I’ve loved rhymes since childhood, starting with children’s books and nursery rhymes. Poetry was always a favorite subject of mine in English classes, though I rarely spent time to focus on it outside of school assignments due to other coursework and activities. However, during a postmodern literature class in college, I put a lot of passion into a poetry assignment. My teacher selected it as her favorite and asked me to share it with the class, boosting my confidence in my poetry writing abilities. It was my only college literature class, and the positive feedback from my classmates, mostly English majors, invited my curiosity for exploring my poetry-writing abilities.
Not long after, a friend introduced me to freestyle rapping, and I began applying my poetry skills to improvised raps. This became a weekend ritual and a frequent habit during my free time. Over the past 13 years, I’ve maintained an ongoing list of rhymes, ranging from a few words to several paragraphs, in an ever-growing document on my phone. Occasionally, I share these with friends, family, and live audiences.
I find that poetry, as well as songwriting, are interesting examples of generative AI still being far inferior to certain human creative abilities. I have been tinkering with prompting a custom GPT to emulate certain rhyme styles, but even the latest Chat-GPT 4o with sophisticated prompting struggles with this.
Some examples of my rhyme-writing are available as Udio tracks on my Gen-AI Music page and written out below.
Zooming back and forth
Zooming back and forth between the micro and the macro
Study hard, get good grades, must increase your cashflow
But what if I, wanna find, the divine, in my mind
Search and find / serpentine / secrets I / seek to / i-dentify
Ascent of dreams
Tried to climb a hill, slipped on a rock
Didn’t have the skills but didn’t make her stop
Just a young girl, learning lessons as she walked
The ScopE…
…of your focus depends on the lens you choose
She passed many strangers who shared many thoughts
They warned her of the dangers of climbing to the top
But she kept on going, passion in her stride
Amidst the mist of bliss…
…I grabbed a whip to hit the wrists of hands…
…that spanned a cross a lot of thoughts
All inside my mind
Pandora’s Boombox
Do embarrassed students parents need to practice jurisprudence? Act one was the blueprint / before cell phone had a contract / made one from a Capri Sun / antenna was a straw / before Sam sang songs into his Samsung / Pandora out her cage / fake microphone outrage / lights are off / on and on / empty crowds on blank pages / sitting in their underwear / black and white lines / then covered with colored screens / Wizard of Oz flipping script pages / the tin man and straw man argument / out the loop / point fingers towards scarecrows / better not get buttered up / clarified weirdo produced by Shakespeare / transmitted through your stereo computer / to students and commuters
With the left, then the right, til she stepped out of sight
And the gaze in her eyes was amazingly bright
So as her mother and the others
Sat content in their prisons
With their minds so conditioned
Blinded by the light
That scared them into submission
Their fear was so real
Blank face drawn in chalk
On the floor of the cave
Where they watched shadows walk