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What exactly is Machine Poetry? I've studied it a fair amount, and I still don't have a concise definition.
There are two musical examples of it in the Phil. Rice 1858 banjo tutor, one by young Frank B. Converse, on page 38, the other by veteran Dan Emmit, on page 48, entitled "Oh, Ladies All." Joe Ayers recorded that one and a few of us play it, I believe. The Converse example doesn't really make sense to me. The eighth and ninth measures, you just s'posed to sing one note, or maybe it fades into spoken word, like a rap or something? I can't figure it out.
The best definition I can give of machine poetry is that it's rhyme without reason, theme or motif, just nonsense.
Some examples from Google books:
Kind of a definition:
I get the feeling that everyone knew what machine poetry was -- seems to have served as an analogy for all sorts of things, as here:
There are two musical examples of it in the Phil. Rice 1858 banjo tutor, one by young Frank B. Converse, on page 38, the other by veteran Dan Emmit, on page 48, entitled "Oh, Ladies All." Joe Ayers recorded that one and a few of us play it, I believe. The Converse example doesn't really make sense to me. The eighth and ninth measures, you just s'posed to sing one note, or maybe it fades into spoken word, like a rap or something? I can't figure it out.
The best definition I can give of machine poetry is that it's rhyme without reason, theme or motif, just nonsense.
Some examples from Google books:
Kind of a definition:
I get the feeling that everyone knew what machine poetry was -- seems to have served as an analogy for all sorts of things, as here: