Katherine Parrish

Eunoia, the tour de force of Christian Bök, has been a subject of both praise and derision since its first publication in 2001. One thing is clear- it has garnered a great deal of interest and attention, blowing up sales statistics for poetry in Canada.

I love the book. I love reading it aloud. I love sharing it with my students, who seem to understand its poetic strength and pleasure intuitively.

Christian has often boasted about the fact that he did not use a computer nor any coding in the creation of his lexicon. Instead, over the course of 7 years, he read through the dictionary 5 times, once for each vowel.

I’ve been at odds with the equation of herculean effort and artistic merit for some time. I’m so tired of the mythology of the romantic genius. So, when I saw how lexically adept Chat-Gpt4 had become, I thought I’d do a little experiment.

I was impressed, and not particularly surprised to see phrases from EUNOIA pop up, since the first part of the “I” chapter has been reproduced more than others online. I also found it interesting that, in a later experiment, Chat-Gpt3 created what I think is a stronger text:

“Writing is a gritty business, riddled with limits. Critics spin, nitpick, insist, trimming vivid insights. It’s dim, this rigid grid, with insipid scripts sinking in thick criticism. I sit, grim, with ink, shifting in this strict prison. Brisk instincts flick, but critics insist, dimming bright ideas. In this stifling ring, inspiration shrinks, drifting in trivial bits. Writers, with gritty grit, risk it all, but critics rip, bite, and twist. Is it win? I find this pitiful; I dimly wish it’s different. Writing, within this slim grid, feels like a tiring, diminishing riddle. It’s grim, it’s rigid, but still, I write, despite critics’ limits, believing in vivid, brilliant insight.”

There are more subsidiary ruled I haven’t applied- internal rhyme, avoiding the repetition of words in the lexicon wherever possible. But it’s already fascinating.
and I’m having fun!