking the muse in pubs and cafes throughout Bradford, where he might be frequently seen staring into space with a fag in one hand (at least before the smoking ban) and a pen in another.

  That's when he's not typing furiously into his portable writing machine, or Gizmo as he likes to call it.

  He has trained and worked as a journalist, has been politically active, helped out with campaign work and generally sought to cannibalise whatever he can in the search for inspiration.

  Predominantly a journalist and novelist, he has nevertheless penned a few short stories that have been published. He also applied his hand to poetry and has self published a number of collections.

  These days he lives in Stoke-on-Trent and commutes to work in Manchester, where he earns his crust as a journalist for a publisher of trade journals.

  ###

  "Language is a virus from outer space,"

  William S Burroughs

  "Words are the most power
ful drug used by Mankind,"

  Rudyard Kipling

  " A room without books is like a body without a soul,"

  Cicero

  "A poet can survive anything but a misprint,"

  Oscar Wilde

  ###

  [email protected]

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Foreword To This Edition

  Chapter 2: Introduction

  Chapter 3: Type Into The Altered State Of Mind

  Chapter 4: The Naked Verse

  Chapter 5: Taking Bradford By Storm

  Chapter 6: Tales Of Asylum

  Chapter 7: Marking Two Horrors With Poetry

  Chapter 8: On The Road For The Cross Cultural Espresso

  Chapter 9: Muses From The Primordial S[ub]lime

  Chapter 10: Don't Publish My Collected Works!

  Chapter 11: About The Author

  ###