Experimental Poetry 22

3/1/23

This experimental poetry idea is using typos to change a poem. For example, changing some, or each, word by inserting a letter (insertion), changing a letter (substitution), and removing a letter (deletion). I will demonstrate this general idea using my Freeverse 315: 

winds are politics
people are leaves
poems are rakes

See my "Typos" article here for the methodology and a spreadsheet. Let's look at a few examples.

If I set the probabilities of insertion, substitution, and deletion to 33% each, leave about a 1% probability for a word to remain unchanged, I get poems like:

winvds arec poletics
pfeople re leves
poejms re rakes

vinds arie poliqics
peopole ahe leavee
poemn aare rakeq

wizds aye politrics
peopfe art lveaves
oems arie rakesr

If I set the probabilities of insertion to 0%, substitution 0%, and deletion to 100%, I get poems like:

inds re plitics
eople ae eaves
poms ae rake

wids ar poliics
eople re leave
pems re raks

inds re plitics
peope ae leves
oems ar rkes

If I set the probabilities of insertion to 0%, substitution 100%, and deletion to 0%, I get poems like:

wiyds ore politicr
pewple arj leaves
peems nre rakel

wiyds arc poqitics
peqple arl leives
poemp arr rakzs

pinds ore golitics
peoale arn leavef
poemx are rakks

And last, if I set the probabilities of insertion, substitution, deletion, and staying the same randomly, I get poems like:

windsn re politicsq
peopl ae leave
poeums nre hakes

winds arze politics
peoplge arke leaveks
poemse are rakess

winps ard politics
peopxe ahe leavebs
poess ary rakzes

As you can see, the poem can change a lot, or not, depending on the type of "typo" and its probability. One can create new and interesting words and combinations from this "typo" procedure.

If you use this idea, please credit Statisticool.com.

Thanks for reading.

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