Computers and Poetry

The last two weeks we have analyzed poems.  This week, I want you to watch this TED Talk.  It poses the question, can a computer write poetry?  As you watch this, keep in mind what he is saying about what it means to be human and what he is saying about poetry.  Once you have watched the video, pull three things he says that resonate with you and comment on them.  

History Poems

Below you will find two poems. Read through both poems and answer the prompt.


Prompt: In reading both poems, determine what is being said about the way history is taught. Explain how the authors use their poetic devices to examine the way history is taught and understood in society.


Southern History by Natasha Trethewey

Before the war, they were happy, he said.
quoting our textbook. (This was senior-year

history class.) The slaves were clothed, fed,
and better off under a master’s care.

I watched the words blur on the page. No one
raised a hand, disagreed. Not even me.

It was late; we still had Reconstruction
to cover before the test, and — luckily —

three hours of watching Gone with the Wind.
History, the teacher said, of the old South —

a true account of how things were back then.
On screen a slave stood big as life: big mouth,

bucked eyes, our textbook’s grinning proof — a lie
my teacher guarded. Silent, so did I.



The History Teacher by Billy Collins

Trying to protect his students’ innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.

And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.

The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
“How far is it from here to Madrid?”
“What do you call the matador’s hat?”

The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.

The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,

while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.