ARTIST OR CURATOR AI Panacea or Pain Contest

ARTIST OR CURATOR? This poem is written as 'food for thought' for “AI: Panacea or Pain? Poetry Contest,” Simon Rogerson, sponsor, August 10, 2025. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the lifeless labyrinth of algorithms, a spark of genius flickers— an architect of thought, a sculptor, a poet, unseen~ the AI poet. Fingers poised upon my keyboard, I see a potential flickering on my computer screen. I ponder~ “Do I chase the promise of ease, the allure of poems at my fingertips?” “Do I taste of the proverbial forbidden fruit only to have poets cast me out of the poetic Garden of Eden? Do I embrace AI, boldly going where few poets have gone using AI to enhance my thoughts and creativity?” “Can an algorithm, no matter how intricate, capture human laughter and joy, taste the salt of tears, feel the tremor of our grief~ or will it merely mimic, a digitized parrot in a cage of ones and zeros?” “Are the lines of AI poetry mine or are they borrowed, plagiarized from the ether? Do I craft or merely compile? Am I the artist, or the curator of a gallery of stanzas and rhymes?” “What is originality, but a mosaic of memories? A borrowed heartbeat, a stolen glance, the way the moon reflects the sun’s light, never truly its own?” “Can I claim the sun’s warmth, the moon’s glow, or the laughter of children, the pain of loss, as my own? In the labyrinth of language, who owns the path, who lays the stones?” I reflect on the poets of old, their quills carving their truths onto parchment, while I sift through the dust of the Internet, gathering fragments of thought, like a magpie drawn to glittering shards. So, here I am, a seeker, an expressionist of the unspoken, treading the fine line between creation and imitation, my fingers dancing on the keys. In the end, perhaps it is not the source that defines the soul of the poem, but the intention, the heart behind the lines, the longing to connect, to feel, to be understood.