A SPELL AGAINST AL-GORITHMS by Stephen Lewandowski
Named for a man, Abu Ja-far Muhammed ibn Musa,
and the Persian city Khwarizma where he lived
in the year 800, pursuing calculations
arithmetical and al-gebraical.
Begins admirably as
“how to solve a class of problems” and
proceeds through disambiguation to specification by
massaging a mass of data.
If the data are people, then
the massage is called a “census.”
If people are unique then
proceed no further.
Can people be disambiguated?
Creation of model
Choose algorithm
Calibrate algorithm
Implement calculating algorithm
Create document and check
for elegance
Like many remarkable thoughts
the algorithmic counting
begins small and modest
“cute” in other words.
But the process from Hilbert to Turing
both mechanizes and weaponizes
the tool, which becomes the master.
The master forms the people through
massaging their numbers.
The citizen conforms or suffers.
Be-gone cruel Procrustes before we fit you on your own bed.
Over the years, algorithms have sometimes shaped poetry.
Here is a link to an earlier posting in this blog that offers a poem shaped by a formula --
a creation by Halifax poet Robert Dawson.
The OULIPO group also has celebrated poetry constructed within constraints.
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