As weird as it seems, there’s is such a thing as Bot Journalism. Reportedly, a bot broke a story of an earthquake in California in 2014. But poetry written by bots? I took the challenge at ‘Bot Or Not’, a site that asks you to guess if a poem could have been written by a real person or a software bot. Have to say I failed!

Consider this – could these lines have been put together by a bot? Or a human?

Mortal my mate, bearing my rock-a-heart
Warm beat with cold beat company, shall I
Earlier or you fail at our force, and lie
The ruins of, rifled, once a world of art?
The telling time our task is; time’s some part,
Not all, but we were framed to fail and die—
One spell and well that one. There, ah thereby
Is comfort’s carol of all or woe’s worst smart.
Field-flown, the departed day no morning brings
Saying ‘This was yours’ with her, but new one, worse,
And then that last and shortest…

To find out, go to Bot Or Not.

As for the lines above: It’s by one of my favorite poets – Gerard Manley Hopkins. I should have known better.