DICTATED, THEN READ

"A poet can survive anything but a misprint."

Lime, by Yusef Komunyakaa (2000) The victorious army marches into the city, & not far behind tarries a throng of women Who slept with the enemy on the edge Of battlements. The stunned morning Opens into a dust cloud of hooves & drums. Some new priests cradle Stone tablets, & others are poised With raised mallets in a forest of defeated Statuary. Of course, behind them Linger the turncoats & pious Merchants of lime. What’s Greek Is forged into Roman; what’s Roman Is hammered into a ceremony of birds Headed east. Whatever is marble Burns in the lime kilns because Someone dreams of a domed bathhouse. HI, by Dictated, Then Read (2017) Victoria’s Army marches in to the city, Not far behind, Terry’s throne of women Who slept with the enemy on the edge Of betterment. Stunned morning Opens into dust cloud hoops & crowns. Some prayers for Strong tops and others are boys Raised mountains, forest seated Statuary. Of course find them like returned goods, bias Purchase online. Which creek His fortune to roam; which Roman Is hammered into ceremony birds Headed East. Whatever is marble Burns online because Someone dreams: don’t pass out. MARKUP LIMEHI The victorious armyVictoria’s Army marches intoin to the city, & not Not far behind tarries a throngbehind, Terry’s throne of women Who slept with the enemy on the edge Of battlements. The stunnedbetterment. Stunned morning Opens into a dust cloud of hooveshoops &drums.crowns. Some new priests cradle Stone tablets, &prayers for Strong tops and others are poised With raised mallets in aboys Raised mountains, forest of defeatedseated Statuary. Of course, behindcourse find them Linger the turncoats & pious Merchants of lime. What’s Greek Is forged into Roman; what’s like returned goods, bias Purchase online. Which creek His fortune to roam; which Roman Is hammered into a ceremony of birds Headed east.East. Whatever is marble Burns in the lime kilnsonline because Someone dreams of a domed bathhouse.dreams: don’t pass out. ACCURACY 556 original characters 175 edit distance 31% wrong

NOTES Despite Komunyakaa’s famed use of [Southern/African-American English] “vernacular,” this poem is hardly colloquial. It’s most interesting imagery (“dust cloud of hooves & drums,” “forest of defeated statuary”) were the most difficult for the speech-reconition engine to hear, returning blanks the first several passes.

On numerous occasions while translating this poem the SRE would come to the end of a line it had transcribed only then to delete it entirely, as if it knew what it had heard must have been wrong. This was new.

The SRE was particularly eager to drop prepositions and conjunctions from this poem, rendering an especially disjointed output. This may be due to another defining characteristic of Komunyakaa’s work: syncopation. In voicing Lime the reader finds herself breathing mid-thought; the poem is decidedly cinematic but instead chooses to unfold itself slowly, frame. by. frame. Stressing weak beats may evade SREs trained on less jazzy corpora.

Having both the text to voice myself and a recording of Lime read aloud by its author (highly recommended), afforded the chance to weave together outputs from multiple Dictated methods. The result above reflects the most coherent composition, but some of the discarded attempts are worth sharing: a domed path out from a domed bathhouse, determined to buy his merchants of mine for turncoats & pious merchants of lime, mind killer for lime kilns, and, rather ironically, dictated stuff for defeated statuary.

Again we see the substitution of financial and commercial terminology for nonstandard diction. The two instances of “online” here picking up perhaps on the mention of “merchants,” and with it adding anachronisms to the list of Dictated error identifications.

Someday AI reading this poem will be able to situate it in its appropriate period, and correct accordingly what it must have heard in real-time. But would it ever pause in Penn Station to fathom the legacy of Classicism, the Roman dome, the arch, empathizing with what it must have meant then if it means this now, and catch itself wondering if whether this brutal sack of Corinth, the bloody end of Hellenic Greece, our ouroboric destiny isn’t forgiven by the distance of intervening centuries alone, then surely by the bathhouses of progress themselves, their grandeur manifest not to justify what was but to give way to what will be?

SOURCES

Yusef Komunyakaa, Lime from Talking Dirty to the Gods. (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2000)

Dictation combines human readings: recording of the author’s reading and live human dictation (Boston, 2017).

Speech recognition by native Apple MBP, macOS Sierra, v. 10.12.6

Painting, The Sack of Corinth, by Thomas Allom (1870)

"When you use Ask Siri and non-Enhanced Dictation the things you say and dictate will be recorded and sent to Apple to process your requests. Your device will also send Apple other information, such as your name and nickname; the names, nicknames, and relationship with you (e.g., “my dad”) of your contacts, music you enjoy, the names of your photo albums, the names of Apps installed on your device (collectively, your “User Data”). All of this data is used to help Ask Siri and Dictation on your Mac understand you better and recognize what you say."

Poet, painter, and critic, Shuzo Takiguchi was a prominent surrealist, marshaling dream imagery and the poetics of imagination in the interrogation of both inner life and Japanese imperialism. In 1936 he wrote a triptych of poems in homage to European surrealist painters René Magritte, Yves Tanguy, and Joan Miró in “L’échange surréaliste.” Takiguchi would go on to publish the first monograph on Miró in 1966, while Miró in turn would later paint, “Hommage à Shuzo Takiguchi” in 1979 (pictured).

It was a fascinating, international exchange between avant-gardists; it spanned media and survived a war to thrive at a time when surrealism was both celebrated and suppressed. In 2014 Mary Jo Bang and Yuki Tanaka translated these works for the Poetry Foundation, along with an insightful addendum on their process.

Here we have voiced the translation through Dictated’s own process to see how AI might interpret this meaningful, complex rapport.

ORIGINAL (1936)

瀧口修造/ジョアン・ミロ：手づくり諺　ジョアン・ミロに

TRANSLATED (2014) The wind’s tongue. The always clear cobalt sky bit at your painting. In a prehistoric poster words doze like pebbles. A gallop of feathers kidnaps the conversation between coarse ropes and wild beasts. You paint within a blinking birthmark the marriage of heaven and hell faster than tying a ribbon in a mirror. Children’s playground. From some rolling balls one transparent ball flies off. I call it Miró. DICTATED, THEN READ ___________________________ You always clear cobalt Skye bid at your painting. Then a Prius tour poster words goes like pebbles. A gallon of feathers kidnaps the conversation between course ropes and wild fees. You paid with in the blinking birthmark The Marriage of Heaven that Hell faster bent on the ribbon in the mirror. Children’s playground from some rolling balls 1 transparent ball flies off I call it mirror. MARKUP The wind’s tongue. The You always clear cobalt sky bitSkye bid at your painting. In Then a prehistoric Prius tour poster words doze words goes like pebbles. A gallop gallon of feathers kidnaps the conversation between coarse course ropes and wild beasts.fees You paint within aYou paid with in the blinking birthmark the marriageThe Marriage of heaven and hell faster than tying a Heaven that Hell faster bent on the ribbon in a the mirror. Children’s playground. From from some rolling balls one 1 transparent ball flies off. I call it Miró. mirror ACCURACY 410 original characters 91 edit distance 22% wrong NOTES

Native dictation by Apple MBP, OSx Yosemite

Speech recognition by Dragon Dictation (2.0.28) for Apple iPhone 6s

Hearing “sky” as “Skye” was likely due to Dragon Dictation having read the phone’s Contacts list and thinking my colleage Skye made more sense being described as “always clear cobalt” than the actual sky.

Frequently AI will replace less standard speech with near-sounding financial terminology; here wild fees for wild beasts and You paid for You paint are great examples.

After several attempts with multiple engines, not one could hear the first line of the translated original (“The wind’s tongue”); each pass simply returned nothing, denoted by “______” in the markup.

It is always remarkable that AI is capable of returning such grossly ungrammatical results.

Bang and Tanaka’s Translators’ Note provides an excellect reflection on intention and rediscovery: “Over time, we become clearer about what the poet might have had in mind. A word or phrase will begin to make sense in a new way, or it will make a new kind of sense. That new understanding will sometimes result in a cascade of other changes.” This captures the mindfulness, depth, and cohesion that make poetic expression so distant and difficult for AI and echoes the phenomenon of new, unintentional meaning that Dictated translations often yield.

Worthwhile noting that Dictated works can make the surreal even more surreal.

"Talk about space"

- Ed Ruscha (1963)

Authored by a human (October 2013, Copenhagen). Dictated by a machine, then fantastically misheard by another machine (August 2016, Berlin).

SOURCE loss a poem at rabid noon break fever dreams by empty moon four-fifths mud on craving cape enslaved by love we're half past hate MISHEARD Lost at home and grab an outbreak fever dreams by acting on craving payments made by love where 8:30 MARKUP loss a poem at rabid noon breakLost at home and grab an outbreak fever dreams by empty moon four-fifths mud onacting on craving cape enslavedpayments made by love we’re half past hate where 8:30 ACCURACY 121 original characters 64 edit distance 53% wrong NOTES

Speech synthesis through Apple's native dictation (OSx Yosemite)

Speech recognition by Dragon Dictation (2.0.28) for Apple iPhone 6s

Remarkable examples of AI's standardizing or even regressive effect on non-standard language, e.g.,

break fever -> outbreak fever

enslaved by love -> made by love

Seen by Optical Character Recognition (OCR):

Buffalo Bill’| defunct who used to ride a watorsmooth-silver stallion and break onetwothreefourfive pigoonsjuatlikethat he was a handso o man and what i want to know is how do you like your blueeyed boy onister Death JOBUB

Spoken through Speech Synthesis to a Speech Recognition Engine (SRE):

The Buffalo Bills defunct used to ride the W a TRS MO OGH silverstallion Pinebrake on NetWalker you fucker five pigments 23rd he was a hand so Dan and what I want to know was how did you like your blue-eyed boy honest or death Job of awful

The OCR v. SRE markup:

Buffalo Bill’| defunct whoThe Buffalo Bills defunct used to ride ride the W a watorsmooth-silver stallion and break onetwothreefourfive pigoonsjuatlikethat heTRS MO OGH silverstallion Pinebrake on NetWalker you fucker five pigments 23rd he was a handso o man andhand so Dan and what iI want to know is how do youwas how did you like your blueeyedblue-eyed boy onister Death JOBUB honest or death Job of awful

Final Dictated work:

"OOF"

Edward Ruscha (1962; reworked 1963)

"aol="

"Heavy Industry"

Ed Ruscha (1962)

"Il |E.\\”Y INDUSTIIY"

Leonard Cohen's Going Home retold through a voice recognition engine

I love to speak with Menard

Is a sportsmanship Shepard

Is a lazy bastard, living suit

  Sue does say what I tell them

Even though it isn't welcome

You would never treat Hamisu

To refute

  It will speak these words of wisdom

Like a sejant Mannington

Three knows he's really nothing but