Toward a Poetry & Poetics of the Americas (29): Alison Knowles & Jim Tenney, from “The House of Dust” (1967)

 [In our hemispheric anthology of the Americas (from origins to present), Javier Taboada and I are including this pioneer work of computer-generated poetry for a section of “extensions” (from our normative ideas of poetry) that begins with pre-Columbian hieroglyphics and moves on from there to the here-&-now.  Our work-in-progress will be published by the University of California Press in the next year or two. (J.R.)]

 

A house of dust

    on open ground

      lit by natural light

        inhabited by friends and enemies

 

  A house of paper

    among high mountains

      using natural light

        inhabited by fishermen and families

 

  A house of plastic

    by an abandoned lake

      using all available lighting

        inhabited by various birds and fishes

 

  A house of glass

    in michigan

      using electricity

        inhabited by people who eat a great deal

 

  A house of tin

    on an island

      using candles

        inhabited by people who sleep almost all the time

 

  A house of stone

    on the sea

      using all available lighting

        inhabited by lovers

 

A HOUSE OF WOOD
      IN A DESERTED FACTORY
            USING CANDLES
                  INHABITED BY NEGROS WEARING ALL COLORS

 

A HOUSE OF ROOTS
      BY THE SEA
            USING CANDLES
                  INHABITED BY FRIENDS

 

A HOUSE OF SAND
      IN A COLD, WINDY CLIMATE
            USING NATURAL LIGHT
                  INHABITED BY FRIENDS AND ENEMIES

 

A HOUSE OF STRAW
      IN HEAVY JUNGLE UNDERGROWTH
            USING ALL AVAILABLE LIGHTING
                  INHABITED BY AMERICAN INDIANS

 

A HOUSE OF WEEDS
      BY THE SEA
            USING ELECTRICITY
                  INHABITED BY PEOPLE WHO SLEEP ALMOST ALL THE TIME

 

A HOUSE OF GLASS
      ON OPEN GROUND
            USING ELECTRICITY
                  INHABITED BY PEOPLE WHO ENJOY EATING TOGETHER

 

A HOUSE OF ROOTS
      AMONG HIGH MOUNTAINS
            USING NATURAL LIGHT
                  INHABITED BY FRIENDS

 etc.

COMMENTARY

 

“The House of Dust was a poetry project created by Alison Knowles and James Tenney and the Siemens 4004 computer in 1967 using fortran language. An early example of a computer-generated poem, creating stanzas by working through iterations of lines with changing words from a finite vocabulary list. An early example of computerized poetry that plays on the unlimited possibilities of the random juxtapositions of words. To create this work, Knowles produced four word lists that were then translated into a computer language and organised into quatrains according to a random matrix. Each of the four lists contains terms that describe the attributes of a house: its materials, location, lighting, and inhabitants. The computer program imposed a non-rational ordering of subjects and ideas, generating unexpectedly humorous phrasing and imagery.

            “Printed on perforated tractor-feed paper common to dot matrix printers of the time, Knowles printed out numerous pages of these phrases in the form of a long scroll. She then created a book of sorts by tearing off a block of approximately twenty pages at a time, folding it in the manner of an accordion, and placing it in a plastic pouch. Hundreds of variations of houses are possible, as every version of the poem begins and ends with a different set of quatrains. Knowles’s collaboration with the computer highlights the underlying arbitrariness of language, demonstrating how words acquire different meanings through structural relationships and shifting contexts.”  [From catalogue to exhibition at James Gallery, New York, September 2016]