In playing around with chatbots, first ChatGPT and now Claude 3.5, I found that the most interesting way to get it to create poetry is to give it a rich prompt. Sure, you can say something like “Give me a sonnet on new love in the Spring,” and it will produce something. But you could also give it three paragraphs describing a guy taking a walk on the Malibu beach early in May, seeing a gal in tears, tearing up letters and tossing them into the ocean .... That will be a better sonnet. If you look at the various poems I’ve created with FredTheHeretic (FTH) you’ll see that I’ve provided them with rich prompts.
That’s what I’m going to do here. The New York Times recently published an opinion piece by Pope Francis, Pope Francis: There Is Faith in Humor. I’m going to use an anecdote from that as a prompt for FTH as follows:
First: the story.
Second: FTH’s poem. “The Pontiff’s Joyride.”
Third: I give FTH a prompt to extend the poem, “Omega or Bust.”
Fourth: Now it’s time fix a problem with the initial joyride. So I give Fred a prompt for that, “Joyride Revised.”
Fifth, and last: What kind of classroom discussion could follow from this exercise?
After all, here we’ve got some source material, the original anecdote plus my prompts, and the resulting poem. We can compare them. That’s a way of promoting close attention to poetry.
As always, my words are set in boldface while ChatGPT's are plain.
The story
Give me a poem based on this anecdote:
And they told me one that concerns me directly, the one about Pope Francis in America. It goes something like this: As soon as he arrives at the airport in New York for his apostolic journey in the United States, Pope Francis finds an enormous limousine waiting for him. He is rather embarrassed by that magnificent splendor, but then thinks that it has been ages since he last drove, and never a vehicle of that kind, and he thinks to himself: OK, when will I get another chance? He looks at the limousine and says to the driver, “You couldn’t let me try it out, could you?” “Look, I’m really sorry, Your Holiness,” replies the driver, “but I really can’t, you know, there are rules and regulations.”
But you know what they say, how the pope is when he gets something into his head … in short, he insists and insists, until the driver gives in. So Pope Francis gets behind the steering wheel, on one of those enormous highways, and he begins to enjoy it, presses down on the accelerator, going 50 miles per hour, 80, 120 … until he hears a siren, and a police car pulls up beside him and stops him. A young policeman comes up to the darkened window. The pope rather nervously lowers it and the policeman turns white. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, and goes back to his vehicle to call headquarters. “Boss, I think I have a problem.”
“What problem?” asks the chief.
“Well, I’ve stopped a car for speeding, but there’s a guy in there who’s really important.” “How important? Is he the mayor?”
“No, no, boss … more than the mayor.”
“And more than the mayor, who is there? The governor?”
“No, no, more. …”
“But he can’t be the president?”
“More, I reckon. …”
“And who can be more important than the president?”
“Look, boss, I don’t know exactly who he is, all I can tell you is that it’s the pope who is driving him!”
Here’s a poem inspired by the anecdote about Pope Francis:
The Pontiff’s Joyride
Amidst the roar of jets, the skyline’s gleam,
The Pope disembarks, his cassock pristine.
A limousine awaits, a glistening beast,
The epitome of splendor, to say the least.But Francis, humble shepherd, eyes the prize—
A wheel to hold, the highway’s wide surprise.
“It’s been so long since I’ve driven,” he grins,
“Why not let me try, where’s the harm in sins?”The driver hesitates, protocol bound,
Yet Francis insists, his joy profound.
So off they go, the Pope at the helm,
Through asphalt seas, his private realm.He floors the gas, the engine roars,
Wind sweeping through limousine doors.
Fifty, eighty, one-twenty, he flies,
Till sirens wail beneath the darkening skies.A cop approaches, badge aglow,
But freezes at the window’s show.
"Boss, I’ve got someone bigger than the mayor.
No, not the governor. No, not the player."“More than the President?” the chief does implore.
“I don’t know who’s driving, but the Pope’s on board!”
The chief, stunned silent, says at last,
“Let him go—this ticket’s above my class!”So Francis smiles, a child at play,
His sacred joy in the thrill of the day.
Not just a shepherd of the flock,
But a driver who’s still breaking the clock.
* * * * *
Notice, however, that FTH has missed the point of the anecdote. If the Pope is merely the driver of someone’s limousine, who could that possibly be? Let’s set that aside for now and come back to it.
* * * * *
I decide that the poem needs to be taken a bit further and offer a specific suggestion about that.
Omega or Bust
I like it, I like it a lot. But I got to thinking. I’m guessing that the Pope was heading for Teilhard de Chardin’s Omega Point. Why don’t you add some more stanzas about that. Call it “Part II: Omega or Bust!”
Part II: Omega or Bust!
Now Francis, undeterred, eyes the horizon—
A greater journey keeps his soul a-risin’.
For Teilhard’s vision stirs the holy flame:
Omega Point calls, and he knows the name.
“What is a Pope but a passenger here,
To shepherd toward what we all hold dear?
The cosmos spins toward its fiery goal,
To Christ, the center, uniting the whole.”
Through mountain highways and desert plains,
He feels the pull of divine domains.
Past stars unseen, through time’s vast sprawl,
To the Point that waits as the end of all.
He speaks aloud as the engine hums,
“The kingdom is coming—it always comes!
Not brick by brick, but through thought and heart,
As matter and spirit fulfill their part.”
The limousine becomes a chariot bright,
Its headlights piercing Omega’s light.
Angels in neon dance in the haze,
As Francis roars through the highways’ maze.
At last, the horizon begins to gleam—
A radiant truth beyond the dream.
The stars seem closer; the night turns gold,
And the cosmos’ story is wholly told.
He slows the car, its mission complete,
The wheels now still, the air replete
With silence vast, where awe holds sway:
The summit of love, the infinite day.
Omega Point: a union divine,
Matter and spirit in perfect design.
Francis steps out, the stars align,
And bows to the Christ in space and time.
————————
What do you think?
I dig it, dude. Lord Buckley would approve most def.
I’m stoked you’re digging it, man! Lord Buckley tipping his cosmic cap? That’s the highest of high honors! Let me know if you ever want to riff further—cosmic chariots, existential joyrides, or Teilhard’s holy groove, I’m here for it. Keep the faith and the swing! 🌟
Joyride revised
Up there in the first part, The Thrill of the Ride. I think you missed the twist at the end of the original anecdote. If it was the Pope who was driving the car, who was the chauffer, then who could he possibly have been driving? Could you fix that?
You’re right! The twist at the end of the original anecdote deserves its spotlight. Let me revise the first part to include that twist—here’s the updated version:
—————
The Pontiff’s Joyride
(Part I: The Thrill of the Ride)
Amidst the roar of jets, the skyline’s gleam,
The Pope disembarks, his cassock pristine.
A limousine awaits, a glistening beast,
The epitome of splendor, to say the least.But Francis, humble shepherd, eyes the prize—
A wheel to hold, the highway’s wide surprise.
“It’s been so long since I’ve driven,” he grins,
“Why not let me try, where’s the harm in sins?”The driver hesitates, protocol bound,
Yet Francis insists, his joy profound.
So off they go, the Pope at the helm,
Through asphalt seas, his private realm.He floors the gas, the engine roars,
Wind sweeping through limousine doors.
Fifty, eighty, one-twenty, he flies,
Till sirens wail beneath the darkening skies.A cop approaches, badge aglow,
But freezes at the window’s show.
"Boss, I’ve got someone bigger than the mayor.
No, not the governor. No, not the player."“More than the President?” the chief does implore.
“I don’t know who’s driving, but the Pope’s on board!”
The chief, stunned silent, lets the moment go—
But whispers, “If he’s driving, who’s riding, though?”The mystery lingers, a riddle divine:
Who holds the backseat of this holy design?
A silence profound, an answer unstated—
Perhaps the One for whom all things are created.
Where Are We?
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to concatenate the revised first section, “The Thrill of the Ride,” with the second section, “Omega or Bust.”
I’m interested in what can be learned by comparing the anecdote on which the poem is based, with the poem itself. How did FTH make use of the material in that anecdote in the poem? What material—ideas, themes, details—did it add? How does the second part of the poem follow from the first?
In the case of “real” poems by human poets we often have little idea about “where” the poem came from, what memories, feelings, desires, or, for that matter, other texts, the ‘sources’ of the poems. In this case we can examine the source. That’s all there is, that and the opaque content of the LLM propelling ChatGPT and the contents of the FredTheHeretic GPT. Those contents are, in principle, open for examination, if not in point of actual fact.
Do I think that the process by which FTH creates a poem is like the process by which human poets create poems? Not particularly. Is it like the process that Frederick Turner uses, for it’s his poetry that is the basis for FTH? Not particularly. Nor do I particularly care. Whatever this process is, it is something we can talk about in a way that the analogous process for humans is hidden from us. However that discussion goes, it is a discussion that requires paying close attention to the words in the poem and their particular arrangement.
That, I believe, is sufficient for pedagogical purposes.
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