CYBERSPACE

A biweekly column on net culture appearing

in the Toronto Sunday Sun

Copyright 1999 Karl Mamer

Free for online distribution
All Rights Reserved
Direct comments and questions to:
<kamamer@yahoo.com>

"These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis."

-- Sylvia Plath

I once edited a Canadian unity poetry supplement for my

university paper. The quality of the submissions was what you
would expect - lots of references to mosaics and hockey. Hockey
poetry. Sigh.

In the supplement's introduction I noted that poetry didn't

really mean anything to anyone these days so thanks for even
reading. I've never been one big on job satisfaction. A
Windsor-area poet did not take kindly to my suggestion that his
life's work was meaningless. He sent me a nasty letter telling
me to grow up.

I did. Last week.

I was staying at friend's place and she had some of that

magnetic poetry on her fridge. Damn, poetry can be serious fun.
I immediately thought what a great screensaver or interactive
wallpaper this would make. So I started searching for fun
electronic poetry resources.

This is what I found on my quest.

Java Poetry prominence.com/java/poetry

This page features an impressive Java implementation of

magnetic poetry. Unfortunately, you're limited in both words
and virtual fridge space. Don't expect to compose the next
Beowulf. You really have enough screen space to write a small
haiku.

Electric Poetry members.xoom.com/Jaide_X/E_Poetry.html

You can get an off-line, Windows-compatible version here. The

program is shareware. The shareware version comes with a
finite, though sufficient, lexicon. The registered version lets
you add word sets. The home page itself offers a gallery of
memorable user creations. You won't find hockey poetry here,
however. The page creator is a programmer so be prepared for
science fiction poetry. "It's time to travel / back to base /
another quiet / day in space". In half a decade of being on the
Internet, I've finally found something more insufferable than
that archive of erotic Klingon fan fiction I stumbled on once..
Bad Poetry Generator www.pangloss.com/seidel/Poem/

Really good bad poetry is not as easy to write as you would

think. The bad poetry generator does a respectable job. You
enter the first line of the desired poem and the page does the
rest, cranking out a stanza of forced rhymes. Fumbling about
for some text to test this page, I entered the title of a
Heaven 17 song and got "Crushed by the wheels of industry / As
I dance naked in the forest shouting 'he he he' / With an
exercise in mass poetry. / Just nod if you can hear me".

Shakespearean Insult Generator

www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/index.html

Shakespeare's love sonnets are considered some of the most

beautiful works of English poetry. I had a friend that wooed a
woman with a Shakespearean love sonnet on Valentine's Day.
Though the relationship started well, it ended ugly. When
things turn ugly and the insults begin to fly, why not maintain
some decorum? Turn to the Shakespearean Insult Generator and
fill your flame mails and voice mail messages demanding your
stuff back with lines like "Thou errant malmsey-nosed clack-
dish!" or "Thou art only mark'd for hot vengeance and the rod
of heaven. " That'll learn 'em.

The Semantic Rhyming Dictionary

www.link.cs.cmu.edu/dougb/rhyme-doc.html

Does anything actually rhyme with orange? No, according to the

Semantic Rhyming Dictionary. Punch in a word and this online
dictionary will spit out words that rhyme. Other colours that
the dictionary is unable to find rhymes for: purple and
crimson.

Merriam-Webster Online Thesaurus www.m-w.com

If you're struggling for the right word, turn to Merriam-

Webster's extensive online Thesaurus. In a test, the online
thesaurus comes up with about three times more synonyms than
Microsoft Word's built-in thesaurus.

Spoonbill Generator spoonbill.gold.ac.uk

Poetry can be not just a laborious task but a lonely endeavor.

Just ask Sylvia Plath. If you prefer to work as part of a team,
the Spoonbill Generator lets you create collaborative works of
verse. A web visitor can add a line to one of three poems in
development. The page itself takes its name from a suggestion
by the QWB (Society for Universal Bafflement).