5 Best (and Worst) AI Poem Generators
These days, Artificial Intelligence (AI) can do just about anything! It can even draw pictures.
What AI has a little more trouble with, however, is creating poems. Still, that doesn’t stop the AI writers of the world from making their valiant attempts. Here are the best (and worst) AI poem generators.
Let’s see how each one does on the perennial topic of Hades and Persephone…
1. Sonnet Generator
This sonnet generator claims to “take the ‘I’ out of iambic pentameter!” All you have to do is fill in a couple of boxes with words, and the generator will do the rest. (The same site can also generate haiku, villanelles, didactic cinquains, rhyming couplets, limericks, acrostics, tanka, narrative poems, and concrete poems).
Ode to the Hades
A Sonnet by Anonymous
My wonder hades, you inspire me to write.
How I hate the way you gaze, throne and dash,
Invading my mind day and through the night,
Always dreaming about the whisper pash.
Let me compare you to a sere clover?
You are more quiet, create and serene.
Lead storms whip the twiglets of October,
And autumntime has the whispering lean.
How do I hate you? Let me count the ways.
I hate your cthonic, shroud and narcissus.
Thinking of your crafting shroud fills my days.
My hate for you is the paper electrophoresis.
Now I must away with an under heart,
Remember my red words whilst we’re apart.
2. Verse by Verse
Next on the list of artificial intelligence that would love to rule the world is Google! Pick up to three poets’ styles for it to emulate, create a rhyme scheme and syllable count and write a first line, and watch it come up with suggestions for the rest.
Self-described as “an experimental AI-powered muse that helps you compose poetry inspired by classic American poets,” how does the best search engine around fare on its foray into AI poetry generators? You decide.
Hades, deep in the Shadowed Underneath
Filled with alabaster air,
Drowning the voice of the rain,
Laid my hand around my chair.
Saw a dawn, his golden beam,
Hold me now! A single clause!
Pale gold on a naked moon,
Pale gold on a throne of gold.
—Google, inspired by Emily Dickinson, Sara Teasdale, and Edgar Allan Poe
3. Poem of Quotes
This next one can create sad poems, dark poems, heartbreak poems, and love poems, as well as haiku, limericks, rhyming poems, mothers day poems, father’s day poems, Valentines day poems, Christmas poems, New Year’s Eve poems, and acrostic poems based on someone’s name.
When given the prompt of Hades and Persephone, it released this masterpiece:
Hades And Persephone
Day and night
Sleeping and waking
Eating and drinking
Living and dying
The gods and goddesses
The heroes and heroines
And their adventures
4. Song Lyric Generator
After traversing the uncharted waters of poetry-generator-land, I decided to try something a little different in hopes of getting a better result. And thus… the song lyric poetry generator.
On this site, you can choose genres, such as freestyle song, line by line, rap, metal, love song, rhyming song, summer song, country, X Factor song, ballad, Christmas song, and song name, as well as artists for it to emulate like Ariana Grande, Drake, Adele, Eminem rap, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, One Direction, Justin Bieber, Beyoncé, The Beatles, Britney Spears, REM, Grease the Musical, Abba, The Village People, Frank Sinatra, The Cranberries, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Beautiful South. Whatever you pick, just fill in the blanks and then click the button to create your awesome poem.
I picked country song and ended up with:
Always Stay Honest, Hades
The Yellow Wallpaper Graphic Novel
I grew up overshadowed by shimmering lethe
Couldn’t catch the eye of no city girl
Here I am devoted to Hades
How I love the way you look in your black jeans
Can’t believe I let the smog cloud my eye
Where the shimmering lethe stand
And the grey fields surround
I’ll ride my glossy truck with you by my side
There’s a whisper in the underworld breeze
Reminding me of mother
That whisper builds
That whisper cries
Mother in the morning skies
You appear on the horizon
Brushing that soft hair from your eyes
The city folk with their fancy gadgets
Cement lethe like grey tombs
Don’t have nothin’ on our way of life
Just listen to the caw
Don’t live your life like the dead
Today might feel a time to be like the dead
But that ain’t no way to lead a life
You know, there’s a lot I drive by in my glossy truck
Folk who is messing up
Always stay honest, Hades
Always stay honest
In underworld, when I was a child
I met a honest man
“How can you be so honest?” asked I
Here was his wise reply
Don’t live your life like the dead
Today might feel a time to be like the dead
But that ain’t no way to lead a life
Met an old lady who lived like the dead
“What happened to her?” asked I
Here was his wise reprise
Don’t live your life like the dead
Today might feel a time to be like the dead
But that ain’t no way to lead a life
That lady’s gone now
It’s sad really
Word is, she had soft hair once
Little Hades, keep your jeans black
Always stay honest, Hades
Always stay honest
Caw, caw, caw
Caw, caw, caw…
This was a fun enough result that I decided to try one more time, in a different genre. This time I picked ballad. The result:
The Tale of My Stern King Husband
It began on a sad winter’s dusk:
I was the most Canny Queen around,
He was the most stern king.
He was my husband,
My stern husband,
My king.
We used to run so well together,
Back then.
We wanted to eat together, around the world,
We wanted it all.
But one dusk, one sad dusk,
We decided to eat too much.
Together we dissed Demeter.
It was lonely, so lonely.
From that moment our relationship changed.
He grew so hopeful.
And then it happened:
Oh no! Oh no!
He starved a humans.
Alas, a humans!
My husband starved a humans.
It was waiting, so waiting.
The next day I thought my eyes had broken,
I thought my hands had burst into flames,
(But I was actually overreacting a little.)
But still, he is in my thoughts.
I think about how it all changed that dusk,
That sad winter’s dusk.
My hands… ouch!
When I think of that stern king,
That stern king and me.
5. Vogon Poetry Generator
Had enough amazing AI poem generators? Want some really terrible poetry? Perhaps you would be interested in the Vogon poetry generator.
Introduced in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Vogons are a kind of space-alien who write the third worst poetry in the entire universe. Come on, take a seat… it won’t hurt (much).
The prisoners sat in Poetry Appreciation Chairs—strapped in. Vogons suffered no illusions as to the regard their works were generally held in. Their early attempts at composition had been part of bludgeoning insistence that they be accepted as a properly evolved and cultured race, but now the only thing that kept them going was sheer bloodymindedness. […]
The Vogon began to read—a fetid little passage of his own devising.”
—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 7
See, see the gold-bladed sky
Marvel at its big bile depths.
Tell me, Hecate do you
Wonder why the glum ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel emerald.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your adrefneigfrtg facial growth
That looks like
A thump.
What’s more, it knows
Your mold potting shed
Smells of corpse flower.
Everything under the big gold-bladed sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm cockroach.
‘Now Earthlings…’ whirred the Vogon […] ‘I present you with a simple choice! Either die in the vacuum of space, or . . .’ he paused for melodramatic effect, ‘tell me how good you thought my poem was!’
Arthur said brightly: ‘Actually I quite liked it.’ […] ‘I thought that some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective.’ […]
‘Yes, do continue…’ invited the Vogon. […]
‘interesting rhythmic devices too,’ continued Arthur, ‘which seemed to counterpoint the… er… er…’ He floundered.
Ford leaped to his rescue, hazarding ‘counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the… er…” […]
‘…humanity of the…’
‘Vogonity,’ Ford hissed at him.
‘Ah yes, Vogonity (sorry) of the poet’s compassionate soul,’ Arthur felt he was on a home stretch now, ‘which contrives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other,’ (he was reaching a triumphant crescendo…) ‘and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into… into… er…” (…which suddenly gave out on him.) Ford leaped in with the coup de grace:
‘Into whatever it was the poem was about!'”
—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, chapter 7
Try It: AI Poem Generators or Your Own Words
If you enjoyed these AI poem generators, you might also enjoy writing a Hades and Persephone poem yourself. Use one of the generators above, and share your masterpiece in the comment box.
Or, check out poetry prompt: a tunnel to the underworld and Eating and Drinking Poems: Anne Overstreet’s “Under Heaven” and pen a poem in your own words.
Photo by Isiah Jackman, via Unsplash. Post by Sara Barkat,, illustrator of The Yellow Wall-Paper: A Graphic Novel and author of the science fiction collection The Shivering Ground.
You might also like:
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“Sara’s stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations help to tell a difficult, haunting story. I will return to the story, as I do with all those stories I love, again and again.”
—Callie Feyen, teacher
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Bethany Rohde says
“When given the prompt of Hades and Persephone, it released this masterpiece. . . .”
I’m chuckling. Thanks for writing this interesting post!
L.L. Barkat says
That part made me laugh, too, Bethany.
Oh! And the Vogon’s poetry appreciation chair section was just so much fun. (I keep wondering, who are the first *two* worst poetry writers in the universe? 🙂 )
Some of these poems are actually approaching being acceptable. With a little tweaking (the removal of a few caws for instance), the AI world could be on its poetry way.
Bethany R. says
Yes! The amusing specificity of the “third worst” certainly sticks in the mind more than saying it’s *the* worst, which just sounds like hyperbole. Such a fun post.
Laura Lynn Brown says
We just had a Zoom workshop this week on concerns and even opportunities related to composition classes and chatbot text generators.
Stephan says
I tried your prompt “Hades and Persephone” on https://aipoemgenerator.com/ and got the following result:
Down in the Underworld, Hades and his bride
Persephone, daughter of Demeter’s pride
Till half the year she has to stay
And winter cold is all the day
But when the months are drawing nigh
Once more Persephone will fly
To the world above with golden light
Where the Sun will make her day so bright
The King of Dead takes back his Queen
As the summer melts into a dream
For when the Earth is blanketed white
Hades and Persephone take flight
Boghos L. Artinian says
Hovel ! Take a picaxe and a shovel,
Till the earth and remove the gravel.
Better do your physical work ‘ ,
Than beg a poem from an AI j—.
Juana Guillen says
Corazón imaginado
Inexistente
Tal vez te repetirás
Copiaras y copiaras
Cortarlas tus límites
Y en ellos
Encontrarás más
L.L. Barkat says
poema hermoso, juana.