Writing Degree Zero

Inspired by the Oulipo writers, I decided to take a Robert Creeley poem “Some Afternoon” and recreate (deface?) it with Google Suggest. Creeley is my favorite poet and it is incredibly satisfying to scan his work line-by-line. However, when using Google Suggest to recreate his poem, I became hyper aware of the many word choices and phrases Creeley could have used. Some of the suggestions are amusing and some are slightly less so. *Note:  some lines were left intact because Google search terms did not always provide suggestions. Here is the result:

Why not ride the bus
with pleasure in italian
and take oneself
as measured in earth’s frame of reference,

making the world a better place
tacit description
of what’s taken before you get it
from italy with love

for no good reason ralph steadman,
the fact only.
There is a world out there
elsewhere, but here

the tangible Facebook
smile breakdown cover
into tangible pieces.
i see the light tangled

myself and family,
and friends are friends forever,
animals attached to the ocean floor,
the house, the road,

all go forward
in a huge dilemma
flash shaken baby syndrome
with that act.

Goodbye goodbye lyrics.
Nothing left to lose
after the initial
blast but

some echo like this.
Only the faded
pieces of paper per tree
etc lighting.

The original Robert Creeley poem:

Some Afternoon

Why not ride
and take oneself
as measure,

making the world
tacit description
of what’s taken
from it

for no good reason,
the fact only.
There is a world
elsewhere, but here

the tangible faces
smile, breaking
into tangible pieces.
I see

myself and family,
and friends, and>
animals attached,
the house, the road,

all go forward
in a huge
flash, shaken
with that act.

Goodbye, goodbye.
Nothing left
after the initial
blast but

some echo like this.
Only the faded
pieces of paper
etc.