Book Review: Poetry Comics

Poetry Comics by Grant Snider

Just in time for April and Poetry Month, Grant Snider’s new Poetry Comics book is a beautiful addition to the collection.

Grant gathers together four seasons worth of poems in the form of comics, in his own distinct style (literally – the book is divided into four seasons), and it’s lovely for the ways that he weaves in his illustrations, perspective viewpoints and a child-like view of the world. (This book is appropriate for any aged kid or adult).

Many of the comics are free-verse but he also uses rhyming patterns here and there, and haiku and other small form poetry styles. The book could be a useful resource in a classroom, particularly for students with an artistic bent and poetic reluctance.

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I also appreciate how many of the poems are about writing poems (something I am apt to do, too, with my own writing) in a way that looks at the creative process of writers and artists in a fun but thoughtful way. He even has a How To Write A Poem series sprinkled throughout the book.

Grant posts his comics regularly at his blog, too, and are always worth a look.

Peace (and poems),
Kevin

Chordiflora Harmoniosa

Today’s DS106 Daily Create prompt was to “be a plant” and so I thought, let me invent a musical plant that doesn’t exist. I used ChatGPT to help me think of some musical scientific names and then Adobe Firefly to create an image of a plant with a musical theme, and then Soundtrap to compose a short musical piece.

Peace (as you wander near me),
Kevin

Lightning Thief Musical: Songs From The Show

The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical | CarolinaTix

Last night, I had the pleasure to interview Rob Rokiki for the National Writing Project’s Write Time show. Rob wrote the music and lyrics to The Lightning Thief musical, and he shared insights into his writing process and creative thinking when balancing music, writing and story. When the NWP interview gets released, I’ll share it here but I also found the album of music he wrote from that show that had been released as an album.

I teach The Lightning Thief as a novel with my sixth graders, so this was a wonderful experience to talk to Rob. They were excited to hear about my opportunity to connect with the writer of the songs of the musical.

Peace (and song),
Kevin

World Poetry Day: Finding A Poem

World Poetry Day: Poems From Edge of Extinction

For World Poetry Day, the daily prompt at DS106 Daily Create was to explore poetry of endangered languages. I went black-out with mine, using a collection and some text from the editor.

A simple idea:
collect poems
in endangered languages

Help document
how poetry
exists

The conversations
and encounters
with poets from all
over the world

showcase
the edge of
extinction

The urgency
invention and
sheer range of poetry
on every continent

Peace (and poems),
Kevin

AI Music: Another Step Forward

AI Generated Song

Since last year, I have been playing around and experimenting with the emergence of AI tools that create music (see earlier posts). Some of it has been interesting. Most have been pretty bland. As someone who makes music, but who keeps an open mind about technology, I’ve been trying to keep tabs on things (as best as one can do).

Suno, a new site to me but I guess it has been around for a few months, is quite different in the way that it integrates music, voice and lyrics in its AI production, and it quite a leap forward from the other sites I have tinkered with.

It works like a sort of a Chatbot — you write in a theme or topic and suggest a music style and it works to craft a short blurb of a song, with music and with vocals singing words generated by some sort of ChatGPT text. The quality here is much higher than other sites I have played with.

And the results, while still formulaic and a bit generic in sound, are interesting and show how songwriting and music production are the next wave of these AI tools. They may never supplant musicians and songwriters (he writes, hopeful) but they do demonstrate how making song tracks could become rather automated in the time ahead of us, either for commercial products or some other means.

Listen to a song I had Suno generate about our dog, Rayna, and her days snoozing on the couch.

Then listen to a song I had it create about Duke Rushmore, a fictional musician whose name is the name of my read rock and roll band.

Weird, right?

Peace (and song),
Kevin