Who created haikU and when was it made?
haikU was created by Nanette Wylde in 2001. It was written using cgi with html and perl and is one of the early examples of internet coding for creative output.
Questions about HaikU
Short answers, pulled from the story.
How does the haikU poetry generator work?
haikU assembles poems by drawing one line at random from each of three separate repositories corresponding to the five-syllable, seven-syllable, and five-syllable lines of the haiku form. Poems do not repeat upon refresh, and anyone can contribute their own lines to the repositories.
What percentage of haikU poems cohere as real poetry?
Electronic literature scholar Scott Rettberg estimated that roughly eighty percent of the poems haikU generates cohere quite well as poetry, despite being assembled from lines submitted by different, uncoordinated contributors.
What is haikU considered in the field of electronic literature?
haikU is recognized as a work of electronic literature and a form of interactive digital poetry. It is taught in college-level electronic literature courses and has received critical attention from both the electronic literature community and contemporary art writers.
Can visitors contribute their own lines to haikU?
Yes. The opening page of haikU includes a link to "Write haiku" where visitors can submit their own three-line haiku. Each line is posted separately to a bin of first, middle, or last lines and may later appear recombined with lines from other contributors.
What programming languages was haikU built with?
haikU was built using cgi with html and perl. Nanette Wylde described the project as an homage to early internet programmers who created the first web-based, audience-participatory creative works.