Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
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Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
1–10 of 13 posts
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#2A beautiful poem. Also, GEB is a great book.
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#3That was a very nice poem, but these kinds of things are actually not all that hard, if you are willing to play with them long enough. I once wrote a palindrome that was a rhymed quatrain-- it took about a week of fiddling, if I recall correctly.
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#4The spanish translation of that chapter of GEB was not enjoyable, sadly enough.
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#5Neat idea. My try:
Unbelievable!
He found
on the tired sofa an image
with his ex girlfriend,
a strange and worn-out pillow,
and he cried; he longed for
a strange and worn-out pillow
with his ex girlfriend
on the tired sofa; an image
he found
unbelievable.
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#6That was a very nice poem, but these kinds of things are actually not all that hard, if you are willing to play with them long enough. I once wrote a palindrome that was a rhymed quatrain-- it took about a week of fiddling, if I recall correctly.
[Insert any creative work or admirable skill here] is actually not all that hard, if you are willing to play with it long enough.
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#7That was a very nice poem, but these kinds of things are actually not all that hard, if you are willing to play with them long enough. I once wrote a palindrome that was a rhymed quatrain-- it took about a week of fiddling, if I recall correctly.
[Insert any creative work or admirable skill here] is actually not all that hard, if you are willing to play with it long enough.
Sure, but some are harder than others.
My point is that composing something like this is more akin to solving a crossword puzzle than to composing a symphony.
As I said, a week of fiddling will get you a (letter-by-letter) palindrome of four lines, at least in my experience.
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#8The spanish translation of that chapter of GEB was not enjoyable, sadly enough.
Strange, I came here to say the italian version was pretty good :)
This may be a function of the author being a(n impressively) fluent speaker of the language, though on the other hand the translation of Carrol's Jabberwocky poem in the book is terrible.
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#9The spanish translation of that chapter of GEB was not enjoyable, sadly enough.
Strange, I came here to say the italian version was pretty good :) This may be a function of the author being a(n impressively) fluent speaker of the language, though on the other hand the translation of Carrol's Jabberwocky poem in the book is terrible.
I believe he was using other people's translations. (At least, in the English version, he compared it to other's French and German translations.)
Re: Poetry for Hackers: A crab canon for Douglas Hofstadter
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
[Insert any creative work or admirable skill here] is actually not all that hard, if you are willing to play with it long enough.
Sure, but some are harder than others. My point is that composing something like this is more akin to solving a crossword puzzle than to composing a symphony. As I said, a week of fiddling will get you a (letter-by-letter) palindrome of four lines, at least in my experience.
In terms of satisfying the technical demands of the form, yes. But creating a work with evocative punch like this poem has is more akin to composing a symphony.