Building Bridges and Mending Walls

AI v. Frost Poetry competition

Credit: Gordie Howe Bridge Instagram

Above: American and Canadian Ironworkers meet on Friday, June 14, 2024 after the final edge girders are bolted in place, connecting the U.S. and Canada.

Credit: Gordie Howe International Bridge website artist rendition

Labels Build Walls, but Progress Walks on Bridges
The loudest voices fill the cluttered space,
A symphony of words both sharp and strained,
They claim a truth with bold unwavering face,
And cling to labels certainly sustained.

They seek not answers hidden in the deep, 
Their words erect a fortress, stark and tall,
Labels build walls where truths forever sleep,
And doubt is lost beyond their mighty thrall.

But softer sounds may sing with subtler might,
Where questions stir and minds begin to weave - 
The threads of understanding, spun in light,
Build bridges on which dreams may then perceive.

Poem by Sean Denney and AI Gemini

Do you like this poem? It was written this February by Sean Denney using the AI (artificial intelligence) program “Gemini.” Gemini is the AI program available through Google. More information can be found here: Gemini.

I remembered there was a Robert Frost poem about mending walls. Let’s compare:

Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.  The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side.  It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
he is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder 
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn’t it
Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know 
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.’  I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself.  I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top 
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying.
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’

I love the understated themes and variations that Frost weaves here. I never noticed this last bit:

“… I see him there bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees.”

Wow, a caveman living in darkness who likes walls.

Have you tried to use AI? If so I’d love to hear about it in the comments. I know it’s not fair to measure AI v. Frost. But it’s kind of like Bobbie Fischer beating the computer in chess back in 1977.

Isn’t that a cool picture at the top of the story? The guy on the U.S. side is Casey Whitson, a second-generation iron worker from Southgate, Michigan, and a member of Ironworkers Local 25. Story about U.S. iron worker. I haven’t been able to find any details on the Canadian iron worker. If you do please let me know and I will update this story.

I love being retired and giving myself the pleasure of poetry. Whether you are retired or not, a big thank you for coming along~! Hope you enjoyed this.