AI vs. Author

The Next Line: April is Poetry Month

April 2026 marks the 30^th anniversary of National Poetry Month, which brings to mind how poetry and writing in general has evolved over the centuries. The style of, ‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much’ became, ‘Girl, you’re trippin’ - you better check yourself’ while today, an entity within creative evolution is changing the entire literary process.

The mass integration of online Artificial Intelligence (AI) engines has changed the writing landscape again, making it easy for someone to create a literary work, while in reality the author possibly did nothing more than type a few keywords or sentences into an AI generator and watched as a poem, novel, or technical piece was ‘written’ before their eyes. This type of writing opens a world of debate based on the ethical use of AI by authors.

While there are several areas of discussion around this, the main thing to note is AI created work cannot be copyrighted by a person, since a person did not create the content, which means that technically that work is in the open domain and can be copied, used, and distributed by anybody. While this loophole will probably get closed fairly soon by revised Copyright law, the main question that is asked when talking about AI and it’s use in creating literary works is; “Why would any self-respecting author want to use AI to create a literary piece for them?” That has been a topic of debate we’ve discussed in several meetings of the Keller Writers Association, but the March meeting escalated the debate.

I wasn’t at that meeting, but at the April meeting, the topic was brought up again, and amidst all the harumphs, I realized the guy sitting beside me caused the recent debate, as he told me what he did at the March meeting. For context, each month, the group members who choose to do so write a 53-word story around a specific prompt.  Each author reads their story aloud and the attendees vote on the best story presented, with the winner getting to select one book from a selection of books as their reward.

I hear you birdies chirping, and yes, the guy next to me told me he used AI to write his 53-word story in March, and that this story won the contest. He explained that after the votes were tallied, he informed the group that he used AI to write the story with the purpose of seeing if AI could write something good enough to be accepted by other writers. He basically did it as an experiment, with no ill-will intended.

After all the current harumphs died down, we voted that since the 53-word story is a competition to determine who has written the best story for that prompt, AI could not be used in the story’s creation, as it would be cheating, but we also decided that a member who submits their book chapter or short story for the group to critique could use AI, as it is not our position to police other writer’s on their individual writing journey. This gave me an idea.

To continue the experiment of AI versus Author, similar to Dwight vs The Computer, today I’m presenting you with two poems – one that I wrote that I know none of you have read, and an AI created poem that uses the same title as its prompt. Now, the purpose of this isn’t to determine which poem was written by me or AI, as that will probably be obvious to those of you who have read my work; it is merely to decide which one you prefer. Email me at awbaumaninfo@gmail.com with your choice, and why you prefer the poem you chose. Here are the poems.

The State of the U.S.

A country hums beneath fluorescent light,

half dream, half argument, all unfinished—

where highways stitch together distant hopes

and billboards preach in bold, unblinking fonts.

We speak in headlines, shortened into heat,

thumb-scrolling past each other’s quiet truths,

our voices loud, yet somehow hard of hearing—

an echo chamber lined with good intentions.

But fractures run like fault lines through the land—

not always seen yet always felt beneath the daily rhythm of the working day,

a subtle shake that never fully rests.

We measure worth in numbers, likes, and speed,

yet hunger for a slower kind of meaning;

we build more screens, then ache to look away,

to find our faces in another’s eyes.

And still—there’s motion, stubborn as the dawn.

A restless, questioning, becoming force.

Not fixed, nor finished, flawed and luminous—

a nation learning what it means to be.

The State of the U.S

The picturesque silhouette of a statue

in the full moon shadows your beauty,

glowing pale in comparison to the baroque

musings of those who've come undone.

While the wind and child stay wild,

who do you love?

The seamstress is busy putting patches on torn souls,

ripped from the houses of the holy.

Heathens ask you who you know,

amidst a band playing in a hurricane

that floats a city out to the sea.

And yes, Jim, people are strange.

Within a gale this societal maelstrom

turns and churns brother against sister,

nonsense against logic, where lies are hurled through the air,

as truth walks slowly, calmly, lonely

into eternity.