Process

For our midterm project in Reading and Writing Electronic Text, I drew from nineteenth century Catholic mysticism. The assignment had two parameters:
• Devise a new poetic form.
• Create a computer program that generates texts that conform to the poetic form you devised.

I decided on a formal/semantic approach incorporating the poetic verse of Thérèse of Lisieux as source text. A Carmelite nun from the age of 15, St. Thérèse’s short life was characterized by deep devotion and prolific writing. My program arranges nine randomly selected lines of her poetry in a chiastic structure: A B C D E D C B A. Because of the mystical and devotional qualities of Thérèse’s text, the content of the poems is designed to move from human beings to the Divine and back again. As such, the A lines always contain some reference to “I,” “me,” “we,” or “us” while the central E line always contains a reference to God such as “Father,” “Son,” or “Spirit.” This collaboration results in countless variations of poetic text with new interpretations revealed in each cycle.

Here is a selection of poems generated by the program, Mystic Chiasm.

I.

I love the fires of dawn,
  Do angels seek my home
    And give myself, in sacrifice unpriced,
      How cool this verdant grove,
        To offer Lord, to Thee.
      Sister! form apostolic souls,
    To Hope, the voyage seems one little day;
  Helped here by me, shall conquer souls;
My peaceful home, — to fight. Forgive me, if I fear!

II.

For us from Heaven didst Thou flee;
  I crave, I crave, the hearts of men.
    I wait in peace, on time’s dark coast,
      I give my joys, my tears,
        Thou tiny Jesu, Light of Light!
      Thy ecstasy the Blest exult to see.
    From His high court on His eternal hill;
  Remember that Thine eyes beheld the fields
To those who loved me best, so dear, so true, so kind,

III.

And willingly I go,
  Yet for the rose of penitence
    Upon your throbbing heart shall lie,
      Go, catch for Him some charming birds,
        For pain to Thee, my Jesus! was so dear
      To Thee I sacrifice my joy, my eighteen years.
    Then you will be greatly blest.
  I can not help but think, — oh! let me tell my thought!
We have come down from heaven’s eternal height,

IV.

How shall I find relief
  In Thee, the glorious stars are mine;
    So, in my turn, my love to Thee is given,
      Thou art the lovely Flower of spring,
        E’en now to suffer, Love is urging Thee.
      When, pressing on through heaven’s gate,
    When Joseph came to bid thee wake, and straightway flee from home;
  In ecstasy would fain each seraph undefiled
Jesu! may I expire

And here is the Python code.

import sys
import random
import re

verse = list()
person = list()
divinity = list()

for line in sys.stdin:
  line = line.strip()
  verse.append(line)
  if re.search(r'\bI\b|\b[Mm]e\b|\b[Ww]e\b|\b[Uu]s\b', line):
    person.append(line)
  if re.search(r'\bFather\b|\bSon\b|\bSpirit\b|\bThee\b|\bThou\b|\bJesus\b|\bChrist\b|\bLord\b', line):
    divinity.append(line)

print random.choice(person)
print "  " + random.choice(verse)
print "    " + random.choice(verse)
print "      " + random.choice(verse)
print "        " + random.choice(divinity)
print "      " + random.choice(verse)
print "    " + random.choice(verse)
print "  " + random.choice(verse)
print random.choice(person)

January, the Labor Department said,
everything from rent to cigarettes —
downward trend: it fell 0.1 percent in
when to raise the crucial short-term
benchmark interest rate, for instance —
normalize lending! The cost of living
increasing only 0.2 percent! A closely
January, the first decrease since 1982.
scaling back emergency measures to
consumer prices suggested that
were still a way off! A report on
government data on Friday reinforced
food and fuel costs underscored the
extraordinarily low interest rates.
That should ease some of the pressure
watched measure that excludes volatile
inflation appeared to be largely in
with the price of a variety of goods —
tighten monetary policy — raising the
check, despite a period of
support the economy, the latest
the notion that more drastic efforts to
on Fed policy makers as they consider
in the United States remained steady in
While the Federal Reserve has begun
interest rate and take smaller steps to

Source text: U.S. Inflation Report Gives Fed Breathing Room on Rates, The New York Times

Python code:

import sys
import random

all_lines = list()

for line in sys.stdin:
  line = line.strip()
  line = line.replace('. ', '! ')
  all_lines.append(line)

random.shuffle(all_lines)

for line in all_lines:
  print line