Experimental Poetry 6

6/4/19

In my Rhyme Scheme Enumeration article, I show how to count the number of (simple) rhyme schemes in a n line poem. In this article, I show a method to actually create some of these poems. Please check out this spreadsheet.

The possible rhyme schemes for a n line poem, from n=1 to n=10 are in column A.

In this structure, there can be 10 A lines, 9 B lines, 8 C lines, etc., all the way down to 1 J line. I label these lines like A1, A2, ... , A10, B1, B2, ..., B9, C1, C2, ..., C8, ..., J1 in column E.

The actual 55 lines of poetry for A1-J1 are in column F. Of course, enter your own lines of poetry here.

Column H, which I've highlighted, is the rhyme scheme you'd enter vertically. For example, the spreadsheet shows the poem created from AABABCC. Note that lines 8 through 10 I just left blank. Then, column I counts the As, Bs, Cs, etc., as they occur in your rhyme scheme, which is used to create column K. Then column K is matched to column E, to pull your lines of poetry from column F. Here is an AABABCC poem

how I remember the ocean spray
doing different things everyday
how I remember a name
soaking up the sunrays
it evaporates like fame
how I remember a laugh
dust fills my path

This is an interesting method one can use to create 142,417 possible poems using lines of poetry you like in rhyme schemes. Then you can sift through some of these and select the poem(s) you like.

I have a variation of this idea that, in addition to the above, randomizes the order of the As, Bs, ..., I (note I don't list J to shuffle, because there is just one J). For example, in AABABCC, the order of the As, ie A1, A2, and A3 is fixed. But what if the positions of A1-A3 get shuffled (and the Bs and the Cs too)? So now maybe the As appear as A2, A1, A3, or A3, A2, A1, etc. This method creates much more total possible poems.

This part of the spreadsheet generates random numbers in column T. Then I run a shuffle macro I created by pressing control g, which shuffles the lines of poetry by sorting by the generated random numbers. Here are three examples of randomized AABABCC poems.

nature is a thief that gets away
soaking up the sunrays
it evaporates like fame
this will happen someday
how I remember a name
I soak in the hot bath
dust fills my path

I slowly compress the clay
how I remember the ocean spray
I'll take the blame
the hammock starts to sway
I had some acclaim
dust fills my path
I soak in the hot bath

the hammock starts to sway
the sky is never grey
nature is nurture I proclaim
how I remember the ocean spray
the days are different but the same
I look over at the cat
I try to remember basic math

You are welcome to edit the spreadsheet as needed, and please credit Statisticool.com if you use this idea.

Thanks for reading.

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Please show me a randomly selected poem