I type the word ‘pantoum’ and already the autocorrect feature in WordPress is converting it into the word ‘phantom’ as if the word itself is struggling to remain ethereal and abstract. I read somewhere that the form ‘excites resistance’.

The original Malay ‘pantun’ / ‘pantum’ or ‘two cut’ was a poem designed to be written aa bb. The two couplets ought to have entirely separate subjects which are linked thematically eg. stillness: a single bird on a powerline and snow on the roof of a parked car. Malay poets use the first couplet for fine natural observations while the second couplet has a focus on what this means to the human subject. Following our progression the bird on the powerline and the snow could easily have a concluding couplet about being paralysed in the face of a powerful decision, or to be true to the instincts of the bird we could remove the potentially dangerous aspect of electrocution and the poem could become about safety, vantage and opportunity.

Whatever our decision is will inherently steer the poem’s displacement. Thanks to a bit of history, of which more here, we expect the form to do something different now and it has entire lines, repeated. The lines should fall like this: [1st verse] first line, second line, third line, fourth line, [2nd verse] second line repeated, fifth line, fourth line repeated, sixth line. This reminds me of something else that repeats itself, is abstract and ‘excites’ my ‘resistance’. Automated customer service lines.

It’s relatively easy to get into a loop with automated customer services numbers. With my bank all I have to do is push * then 1 then * then 1 and so on. The recorded Mancunian accent on the other end of the line doesn’t flinch when thanking me for my choice, “Thanks. Okay I now have four options for you.”

What I really needed was a customer services robot that would respond to written human input. There are various reservoirs of amazing programs that work in a customer services capacity. It was time to test out some robots!

This robot is Cleverbot:

Here is Ikea’s robot who finds love difficult:

This one is an insurance salesman in France. I am asking him if he believes in God. It’s a surprisingly pertinent question as ‘an act of God‘ is often cited in insurance contracts:

This is Brian (clearly rather big headed).

Then I found Lucy.

By necessity we have to start from a point of natural input. While punching buttons it didn’t take long for the idea to settle that in order to get a good loop going I need someone who sounded as unquestionably grateful and acceptably sympathetic as my Mancunian banker. I will never be able to have a conversation with him. He is just a voice in the aether.

Jane Austen was a writer of substantial wit, bravery and skill. So I’m sure she wouldn’t mind my choosing Mr. Darcy who is in my  view both unquestioning and incurious to the point where I struggle to take his character seriously beyond the realm of a plot Macguffin. Darcy raises just three questions throughout the entirety of Pride and Prejudice. I fed these three questions in various forms through the bots, but it wasn’t until I arrived on his letter that I struck gold with Lucy and we started to get the repeating lines of a pantoum with that same sense of infuriation. Apart from lines one and three, the rest was pulled from their dialogue. Here is the result:

Conversation Between Mr. Darcy and O2 Customer Services Robot ‘Lucy’ During Mr. Darcy’s Unfortunate Transformation into an O2 Customer Services Robot

Mr. Darcy: I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold to any human being.
Lucy Robot: I’m sorry but I won’t be able to answer such a long question.
Mr. Darcy: You may imagine what I felt and how I acted.
Lucy Robot: I’m sorry but I have not fully understood your question. Please see the FAQs.

Mr. Darcy: I’m sorry but I won’t be able to answer such a long question.
Lucy Robot: Apology accepted, what else can I help you with?
Mr. Darcy: I’m sorry but I have not fully understood your question.
Lucy Robot: I’m glad you understand.

Mr. Darcy: Apology accepted?
Lucy Robot: Unfortunately I have been unable to recognise your question.
Mr. Darcy: I’m glad you understand.
Lucy Robot: I still couldn’t recognise your question.

Darcy Robot: I’m sorry I didn’t recognise your question, please can you rephrase this?
Lucy Robot: Apology accepted, what else can I help you with?
Darcy Robot: I still couldn’t recognise your question.
Lucy Robot: I’m sorry I didn’t recognise your question.

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Want to see more? Cornell University have conducted some interesting experiments with chat bots talking to one another, more here

In the first of the ‘In the Time it Took‘ poems, I decided to time various events during the day such as the time it takes for a tube to travel between Angel and Oval and to write poems in those periods and see what crops up. You realise after a while in London that on average about nine minutes of your day is taken up with delay. That’s certainly long enough for a short draft however bad and illegible the first attempt. So in that spirit, I thought that the only way to go would be not to cheat. Sometimes I have ideas floating around in my head for a few days, or even years, and the words gradually form around the idea like ice around a dust particle (or in one of my favourite phrases ‘a snow-forming nucleus‘). So I tried to avoid these ideas and go with whatever happened, turning these rushed bits of writing, however surreal, into poems. Here is the first, a poem in the time it takes to boil the kettle.

Preparation

Starting the stopwatch!

Blurry stopwatch

At 2:56 the kettle grew to a crescendo and then clicked.

2:56 and the poem is complete

Here’s a transcript:

In the Time it Took #1

What was it that took them
out of the wilderness, droning
in through the window
to the silent smell
all hope of shade damaged
by the presence of a glass jail cell.

The nightmares flies must
have of newspapers the size
of old intercity trains
descending on them
the Sunday supplements
stalking them in hot parked cars.

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And after a post-writing tinker, here’s the poem now:

The Secrets of Flies
What is it that catches their eyes,
a fanciful change of scenery
from the blue blur-wilderness
droning through the open window
to signature smells detected
in their feet, the helipad
of a fingerprint, the crinkled
toffee wrapper? Some how they
are master thieves, and with the door closed,
whole squadrons arrive
and like a victorious F1 driver
who never tires of his pride,
they do the same slow lap over and over.

The nightmares flies must have
of newspapers the size of intercity trains
colliding with them, the looming Kate Moss
face of a Sunday supplement
stalking them in hot parked cars
and after every escape between panes
that same deluge of suggestions
that comes after the event.

to find my glasses I had invited Harry Man to be a Guest Booker.

I met Harry outside the Betsey Trotwood, a pub in Farringdon. We were both waiting to be allowed in to a Modern Poetry in Translation launch at the Freeword Centre. Harry has a mercurial mind and is a fascinating poet. He also likes mixed media collaborations and will be sharing an illustrated poetry project here.

Harry wrote me an email in the time it took for the kettle to boil. I loved this idea and given that we met while waiting, I thought  our collaboration could work on this same basis. So over the next few weeks, Harry and I will be writing poems, notes, scribbles in the time it takes to…