If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, SylviaBot, an automatic poem generator built on a rudimentary natural language processor, is truly a wild fan of the late poet
herself. SylviaBot has essentially read 50 of Plath’s greatest poems and produced one of its own in her style, titled “Generation.”
– Zach Cohen
Generation
Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue—
In the picture I have of you, Melts in the wall.???
The idiot
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot,
your root,
I never could tell where you—
Put your foot—
For the hearing of my heart—
It really goes.
And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child’s cry
Ich, ich, ich, ich, ich,
And the villagers never liked you.
The tongue stuck in a barb wire snare.
I could hardly speak.
I thought even the bones would do.
Stasis in darkness. The idiot bird leaps
out
Pour of tor and dampness.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I eat men like ???
God’s lioness,
How one we grow,
The boot in the face, the brute
Pivot of heels and knees!? The furrow
Splits and passes, sister to
Amused shout:
A miracle!?
A miracle!?
A miracle!?
A miracle!?
A miracle!?
A miracle!?
and drunken leans.
That knocks me out. A miracle!?
A miracle!?
A miracle!?
A miracle!?
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
There is a charge—
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy,
Daddy, you can lie back now.
And they stuck me together with glue.
And the villagers never liked you.
There’s a stake in your fat black heart
They are dancing and stamping on you.
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman peanut-crunching crowd
The Gentlemen, ladies adores a Fascist,
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
I am your opus,
I am your Gentlemen.