In September of last year I self-published a small poetry collection of ‘caboose’ poems which I had great fun researching and writing. The cover and one other image inside were provided by ChatGPT – visual poems related to the booklet’s theme and content, and this a continuation of my occasional collaboration with this AI.

Over the last two weeks I have been writing further poems – still engaged with and enjoying the ‘idea/s’ around the caboose.  Using descriptions of types found online, the following is a list poem that pairs these up with alternative versions, linking also to a Derrida thread in the collection,

When typing in Word, the Microsoft AI Copilot logo is always visible to use as a possible prompt writing device/tool, and I have been exploring this over recent months since it first appeared without warning (for me): there are previous posts on this blog about those initial explorations; as are ones about ChatGPT going back.

At this point, I gave Copilot a prompt to rewrite my list poem, I think as a story (I need to copy and keep my prompts) and I do like the creative way it uses my alternative caboose types as well as imagines a ‘Caboose Deity’,

Having created this ‘fable’ of its own, I then gave Copilot a prompt to write another using the above and linked to the Trump/Vance ambush of Zelenskyy in the Oval Office (a leap, I know, but I was in the mood). Here it is,

It’s fascinating stylistically – though no surprise to ape/adapt from its vast dadtabase (!) of ‘fable’ models – but it didn’t actually bring out the horror/disgust/anger I was hoping for. I gave it another prompt with more explicit references to ‘President Trump’ and ‘Vice-President Vance’ in the hope it would draw on and use the emotive resonances of the encounter, and although there are elements of this, it’s still more genre over analysis/criticsm,

There is, I suppose, a rather twee moral tone of good triumphing over bad here, and I do quite like the notion of ‘sacred cabooses’.

It hasn’t helped me yet to write my ‘caboose ambush’ poem, but I’m working at it…