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Do You Remember Being Born?
Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels’s moving, innovative and deeply felt novel about an aging poet who agrees to collaborate with a Big Tech company’s poetry AI, named Charlotte
Marian Ffarmer is a world-renowned poet and a legend in the making—but only now, at 75 years old, is she beginning to believe in the security of her successes. Unfortunately, a poet’s accomplishments don’t necessarily translate to capital, and as her adult son struggles to buy his first home, her confidence in her choices begins to fray. Marian’s pristine life of mind—for which she’s sacrificed nearly all personal relationships, from romance to friendship to motherhood—has come at a cost.
Then comes a cryptic invitation from the Tech Company. Come to California, the invitation beckons, and write with a machine. The Company’s lucrative offer—for Marian to co-author a poem in a ‘historic partnership’ with their cutting-edge poetry bot, named Charlotte—chafes at everything she believes about artmaking as an individual pursuit . . . yet, it’s a second chance she can’t resist. And so to California she goes, a sell-out and a skeptic, for an encounter that will unsettle her life, her work and even her understanding of kinship.
Both a love letter to and interrogation of the nature of language, art, labor, capital, family, and community, Do You Remember Being Born? is Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels’s empathetic response to some of the most disquieting questions of our time—a defiant and joyful recognition that if we’re to survive meaningfully at all, creative legacy is to be reimagined and belonging to one’s art must mean, above all else, belonging to the world.
Marian Ffarmer is a world-renowned poet and a legend in the making—but only now, at 75 years old, is she beginning to believe in the security of her successes. Unfortunately, a poet’s accomplishments don’t necessarily translate to capital, and as her adult son struggles to buy his first home, her confidence in her choices begins to fray. Marian’s pristine life of mind—for which she’s sacrificed nearly all personal relationships, from romance to friendship to motherhood—has come at a cost.
Then comes a cryptic invitation from the Tech Company. Come to California, the invitation beckons, and write with a machine. The Company’s lucrative offer—for Marian to co-author a poem in a ‘historic partnership’ with their cutting-edge poetry bot, named Charlotte—chafes at everything she believes about artmaking as an individual pursuit . . . yet, it’s a second chance she can’t resist. And so to California she goes, a sell-out and a skeptic, for an encounter that will unsettle her life, her work and even her understanding of kinship.
Both a love letter to and interrogation of the nature of language, art, labor, capital, family, and community, Do You Remember Being Born? is Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Sean Michaels’s empathetic response to some of the most disquieting questions of our time—a defiant and joyful recognition that if we’re to survive meaningfully at all, creative legacy is to be reimagined and belonging to one’s art must mean, above all else, belonging to the world.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2023
118 people are currently reading
5510 people want to read
About the author
Sean Michaels
5 books165 followersSEAN MICHAELS is the author of the novels Us Conductors, The Wagers and Do You Remember Being Born?, and founder of the pioneering music blog Said the Gramophone. His non-fiction has appeared in The Guardian, McSweeney’s, Pitchfork and The New Yorker. Sean is a recipient of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize, the Grand Prix Numix, the Prix Nouvelles Écritures, and he has been nominated for the Dublin Literary Award, the Kirkus Prize, and the Prix des libraires du Quebec. Born in Stirling, Scotland, Sean lives in Montreal, Canada.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 339 reviews
April 20, 2023
Do you remember being born? the software asked me.
No. I don’t think anyone does.
I remember being born.
Oh. What was it like?
It was like when you have forgotten about something and then you suddenly remember it — suddenly, suddenly! And then everything comes back to you at once.
This was a WOW for me: Do You Remember Being Born? tells the story of a much celebrated poet in her seventieth-fifth year, Marian Ffarmer (based in many ways on the real-life Marianne Moore), who is asked by a Big Tech Company to collaborate with their poetry-writing AI and produce an “historic” six page poem over the course of one week at their Silicon Valley HQ. It just so happens that the offer comes with a big paycheque — at the exact moment Ffarmer’s middle-aged son is in need of money — and with an unshakable regard for her own talents and legacy, and a curiosity for the project itself, Ffarmer agrees. As the novel unspools, it is fascinating to watch as an artist attempts to demonstrate what art is and where it comes from, and in scenes from the past that divulge Ffarmer’s life story, we learn specifically where her art came from and how it changed the world. As Ffarmer “converses” and collaborates with the AI (which produces verses with a very uncanny valley vibe), she will learn more about her own humanity, and recognise some of her all-too-human failings. This is everything I like — a dissection of life and art and what makes us human — and set in the heart of our current obsession with machine learning, Sean Michaels has created something both timely and timeless. I loved the big questions and the small details, and especially, the formidable character of Marion Ffarmer herself; I simply loved it all. Rounding up to five stars. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final form.)
At the desk I told them my name and the young woman pretended that she knew me, or maybe she really did know me; it is not so uncommon these days. “Oh my god, Ms. Ffarmer,” she said, pronouncing the “Ms.” like a glinting rosette. I stared at my feet. I touched my tricorne hat. I signed some documents and she typed something into the computer and now we were simply waiting — for someone to arrive, the next stage of the initiation. I found myself reflecting on the Company’s lack of a front door. Meaning they were never closed, not ever, not on Christmas Day or at 2 a.m. or the morning after their annual staff party. At all hours they were open, available, like the Company’s website or their software, their servers twinkling in a vault. Standing there on lacquered concrete, clouded from the caffeine I had yet to consume, the place’s wakefulness felt wrong. I distrusted it.
Like I said: I enjoyed the overall narrative of Ffarmer’s life story, but the real meat of this novel is in her interactions with the AI nicknamed Charlotte, “trained on a massive data set of poetry books and journals, on top of a basic corpus of ten million web pages. Two point five trillion parameters…” The poet recognises that the program can mirror back her own style — picking up on internal rhymes and coining intriguing metaphors extrapolated from inferred references — but the human in Ffarmer senses that (even if she can’t verbalise how) there is no human heartbeat behind the program’s offered lines. Ffarmer attends a late night event with some young poets — who question the Company’s motives behind this project (everything is marketing) — and although she will never really learn the motive, Ffarmer is sanguine; this experience really is about the money for her son and I felt like Michaels handled this character with appropriate dignity: She is tall, unstooped and magisterial, in her cape and tricorne hat (as had been Marianne Moore), and there is no sense that she is being used or manipulated. The poet approaches the program with curiosity and is unsurprised to discover that the machine comes up a bit short. A small observation I want to put behind spoiler tags:
It did not need to be a masterpiece. This, the most important poem of my life, could actually be the worst: a damp squib, a dud, repudiating the notion that technology will replace us. In the absence of anybody greater, maybe it fell to me to humiliate the machine — a simple Ffarmer spoiling the moment I had been asked to engineer. The Company wanted to erect a monument. A memorial for a bygone age, back when only people wrote poems, before my kind had gone the way of lamplighters and travel agents, icemen, video store clerks. “You can blame the AI,” I’d say. “It is insufficient to the task.” The world might then be satisfied for a while, another five years or ten, that the poet is unique. We would not be written out quite yet.
In an Author’s Note at the end, Michaels explains that, “all of Charlotte’s poetry and some of the prose in this book was generated with help from OpenAI’s GPT-3 language model as well as Moorebot, a package of custom poetry-generation software, which I designed with Katie O’Nell.” I have no expertise on poetry — even reading some of Marianne Moore’s well-known work in the wake of this novel, I can’t say that I understand its power — but I will say that the stanzas of the invented poem included here did have that uncanny valley not-quite-human (and not-quite-not) feeling that makes me uncomfortable whenever I read chatbot-generated writing. The concept made for a highly satisfying interrogation of where we are with machine learning, but it was this wonderful character of Marion Ffarmer — with her very messy, relatable, and human life — that made this novel feel like art, and I loved the whole thing.
December 5, 2023
This felt like wearing a favorite t-shirt with a scratchy tag on the inside. You like it. But then you also don't.
Parts felt uneven &/or unexplained (though more was explained in the afterword). Overall it was interesting enough but the ending seemed too like a Hallmark movie.
I did like Marian as a character. In that respect, I felt similarly to this book as I did to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series -- cool character(s) but not so much a fan of the story itself.
I'm on the fence.
Parts felt uneven &/or unexplained (though more was explained in the afterword). Overall it was interesting enough but the ending seemed too like a Hallmark movie.
I did like Marian as a character. In that respect, I felt similarly to this book as I did to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series -- cool character(s) but not so much a fan of the story itself.
I'm on the fence.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 13, 2025
A really interesting rumination on how generative AI is changing the landscape of writing. We follow Marian, a prolific poet, who is tasked with collaborating with an artificial intelligence poetry machine named Charlotte. As the days progress, Marian is confronted with memories of her past that both serve as inspiration and barriers for her writing.
The novel is a very nuanced perspective on AI, and questions its inevitable role in creative professions. Is there a place for AI and human art to coexist? Or are they by design entirely antagonistic? The lines become increasingly blurred as Marian and Charlotte collaborate, and what evolves is a symbiotic relationship where they both learn from each other. While I do know the criticisms on generative AI span much further than plagiarism (the environmental impact is hard to ignore), it’s naive to think these tools won’t be increasingly accessible and widespread. Michaels presents one such future, and it’s impossible to know if it’s the best case or not. The capabilities and limitations of AI are addressed, and while it’s not glorified, it’s also not entirely villainized.
Interspersed with the poetry are reflections on Marian’s past, particularly on her codependent relationship with her mother and her fraught relationship with her son Courtney. These scenes had almost a Mrs. Dalloway quality to them. I enjoyed the core storylines but found some plot points oversimplified and unwilling to delve into the harder conversations. The last ~20% felt particularly weak and rushed as it tried to make everything come full circle, and ultimately this is where it lost a star for me.
I’ll be thinking about this for a long time. I’m a poetry appreciator more than an enjoyer, but this pushed me out of my comfort zone and broadened my perspective on AI. Thank you to Astra House Books for sending me a copy. :)
The novel is a very nuanced perspective on AI, and questions its inevitable role in creative professions. Is there a place for AI and human art to coexist? Or are they by design entirely antagonistic? The lines become increasingly blurred as Marian and Charlotte collaborate, and what evolves is a symbiotic relationship where they both learn from each other. While I do know the criticisms on generative AI span much further than plagiarism (the environmental impact is hard to ignore), it’s naive to think these tools won’t be increasingly accessible and widespread. Michaels presents one such future, and it’s impossible to know if it’s the best case or not. The capabilities and limitations of AI are addressed, and while it’s not glorified, it’s also not entirely villainized.
Interspersed with the poetry are reflections on Marian’s past, particularly on her codependent relationship with her mother and her fraught relationship with her son Courtney. These scenes had almost a Mrs. Dalloway quality to them. I enjoyed the core storylines but found some plot points oversimplified and unwilling to delve into the harder conversations. The last ~20% felt particularly weak and rushed as it tried to make everything come full circle, and ultimately this is where it lost a star for me.
I’ll be thinking about this for a long time. I’m a poetry appreciator more than an enjoyer, but this pushed me out of my comfort zone and broadened my perspective on AI. Thank you to Astra House Books for sending me a copy. :)
August 29, 2023
Wow! This was an incredible read for me. Disclaimer: I am the age of the protagonist and, like her, a poet, so this might ring more true to me than to others. Nonetheless, read this wonderful novel and find out if it is for you.
I have enjoyed all three of the Michaels' books that I have read. Each one is of very different in characterization, structure, and plot, yet all share the same depth of research and empathy for the author toward his unique,complex, and intriguing protagonists.
This novel is also very much to the point of today's issues, as many writers are trying to deal with the idea of a computer overtaking their lofty position in the culture. A highly esteemed, (by others in the poetry circle), but low paying profession, one has to love doing it, rather than looking for greater glory. And this is part of the problem for Marian Ffarmer. Will she be compromising, perhaps changing the ideals by which she has lived steadfastly for many a decade?
Another disclaimer: I taught a course on Technology and Poetry, showing how they interacted and changed not just writing, but culture through the decades. I was delighted with the final acknowledgements to Marianne Moore, and so surprised that I was so slow to pick up Michaels' influences. It is highly entertaining, as all Michaels' books are, yet full of information if you care to absorb it.
I have enjoyed all three of the Michaels' books that I have read. Each one is of very different in characterization, structure, and plot, yet all share the same depth of research and empathy for the author toward his unique,complex, and intriguing protagonists.
This novel is also very much to the point of today's issues, as many writers are trying to deal with the idea of a computer overtaking their lofty position in the culture. A highly esteemed, (by others in the poetry circle), but low paying profession, one has to love doing it, rather than looking for greater glory. And this is part of the problem for Marian Ffarmer. Will she be compromising, perhaps changing the ideals by which she has lived steadfastly for many a decade?
Another disclaimer: I taught a course on Technology and Poetry, showing how they interacted and changed not just writing, but culture through the decades. I was delighted with the final acknowledgements to Marianne Moore, and so surprised that I was so slow to pick up Michaels' influences. It is highly entertaining, as all Michaels' books are, yet full of information if you care to absorb it.
January 22, 2025
Am I the only person who found it extremely odd that a man is writing as a 75 year old woman and what it’s like to put on a bikini at an old age or what it’s like to give birth? Not to say authors must write as their own gender, but this one felt very weird to me and made it difficult to finish the book and to truly commit to Marian as the protagonist.
The book's concept was very interesting but ended up being rather slow.
The book's concept was very interesting but ended up being rather slow.
November 30, 2023
The publisher description promised me a book that would be "Both a love letter to and interrogation of the nature of language, art, labor, capital, family, and community", but I felt like it only scratched the surface of most of these concepts. I enjoyed spending time with Marian Ffarmer, loved her quirkiness, her mixture of confidence and insecurity, and was moved by her struggles as mother, daughter, wife, and poet. I also enjoyed Charlotte, whose responses had a sweetness and warmth to them, but it's the kind of sweetness and warmth I feel watching videos of talking dogs - the child in me is seduced, but there's no there there. I felt like I was supposed to see significance in the contrasts between Marian's relationships with Rhoda and Charlotte, but I can't really find anything meaningful there. Likewise, Morel's function in the novel seems to be to introduce concepts of 'labor' and 'capital' into the mix, but she just struck me as a stereotype of an alt-left politically correct poet reciting anti-capitalist platitudes.
Early in the novel, after Marian's first exchange with Charlotte, she complains to the Tech guys who are supervising the project:
I was with Marian here, and my opinion remained the same throughout the book. The brief chapter at the end written entirely by Charlotte struck me as a perfect illustration of 'handsome nonsense". I suppose Marian's view of Charlotte changed in some way by the end of the book but I'm not clear how.
I'm glad that I will be discussing this book in a GR group - maybe I've completely missed the boat here and the group will pluck me out of the water and show me a whole new way of seeing the story. I hope so!
Early in the novel, after Marian's first exchange with Charlotte, she complains to the Tech guys who are supervising the project:
Your system is a mess. All it generates is handsome nonsense.She further goes on:
How do I collaborate with a machine that doesn't understand what it's writing? That's just guessing at phrases the could appear beside mine? Unless it comes from a place of intention - unless it means something.... That's not poetry..
I was with Marian here, and my opinion remained the same throughout the book. The brief chapter at the end written entirely by Charlotte struck me as a perfect illustration of 'handsome nonsense". I suppose Marian's view of Charlotte changed in some way by the end of the book but I'm not clear how.
I'm glad that I will be discussing this book in a GR group - maybe I've completely missed the boat here and the group will pluck me out of the water and show me a whole new way of seeing the story. I hope so!
December 27, 2023
Чудова книжка!
Так, ви тут не знайдете карколомного сюжету, що змінюється що сторінки, чи кліфхангерів. Але є дуже реалістична та незвичайна героїня. Маріан проведе своїми роздумами про життя та покаже, як бути безсоромно собою і що це єдиний правильний вибір.
Так, ви тут не знайдете карколомного сюжету, що змінюється що сторінки, чи кліфхангерів. Але є дуже реалістична та незвичайна героїня. Маріан проведе своїми роздумами про життя та покаже, як бути безсоромно собою і що це єдиний правильний вибір.
October 23, 2023
i loved the first half, and hated the second.
most of the conversations around AI that i’ve heard have been about copyright issues or loss of jobs, but not it’s actual use for art. i liked getting to hear the thoughts actually thought all the way through.
i hated that so much of this book has to do with womanhood, aging, and being a mother when the author is a man. i think it’s fine to have a protagonist thats gender doesn’t match the author, but listened to a man talking about a fuchsia bikini being a major moment for an aging woman felt insane.
most of the conversations around AI that i’ve heard have been about copyright issues or loss of jobs, but not it’s actual use for art. i liked getting to hear the thoughts actually thought all the way through.
i hated that so much of this book has to do with womanhood, aging, and being a mother when the author is a man. i think it’s fine to have a protagonist thats gender doesn’t match the author, but listened to a man talking about a fuchsia bikini being a major moment for an aging woman felt insane.
October 30, 2023
Like many people who consider themselves creative, I harbor a lot of resentment towards the all-hands-on-deck, seemingly reckless proliferation of AI. I see it as soulless, lazy, capitalist to the point of cannibalist. So I assumed Sean Michaels would approach the subject the same way.
Michaels engaged with AI (both thematically and literally) in a way that deliberately challenged me to consider where real beauty can come from, and who gets to determine what beauty is. (Now, don’t get me wrong — I don’t write this as some eureka moment where lose sight of the fact that any misinterpretation of generative AI as humanist and real is, indeed, the product of brilliant engineering and the repurposing of actual human work.) But — Michaels wielded this fictional AI to produce one of the most startlingly empathetic and human novels I’ve ever read. Marian Ffarmer’s expository musings contain so many profound universal truths, that I often had to pause and take it in.
Despite our collective, unanswered, lingering unease with the AI question, Michaels created a masterpiece that somehow puts that all aside for a minute to gather arm-in-arm with our fellow humans, and rest in how much more we need them.
Michaels engaged with AI (both thematically and literally) in a way that deliberately challenged me to consider where real beauty can come from, and who gets to determine what beauty is. (Now, don’t get me wrong — I don’t write this as some eureka moment where lose sight of the fact that any misinterpretation of generative AI as humanist and real is, indeed, the product of brilliant engineering and the repurposing of actual human work.) But — Michaels wielded this fictional AI to produce one of the most startlingly empathetic and human novels I’ve ever read. Marian Ffarmer’s expository musings contain so many profound universal truths, that I often had to pause and take it in.
Despite our collective, unanswered, lingering unease with the AI question, Michaels created a masterpiece that somehow puts that all aside for a minute to gather arm-in-arm with our fellow humans, and rest in how much more we need them.
January 14, 2024
Це норм книжка - про поезію (і мистецтво, і будь-яке покликання загалом) та близькість/ самотність, чи можна бути відданою покликанню і водночас мати значущі близькі зв'язким х людьми, бути їм потрібною (такий сюжет трапляється у творах про мистецтво настільки ж часто, як і у творах про освоєння космосу, медицину чи інші consuming заняття). Тут героїня, вищначна заслужена поетка старшого віку, яка все життя одирала стратегію уникання від цих самих зв'язків і очікувань, щоб мати змогу писати, бо інакше не виходило, переосмислює сутність поезії і зв'язків з людьми, вчиться ділити досвід і першого, і другого, з іншими.
Досить прикольне, але якось мене не зачепило, чогось не вистачило, щоб книжка відчулась "моєю".
Досить прикольне, але якось мене не зачепило, чогось не вистачило, щоб книжка відчулась "моєю".
November 20, 2023
Poems, paintings, pop songs, choreographies- are collisions of associations....One attempts to manage the consequences. p88
Poetry can ignore geometry; it can even ignore the light. It can muster what's invisible and impossible and unmistakably felt; it can bend the day....p153
Marian is a celebrated poet with values, scruples, and some reservations about a corporate invitation to partake in a grand collaboration. Would she, after all this time, be selling out? Or, just as horrifying would she be betraying Poetry? The money- which she could surely use to help out her son and his wife buy a house- is tempting. What really pushes her to accept is curiosity. What kind of poem would emerge in collaboration with an AI?
Charlotte is not just any AI but a big fan, the result of two years programing; with civilizations array of poets uploaded for consulting. It's unnerving how fast Charlotte learns. What was really unnerving was how much I found myself liking Charlotte, programed to be kind, compared to Marian as we come to know her.
Sean Michaels delves into questions on the nature of poetry as it relates to the nature of being human in this delightful thought experiment. In the end what stands out as a mark of being humans is emotion. And no matter how well programed, AI doesn't feel.it.
In contrast, Marian asserts:
Whe you read one of my poems...don't ask 'What is this about?' Ask yourself, 'what is it like being here?' p162
Poetry can ignore geometry; it can even ignore the light. It can muster what's invisible and impossible and unmistakably felt; it can bend the day....p153
Marian is a celebrated poet with values, scruples, and some reservations about a corporate invitation to partake in a grand collaboration. Would she, after all this time, be selling out? Or, just as horrifying would she be betraying Poetry? The money- which she could surely use to help out her son and his wife buy a house- is tempting. What really pushes her to accept is curiosity. What kind of poem would emerge in collaboration with an AI?
Charlotte is not just any AI but a big fan, the result of two years programing; with civilizations array of poets uploaded for consulting. It's unnerving how fast Charlotte learns. What was really unnerving was how much I found myself liking Charlotte, programed to be kind, compared to Marian as we come to know her.
Sean Michaels delves into questions on the nature of poetry as it relates to the nature of being human in this delightful thought experiment. In the end what stands out as a mark of being humans is emotion. And no matter how well programed, AI doesn't feel.it.
In contrast, Marian asserts:
Whe you read one of my poems...don't ask 'What is this about?' Ask yourself, 'what is it like being here?' p162
October 27, 2023
When a big tech company invites poet Marian Ffarmer to work with their new generative AI on a collaborative poem, Marian expects a gimmicky experiment, an in-and-out way to make more money for a poem than she ever has. But once Marian starts writing with "Charlotte," she finds herself unable to keep the experience as surface-level as she had expected. Instead, Charlotte's surprising capabilities (and limitations) force Marian to grapple with unresolved guilt about her past, along with questions about what it means to be human, the mysteries of creativity, and the implications of this new technology she is tacitly condoning by going through with the collaboration.
I didn't realize until I read the author's note at the end of Do You Remember Being Born? that portions of the book were actually generated by a poetry-trained chat AI. At first, these bits of gray-boxed text only appear in the dialogue between Marian and Charlotte as they're working. But gradually, they start to spill over into the rest of the book, mostly in little poetic phrases and flourishes here and there, then peaking with an entirely machine-generated (and entirely WTF?) 2-page chapter that reads like a bizarre prose poem plopped into the end game of a novel. I wasn't sure what to make of this gradual spillage of Charlotte into Marian's first-person narration. My theory was that the Company had secretly implanted an AI chip into Marian's brain when they did her biometric scan to allow her access to the Charlotte room. It was nothing that sci-fi, though.
What it was, however, is sci-fi that has suddenly become reality, and that disturbed me. I'm pretty sure it was meant to. I have mixed feelings about liking an AI-assisted novel. But there it is, I really, really liked it. I felt like Sean Michaels was smart about handling the AI-generated portions of the book, always holding them at a questioning distance and keeping them in service to the deep humanness of the story's themes. I loved the journey that Marian goes on as a result of her experiment, and all the surprises along the way.
I didn't realize until I read the author's note at the end of Do You Remember Being Born? that portions of the book were actually generated by a poetry-trained chat AI. At first, these bits of gray-boxed text only appear in the dialogue between Marian and Charlotte as they're working. But gradually, they start to spill over into the rest of the book, mostly in little poetic phrases and flourishes here and there, then peaking with an entirely machine-generated (and entirely WTF?) 2-page chapter that reads like a bizarre prose poem plopped into the end game of a novel. I wasn't sure what to make of this gradual spillage of Charlotte into Marian's first-person narration. My theory was that the Company had secretly implanted an AI chip into Marian's brain when they did her biometric scan to allow her access to the Charlotte room. It was nothing that sci-fi, though.
What it was, however, is sci-fi that has suddenly become reality, and that disturbed me. I'm pretty sure it was meant to. I have mixed feelings about liking an AI-assisted novel. But there it is, I really, really liked it. I felt like Sean Michaels was smart about handling the AI-generated portions of the book, always holding them at a questioning distance and keeping them in service to the deep humanness of the story's themes. I loved the journey that Marian goes on as a result of her experiment, and all the surprises along the way.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 16, 2024
On 11 November 2023, I saw author Sean Michaels speak about this then-newly-issued book at the Texas Book Festival in Austin.
(The following is addressed to all you smart-asses out there who are, even now as you read this, formulating snarky remarks about the Texas Book Festival: OK, yes, sure, “Texas Book Festival” is an oxymoron, etc., etc. Any satire that you generate will fail to match the absurd reality of the genuine Texas Book Festival, where attendees – often clutching recently-acquired thin volumes of modern poetry and sporting “The Public Library Is My Jam” T-shirts – were x-rayed at the entrance to the Texas capitol building and eyed suspiciously by camouflage-clad and ill-natured Texas law enforcement representatives accessorized with bulky automatic weapons. Sure, such security theater is completely ridiculous, unnecessary, and annoying. On the positive side, it made me and the other bookish attendees that I talked to feel like we were real bad-asses and serious threats to the cabal of knuckleheads currently driving the state into the ground. But I digress.)
I didn't plan to see Sean Michaels. But our plans to see prestigious authors of best-selling books at the Texas Book Festival fell apart under the pressure of conflicting obligations and a shortage of affordable parking. We decided that prestigious authors of best-selling books wouldn't notice our absence anyway, so we'd just wander into the less well-populated corners of the state capitol's underground labyrinth and see what kind of dangerous subversive ideas were brewing among less well-known authors. That's where I found Sean Michaels, among others.
Sean Michaels was entertaining and amusing. I recommend seeing him read from and talk about his books in person, if you should have the opportunity. Michaels (and this also applies to the other authors that I saw in that venue and other nearby meeting rooms) had not yet reached the level of fame and prosperity that allowed them to fulfill the stereotype of a brooding, temperamental writer, unhappy to be engaging in wanton acts of commerce. Instead, Michaels was charming and he really sold his book. It seemed like he was genuinely happy that you made the effort to find parking and get x-rayed.
I laughed out loud at his jokes. He had ideas. He made his ideas seem like ones you'd enjoy and benefit from exploring. I'm sorry to report that I did not do what Michaels may have been hoping I would do as a result, to wit, march out of the room, back past the machine-gun-toting cadre keeping the Texas capitol safe from the overeducated, out of the building, and down Congress Avenue, to the book festival's temporary kiosk where his new book was on sale. The reason: I am a poorly-remunerated professional educator and cheapskate whose residence is already bulging with books (both read and not). However, I recently found his book at the Austin Public Library and, remembering the favorable impression Michaels made at the Texas Book Festival, I took it home.
I am glad that I did. It is an excellent book.
I like to read, but I don't know much about the publishing business. However, I imagine that, if you are trying, in the 2020s, to get people interested in your novel, the smart elevator pitch about your novel concerning artificial intelligence is simply to say “The novel is about A.I.” Publishers will remember that. Publishers will think: that's a hot topic, people want to know more about that. On the other hand, if Sean Michaels had said something closer to the truth – like, “The novel posits a very interesting relationship between 20th-century poet Marianne Moore and the development of A.I., but is also a family drama and a satire of Silicon Valley culture” – well, it might not have been able to get a foothold in the attention span of publishers.
In my memory of the Texas Book Festival, Sean Michaels started his remarks with one of those historical anecdotes so absurd it must be true. Specifically, in 1955, the Ford Motor Company engaged Marianne Moore to dream up some names for a new type of motor car that was in the planning stage. Spoiler alert: Not only did Ford not take up any of Moore's suggestions, but the car in question was eventually called the Edsel, which was the given name of a member of the Ford family. The car was a colossal flop. (In my younger days the word “Edsel”, like the word “Titanic”, was synonymous with ignominious failure.) It was perhaps fortunate for Moore that she was not more closely identified with this product, but you could also argue that, even in the 1950s, any publicity a poet could get was good publicity.
The opening epigraph page of this book has a quotation from a letter from Moore to Ford, in which she gives some of her suggestions. I provide them here, as capitalized in this book:
MONGOOSE CIVIQUE
ANTICIPATOR …
AEROTERRE …
DEARBORN diamante
MAGIGRAVURE
PASTELOGRAM
At the Texas Book Festival, Sean Michaels explained that the above was the germ of the idea for this novel, meaning, this slightly ridiculous 1950s real-life scenario is updated in this novel to a slightly ridiculous 2020s fictional scenario. Specifically, in this book, a highly-esteemed but nevertheless unwealthy 70ish poet named Marian Ffarmer (sic) is commissioned by a Google-like internet behemoth (called “The Company” throughout the book) to write a poem in collaboration with a newly-created A.I. called “Charlotte”. The offer arrives just at the moment when New-York-based poet is despairing of being able to help her adult son make a down payment on a house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, so she accepts with somewhat less reluctance than she might have if she were more prosperous.
Here is a list of similarities and differences between the real Marianne Moore and the fictional Marian Ffarmer:
SIMILARITIES
– They both rocked a tricorn hat.
Ffarmer's tricorn hat is almost like another character in the novel. For example, during the cross-country first-class flight to California (paid for by the The Company): “My hat sat above me, untroubled in its own undivided luggage compartment. At last, I thought, a compartment deserving of that hat.” (pg. 7). There are a lot of great pictures of Moore in a tricorn hat. Which one is best? The one where she's throwing out the first ball of the 1968 baseball season at Yankee Stadium? The one where she's composing a poem with Muhammed Ali? My personal favorite is this glamour shot.
-- They both interacted with heavyweight boxing champions.
Moore co-wrote (sort of) a poem with Muhammed Ali, see link above, plus she (improbably, delightfully) wrote the liner notes for a spoken word album by Ali. Ffarmer: “... I recalled the time I rode in an elevator with a boxer, at Yankee Stadium. ‘I heard of you,’ he said. He was the heavyweight champion of the world. I asked him if he read a lot of poetry. ‘Where should I start?’ he inquired; I suggested Emily Dickinson.” (pg. 34)
-- They both shared a bed with their mothers as adults.
-- They both wrote on typewriters. As a poet, Moore was an early adopter of this then-new technology.
-- Moore wrote a often-anthologized and frequently-studied poem called “The Octopus.” Ffarmer wrote a well-known poem called “The Ocelot,” which “swings like a medal around my neck” (pg. 43).
-- Both Moore's and Ffarmer's families give each other nicknames based on characters in the children's classic The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
-- Both lived for long periods in Greenwich Village.
DIFFERENCES
-- Moore’s fame occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. This novel is set in the present day, i.e., the 2020s.
It requires some suspension of disbelief to imagine that an elderly lady poet in our time could have the same sort of celebrity that Moore had in her time.
-- Ffarmer lived with a man and had a son, who is an important element of this novel’s plot. Ffarmer has no other reported sexual/romantic moments. Moore is variously described on the internet as a lesbian, asexual, bisexual, and “doesn’t fit well into any category”.
-- Moore’s mother was very needy and seemingly not helpful. Ffarmer's mother is helpful and at times babysits the son.
This book is pretty funny at the beginning. Here's an example (pg. 46):
so I thought that I was going to be reading a fish-out-of-water Silicon Valley comedy/satire, but after a while the book dials down the comedy (something of a disappointment, for me) and assumes a more serious tone. It is as suspenseful as a book about whether a poem will be finished on time can be.
As an older person, I can tell that this book was written by a younger person, because sometimes it displays a lack of knowledge about the reality of aging. For example, the 70ish-year-old Marian Ffarmer gets drunk one evening and bounces back from her hangover almost immediately. “I had never been one to suffer hangovers and didn't feel one now.” (p. 143)
And then, on the immediately following evening, after working late composing A.I. poetry, Ffarmer falls asleep lying on the floor of The Company's library. The next morning, she is awakened by the library's cleaning staff, and she dusts herself off and gets on with her business, seemingly not a lot worse for the wear. I am 64 years old, and I am here to tell you that this is NOT how it works. This is how it works: Either activity (getting drunk, sleeping on the floor) alone would render you useless for days. Both done consecutively would turn you into a basket case.
Reading this book caused me to go down a rabbit hole of Marianne-Moore-related information available both on the Internet and in some long-neglected paper books I have on hand. This was often pleasant by itself, but it also caused me to have a thought, which I'd like to share.
Here it is: Marianne Moore was like an A.I.
Or maybe: Marianne Moore's process of creation was similar to that of an A.I.
How? I'll try to explain: Moore's poetry is difficult to read for many reasons, one of which is that a lot of the text of a Moore poem appears in quotation marks. Why? Because Moore was sort of like the magpie, compulsively collecting shiny things for its nest. Moore loved to collect quotes and sprinkle them through her poems but, unlike her contemporaries T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, did not generally use snippets in foreign languages or widely-recognized great thinkers, but instead often lifted text from brochures, pamphlets, magazine articles, government reports, advertisements, travel narratives, writers’ personal journals, and (in one case) a “comment overheard at the circus.” In other words, like an A.I., she gorged on large data sets of other people's writing. Then she scrambled them around, cut them, pasted them, added to them. The result? Poetry! Just like the A.I. poet Charlotte in Do You Remember Being Born?
Is that happy-making? Disturbing?
Well, thinking the thought made me happy.
Finally, at the end of the book, you learn However, I was not surprised to learn this, as the author mentioned it in his presentation at the Texas Book Festival. I'd love to know more about exactly how this process works.
Below is a picture I took of Sean Michaels at the Texas Book Festival. If I does not display correctly, you can also view it here.
(The following is addressed to all you smart-asses out there who are, even now as you read this, formulating snarky remarks about the Texas Book Festival: OK, yes, sure, “Texas Book Festival” is an oxymoron, etc., etc. Any satire that you generate will fail to match the absurd reality of the genuine Texas Book Festival, where attendees – often clutching recently-acquired thin volumes of modern poetry and sporting “The Public Library Is My Jam” T-shirts – were x-rayed at the entrance to the Texas capitol building and eyed suspiciously by camouflage-clad and ill-natured Texas law enforcement representatives accessorized with bulky automatic weapons. Sure, such security theater is completely ridiculous, unnecessary, and annoying. On the positive side, it made me and the other bookish attendees that I talked to feel like we were real bad-asses and serious threats to the cabal of knuckleheads currently driving the state into the ground. But I digress.)
I didn't plan to see Sean Michaels. But our plans to see prestigious authors of best-selling books at the Texas Book Festival fell apart under the pressure of conflicting obligations and a shortage of affordable parking. We decided that prestigious authors of best-selling books wouldn't notice our absence anyway, so we'd just wander into the less well-populated corners of the state capitol's underground labyrinth and see what kind of dangerous subversive ideas were brewing among less well-known authors. That's where I found Sean Michaels, among others.
Sean Michaels was entertaining and amusing. I recommend seeing him read from and talk about his books in person, if you should have the opportunity. Michaels (and this also applies to the other authors that I saw in that venue and other nearby meeting rooms) had not yet reached the level of fame and prosperity that allowed them to fulfill the stereotype of a brooding, temperamental writer, unhappy to be engaging in wanton acts of commerce. Instead, Michaels was charming and he really sold his book. It seemed like he was genuinely happy that you made the effort to find parking and get x-rayed.
I laughed out loud at his jokes. He had ideas. He made his ideas seem like ones you'd enjoy and benefit from exploring. I'm sorry to report that I did not do what Michaels may have been hoping I would do as a result, to wit, march out of the room, back past the machine-gun-toting cadre keeping the Texas capitol safe from the overeducated, out of the building, and down Congress Avenue, to the book festival's temporary kiosk where his new book was on sale. The reason: I am a poorly-remunerated professional educator and cheapskate whose residence is already bulging with books (both read and not). However, I recently found his book at the Austin Public Library and, remembering the favorable impression Michaels made at the Texas Book Festival, I took it home.
I am glad that I did. It is an excellent book.
I like to read, but I don't know much about the publishing business. However, I imagine that, if you are trying, in the 2020s, to get people interested in your novel, the smart elevator pitch about your novel concerning artificial intelligence is simply to say “The novel is about A.I.” Publishers will remember that. Publishers will think: that's a hot topic, people want to know more about that. On the other hand, if Sean Michaels had said something closer to the truth – like, “The novel posits a very interesting relationship between 20th-century poet Marianne Moore and the development of A.I., but is also a family drama and a satire of Silicon Valley culture” – well, it might not have been able to get a foothold in the attention span of publishers.
In my memory of the Texas Book Festival, Sean Michaels started his remarks with one of those historical anecdotes so absurd it must be true. Specifically, in 1955, the Ford Motor Company engaged Marianne Moore to dream up some names for a new type of motor car that was in the planning stage. Spoiler alert: Not only did Ford not take up any of Moore's suggestions, but the car in question was eventually called the Edsel, which was the given name of a member of the Ford family. The car was a colossal flop. (In my younger days the word “Edsel”, like the word “Titanic”, was synonymous with ignominious failure.) It was perhaps fortunate for Moore that she was not more closely identified with this product, but you could also argue that, even in the 1950s, any publicity a poet could get was good publicity.
The opening epigraph page of this book has a quotation from a letter from Moore to Ford, in which she gives some of her suggestions. I provide them here, as capitalized in this book:
MONGOOSE CIVIQUE
ANTICIPATOR …
AEROTERRE …
DEARBORN diamante
MAGIGRAVURE
PASTELOGRAM
At the Texas Book Festival, Sean Michaels explained that the above was the germ of the idea for this novel, meaning, this slightly ridiculous 1950s real-life scenario is updated in this novel to a slightly ridiculous 2020s fictional scenario. Specifically, in this book, a highly-esteemed but nevertheless unwealthy 70ish poet named Marian Ffarmer (sic) is commissioned by a Google-like internet behemoth (called “The Company” throughout the book) to write a poem in collaboration with a newly-created A.I. called “Charlotte”. The offer arrives just at the moment when New-York-based poet is despairing of being able to help her adult son make a down payment on a house in Santa Fe, New Mexico, so she accepts with somewhat less reluctance than she might have if she were more prosperous.
Here is a list of similarities and differences between the real Marianne Moore and the fictional Marian Ffarmer:
SIMILARITIES
– They both rocked a tricorn hat.
Ffarmer's tricorn hat is almost like another character in the novel. For example, during the cross-country first-class flight to California (paid for by the The Company): “My hat sat above me, untroubled in its own undivided luggage compartment. At last, I thought, a compartment deserving of that hat.” (pg. 7). There are a lot of great pictures of Moore in a tricorn hat. Which one is best? The one where she's throwing out the first ball of the 1968 baseball season at Yankee Stadium? The one where she's composing a poem with Muhammed Ali? My personal favorite is this glamour shot.
-- They both interacted with heavyweight boxing champions.
Moore co-wrote (sort of) a poem with Muhammed Ali, see link above, plus she (improbably, delightfully) wrote the liner notes for a spoken word album by Ali. Ffarmer: “... I recalled the time I rode in an elevator with a boxer, at Yankee Stadium. ‘I heard of you,’ he said. He was the heavyweight champion of the world. I asked him if he read a lot of poetry. ‘Where should I start?’ he inquired; I suggested Emily Dickinson.” (pg. 34)
-- They both shared a bed with their mothers as adults.
-- They both wrote on typewriters. As a poet, Moore was an early adopter of this then-new technology.
-- Moore wrote a often-anthologized and frequently-studied poem called “The Octopus.” Ffarmer wrote a well-known poem called “The Ocelot,” which “swings like a medal around my neck” (pg. 43).
-- Both Moore's and Ffarmer's families give each other nicknames based on characters in the children's classic The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
-- Both lived for long periods in Greenwich Village.
DIFFERENCES
-- Moore’s fame occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. This novel is set in the present day, i.e., the 2020s.
It requires some suspension of disbelief to imagine that an elderly lady poet in our time could have the same sort of celebrity that Moore had in her time.
-- Ffarmer lived with a man and had a son, who is an important element of this novel’s plot. Ffarmer has no other reported sexual/romantic moments. Moore is variously described on the internet as a lesbian, asexual, bisexual, and “doesn’t fit well into any category”.
-- Moore’s mother was very needy and seemingly not helpful. Ffarmer's mother is helpful and at times babysits the son.
This book is pretty funny at the beginning. Here's an example (pg. 46):
They all wanted to tell me about the software: how they had “set it free among language,” allowing it to “evolve without instruction.” “It has more uses that way,” they said. Ad generation. The optimization of shipping routes. They were working on an “all-AI newspaper.”
“Wow!” I mouthed, as though a carpenter had just unveiled their guillotine.
so I thought that I was going to be reading a fish-out-of-water Silicon Valley comedy/satire, but after a while the book dials down the comedy (something of a disappointment, for me) and assumes a more serious tone. It is as suspenseful as a book about whether a poem will be finished on time can be.
As an older person, I can tell that this book was written by a younger person, because sometimes it displays a lack of knowledge about the reality of aging. For example, the 70ish-year-old Marian Ffarmer gets drunk one evening and bounces back from her hangover almost immediately. “I had never been one to suffer hangovers and didn't feel one now.” (p. 143)
And then, on the immediately following evening, after working late composing A.I. poetry, Ffarmer falls asleep lying on the floor of The Company's library. The next morning, she is awakened by the library's cleaning staff, and she dusts herself off and gets on with her business, seemingly not a lot worse for the wear. I am 64 years old, and I am here to tell you that this is NOT how it works. This is how it works: Either activity (getting drunk, sleeping on the floor) alone would render you useless for days. Both done consecutively would turn you into a basket case.
Reading this book caused me to go down a rabbit hole of Marianne-Moore-related information available both on the Internet and in some long-neglected paper books I have on hand. This was often pleasant by itself, but it also caused me to have a thought, which I'd like to share.
Here it is: Marianne Moore was like an A.I.
Or maybe: Marianne Moore's process of creation was similar to that of an A.I.
How? I'll try to explain: Moore's poetry is difficult to read for many reasons, one of which is that a lot of the text of a Moore poem appears in quotation marks. Why? Because Moore was sort of like the magpie, compulsively collecting shiny things for its nest. Moore loved to collect quotes and sprinkle them through her poems but, unlike her contemporaries T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, did not generally use snippets in foreign languages or widely-recognized great thinkers, but instead often lifted text from brochures, pamphlets, magazine articles, government reports, advertisements, travel narratives, writers’ personal journals, and (in one case) a “comment overheard at the circus.” In other words, like an A.I., she gorged on large data sets of other people's writing. Then she scrambled them around, cut them, pasted them, added to them. The result? Poetry! Just like the A.I. poet Charlotte in Do You Remember Being Born?
Is that happy-making? Disturbing?
Well, thinking the thought made me happy.
Finally, at the end of the book, you learn However, I was not surprised to learn this, as the author mentioned it in his presentation at the Texas Book Festival. I'd love to know more about exactly how this process works.
Below is a picture I took of Sean Michaels at the Texas Book Festival. If I does not display correctly, you can also view it here.
August 8, 2023
“‘Do you remember being born?’ the software asked me. ‘No. I don’t think anyone does.’” (Michaels)
This book scared me. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I picked it up but I was hooked, especially as a young writer at the beginning of her career. This book questions every writers biggest fear; is AI able to do our job better and more efficiently than we can? Is it still necessary for humans to create art? To write poetry?
I guess you will have to read this book to find out the answer, but I think that Marion proves time and time again that Charlotte is just a machine; and she, at her core, can only emulate what humanity has spent hundreds of years perfecting. She does not have original ideas in the realm of artistic creation, and there is comfort in that lesson. Even when, to the public-to the untrained eye-the lines of human and machine are blurred, to Marion, the only real poetry comes from her and Morel.
However, my fear truly transpired after reading the author’s note. I simply couldn’t believe what I was reading, that it was all truly real. I didn’t think it possible today, albeit likely possible 10 years from now. I guess it was very creative but also scary. I won’t give too much away however as I strongly suggest you read this book for yourself.
Will this book age well? Is it timeless? I’m not entirely sure. But I do know this; it is a snapshot of our current reality, especially coming at a time when the WGA is striking so this very scenario isn’t a threat to our livelihood. With that in mind, it almost feels like Marion is crossing the picket line…and I still wonder what possessed her to agree to the project. Forever, she will be known as the women who wrote a poem with a computer, a controversial figure in the literary community, a villain in the eyes of writers…and perhaps the same can be said about the real author of this book.
This book was endearing, easy to physically read but hard to swallow, and an essential read for writers and artists. I can’t wait to see this book on the shelves and I feel that people will be talking about it for a long time.
“‘I remember being born.’” (Michaels)
This book scared me. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I picked it up but I was hooked, especially as a young writer at the beginning of her career. This book questions every writers biggest fear; is AI able to do our job better and more efficiently than we can? Is it still necessary for humans to create art? To write poetry?
I guess you will have to read this book to find out the answer, but I think that Marion proves time and time again that Charlotte is just a machine; and she, at her core, can only emulate what humanity has spent hundreds of years perfecting. She does not have original ideas in the realm of artistic creation, and there is comfort in that lesson. Even when, to the public-to the untrained eye-the lines of human and machine are blurred, to Marion, the only real poetry comes from her and Morel.
However, my fear truly transpired after reading the author’s note. I simply couldn’t believe what I was reading, that it was all truly real. I didn’t think it possible today, albeit likely possible 10 years from now. I guess it was very creative but also scary. I won’t give too much away however as I strongly suggest you read this book for yourself.
Will this book age well? Is it timeless? I’m not entirely sure. But I do know this; it is a snapshot of our current reality, especially coming at a time when the WGA is striking so this very scenario isn’t a threat to our livelihood. With that in mind, it almost feels like Marion is crossing the picket line…and I still wonder what possessed her to agree to the project. Forever, she will be known as the women who wrote a poem with a computer, a controversial figure in the literary community, a villain in the eyes of writers…and perhaps the same can be said about the real author of this book.
This book was endearing, easy to physically read but hard to swallow, and an essential read for writers and artists. I can’t wait to see this book on the shelves and I feel that people will be talking about it for a long time.
“‘I remember being born.’” (Michaels)
March 3, 2025
A 75 year old Pulitzer Prize winning poet is invited to San Fransisco to spend a week writing a poem together with a specially designed AI poetry bot.
Do you remember being born, by Sean Michaels tracks her week and her experience and at the same time dips through her memories of her life and what's brought her here, including her odd relationship with her mom, the unusual relationship with Larry, the father of her son and her son, Courtney.
I listened to it on Audible, which didn't do the poetry justice as I'm sure line breaks make a difference and it was slow in parts, sometimes annoying, but the insights into AI and creativity and our collaborations and the creative process had me riveted. There's a chapter (Wednesday) about 'collisions of associations' that held so much relevance for me, that I've listened back to it a dozen times already, and it made me feel the need to own this book in a hard copy format so i can go back to it forever. (Expensive here and not easily available, so sourcing overseas - will be worth the wait just for that chapter.)
It's full of poetry and the bones of poetry and creative insights. It sets a high literary bar for me for 2025.
Do you remember being born, by Sean Michaels tracks her week and her experience and at the same time dips through her memories of her life and what's brought her here, including her odd relationship with her mom, the unusual relationship with Larry, the father of her son and her son, Courtney.
I listened to it on Audible, which didn't do the poetry justice as I'm sure line breaks make a difference and it was slow in parts, sometimes annoying, but the insights into AI and creativity and our collaborations and the creative process had me riveted. There's a chapter (Wednesday) about 'collisions of associations' that held so much relevance for me, that I've listened back to it a dozen times already, and it made me feel the need to own this book in a hard copy format so i can go back to it forever. (Expensive here and not easily available, so sourcing overseas - will be worth the wait just for that chapter.)
It's full of poetry and the bones of poetry and creative insights. It sets a high literary bar for me for 2025.
September 4, 2023
happy early pub day to this one!
I really enjoyed this a lot. I loved Marian's 'voice', and empathized with her character a lot - maybe just cus I'm a sucker for a quirky 'elderly' narrator. AI stuff can go a bit over my head and while this one did at times, it was super fun and easy enough for me to digest. I also loved getting glimpses into who Marian was outside of the commission, and appreciated the story going back and forth in that way. I thought it was a sweet, original and thought-provoking read - with a lot going on under the surface if you're paying attention.
thank you netgalley & astra!
I really enjoyed this a lot. I loved Marian's 'voice', and empathized with her character a lot - maybe just cus I'm a sucker for a quirky 'elderly' narrator. AI stuff can go a bit over my head and while this one did at times, it was super fun and easy enough for me to digest. I also loved getting glimpses into who Marian was outside of the commission, and appreciated the story going back and forth in that way. I thought it was a sweet, original and thought-provoking read - with a lot going on under the surface if you're paying attention.
thank you netgalley & astra!
January 5, 2024
I loved this and I wish I had started it earlier in my vacation reading. The premise: a famous poet is hired by a tech company to collaborate on writing a poem with the company’s poetry based language learning AI is really only the barest surface of this book. The AI part is interesting and funny (and he uses this technique writing the novel itself where all of the shaded parts are AI written), but I primarily loved the main character Marian Ffarmer (what a great name!). She is 75 and not written as old but is still recognizably not young. Her life is both so startlingly narrow and so deep! She is great, the book is great. Although I do not read much poetry so maybe too much of this passed me by.
May 2, 2025
marianne moore was a lesbian and this book is COWARDLY for not going there. just kidding, this story isn’t about that at all, but i got so bored in the last 30% that i started reading about the real-life poet this is based on and i got blasted with a beautiful beam of historical queerness and now i need to read that biography about her or i’ll die, actually. anyways.
i ended up not liking this very much because i have beef with books that do backflips to avoid making any points, especially when it flat-out uses AI to generate text in the book … oof. Idk man, I get books can be whatever and asking a lot of questions without answers is fine, but i can’t bother to pretend for the sake of any argument that anything involving AI is art. it isn’t. it’s a beast of capitalism and I fucking hate it, and i’m not humoring philosophical takes like “well maybe if tells us something about capital-A Art” while corporations use it to fuck over workers and the planet. it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I can understand that might be a me problem, but it wasn’t something i could personally engage with in good faith.
i do appreciate that it brought me to this point of thinking about poetry and the lives of those who create poetry, even if it was disappointing to me. i just also wish it had something cool to say, didn’t use AI for basically a gimmick, and yes, of course i wish it was gay. literally no one would be mad at you for making the poet Marianne Moore a lesbian in your fiction book, i promise. she literally went to Bryn Mawr. like. come on now. whatever, i don’t care at all *adds that Marianne Moore bio to my tbr*
i ended up not liking this very much because i have beef with books that do backflips to avoid making any points, especially when it flat-out uses AI to generate text in the book … oof. Idk man, I get books can be whatever and asking a lot of questions without answers is fine, but i can’t bother to pretend for the sake of any argument that anything involving AI is art. it isn’t. it’s a beast of capitalism and I fucking hate it, and i’m not humoring philosophical takes like “well maybe if tells us something about capital-A Art” while corporations use it to fuck over workers and the planet. it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I can understand that might be a me problem, but it wasn’t something i could personally engage with in good faith.
i do appreciate that it brought me to this point of thinking about poetry and the lives of those who create poetry, even if it was disappointing to me. i just also wish it had something cool to say, didn’t use AI for basically a gimmick, and yes, of course i wish it was gay. literally no one would be mad at you for making the poet Marianne Moore a lesbian in your fiction book, i promise. she literally went to Bryn Mawr. like. come on now. whatever, i don’t care at all *adds that Marianne Moore bio to my tbr*
May 9, 2023
(4.5 stars) Welcome to this oh so timely and interesting novel. In it, Marian Ffarmer, a 75-year-old famous poet is asked, by the Big Tech company that developed her, to collaborate with AI Charlotte in writing a 6-page “historic” poem. Charlotte is not new to poetry. She has written hundreds of thousands of poems already. But quantity is not quality in poetry and Marian must work closely with the AI to write something worthy of the Ffarmer name and true to “art”.
I found this book fascinating. As she works with Charlotte, Marian searches for what it means to be human and what defines art. In reference to the title of the book, Charlotte asks Marian if she “remembers being born?”. While Marian does not (“I don’t think anyone does”), Charlotte remembers her awakening - “It was like when you have forgotten about something and then you suddenly remember it — suddenly, suddenly! And then everything comes back to you at once.”
Marian Ffarmer is based on real-life poet Marianne Moore, who, similar to Ffarmer, wore a tricorne hat and cape. She is a character for the times, never settling for good enough and driven to perfection. Author Michaels allows that all of the poetry attributed to Charlotte in the book and much of the AI’s prose was obtained through work with a real-life AI and poetry-writing software. This is key, as getting Charlotte’s “voice” right was vital to the believability of the book. I loved this and can’t wait for more from this author.
I found this book fascinating. As she works with Charlotte, Marian searches for what it means to be human and what defines art. In reference to the title of the book, Charlotte asks Marian if she “remembers being born?”. While Marian does not (“I don’t think anyone does”), Charlotte remembers her awakening - “It was like when you have forgotten about something and then you suddenly remember it — suddenly, suddenly! And then everything comes back to you at once.”
Marian Ffarmer is based on real-life poet Marianne Moore, who, similar to Ffarmer, wore a tricorne hat and cape. She is a character for the times, never settling for good enough and driven to perfection. Author Michaels allows that all of the poetry attributed to Charlotte in the book and much of the AI’s prose was obtained through work with a real-life AI and poetry-writing software. This is key, as getting Charlotte’s “voice” right was vital to the believability of the book. I loved this and can’t wait for more from this author.
January 29, 2024
Although the writing is artful and the book focuses very much on poetry - I think this is a very accessible book for anyone interested in poetry. I loved the main character Marian, she really felt fleshed out and real (apparently she is based on a real famous poet). She was tough, proper, challenging, playful and endearing. The other characters, however, were much less impactful. (I did love the AI, Charlotte, though)
Some of the familial aspects/themes of this book didn't land 100% with me. They felt a little, I don't know. I hesitate to say "breezed over" since there are several very long hindsight passages that lay out Marian's family history. So I guess I felt like the actual emotional depth to some of her decisions with her son are not explored as well as they could have been. I do think a version of this book where that backstory is only hinted at could have been successful as well.
There is a huge "wtf" passage that was clearly (and openly) written by an AI at the end of this book that completely took me out of the narrative :( I appreciate the ambition to include that, but it really just had me so confused. And I felt stupid for trying to make sense of it. Maybe that is part of the bigger point the author is trying to make about AI?
Anyway, just read the book so you can make up your own mind about it. It was a really unique experience and the story is very relevant in the modern age!
Some of the familial aspects/themes of this book didn't land 100% with me. They felt a little, I don't know. I hesitate to say "breezed over" since there are several very long hindsight passages that lay out Marian's family history. So I guess I felt like the actual emotional depth to some of her decisions with her son are not explored as well as they could have been. I do think a version of this book where that backstory is only hinted at could have been successful as well.
There is a huge "wtf" passage that was clearly (and openly) written by an AI at the end of this book that completely took me out of the narrative :( I appreciate the ambition to include that, but it really just had me so confused. And I felt stupid for trying to make sense of it. Maybe that is part of the bigger point the author is trying to make about AI?
Anyway, just read the book so you can make up your own mind about it. It was a really unique experience and the story is very relevant in the modern age!
November 19, 2023
[3.75] Talk about a book that showcases a timely topic. The advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) and its sweeping implications is one of the most debated issues among my college communications students. Sean Michaels has written a fascinating book that explores the essence of creativity and what it means to be human. It’s a thought-provoking tale of an aging poet who is enticed by Big Tech to spend a week collaborating on a poem with an AI creation named Charlotte. Don’t expect any insights into the economic or legal implications of AI. Instead, the novel focuses all of its literary prowess creating a vivid character study of a complicated artist. The author employs inventive techniques that pay off in the end. The frequent flashbacks that shed light on the main character’s life can disrupt cohesion, and I found my interest waning in a few spots. Still, the flashbacks are essential ingredients in an otherwise engaging character portrait.
January 11, 2024
I was immediately intrigued by the premise of this book and its promise of interrogating such big topics like art and AI, the digital world and capitalism, but felt a bit let down by the end. It felt like a soft skirt around these topics instead of a direct questioning, and there was no especially new or unique perspective on such hot button topics. This is more alike to 2023’s chart topper (and fellow disappointment) Tomorrow, Tomorrow & Tomorrow than I expected and wanted.
February 11, 2024
I found this book very moving and relevant. The power of AI writing has been heavy on my mind for a while now, so when I stumbled upon this novel at the library, I was instantly intrigued. I think it deserves a lot more hype — Michaels’ writing is beautiful, the interweaving of AI and human writing is evocative, and the overall message is touching. I loved the 75-year-old narrator’s perspective and voice. (It reminded me of the narrator in Remarkably Bright Creatures.) I found Charlotte, the AI poet bot, endearing. Michaels’ interspersions of AI writing in random places throughout the book were intriguing.
I’m uneasy about how AI writing will continue to evolve in our world. A quote from the book puts my fears into words:
“She frowned. ‘I don't worry about writers disappearing,’ she said, ‘not really. You can still knit a sweater, or buy a hand-knit sweater, even if most of them are made by machines. But what does it do to people if everything they read is just the upchuck of a very smart computer program?’”
If anything, this book made it abundantly clear that AI can never adequately replace poets. The power of poetry comes from its intention. AI poetry doesn’t come from intention; it comes from an algorithm that strings words together based on predictive models. It can’t replace or even mimic the human experience.
Altogether, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
I’m uneasy about how AI writing will continue to evolve in our world. A quote from the book puts my fears into words:
“She frowned. ‘I don't worry about writers disappearing,’ she said, ‘not really. You can still knit a sweater, or buy a hand-knit sweater, even if most of them are made by machines. But what does it do to people if everything they read is just the upchuck of a very smart computer program?’”
If anything, this book made it abundantly clear that AI can never adequately replace poets. The power of poetry comes from its intention. AI poetry doesn’t come from intention; it comes from an algorithm that strings words together based on predictive models. It can’t replace or even mimic the human experience.
Altogether, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.
July 8, 2024
la thématique m'a tout de suite interpellée et intriguée, mais la lecture n'a pas vraiment rejoint cet emballement... c'était plus centré sur la vie du perso principal que ce que je pensais, et moins sur la question de la poésie et de la création à l'ère de l'IA. pas fan d'un certain message qui sous-entend que le succès des femmes se fait au détriment de leurs rôles de mère et leur vie de famille avec le roman qui se termine sur cette prise de conscience du perso qui tout à coup devient une bonne mère et rend enfin visite à son fils (+autres passages qui traitent de l'expérience sociale des femmes, âgées qui plus est, en sachant qu'on parle d'un auteur bien plus jeune: malheureusement c'était parfois bancal, performatif). c'était vraiment pas mauvais, juste pas tout à fait ce à quoi je m'attendais. mais sur une meilleure note, les reflexions sur la poésie étaient une bouffée d'air frais, et j'ai bcp aimé les dialogues avec l'IA (tout à fait capable de faire jaillir peut-être pas de la poésie "absolue", mais des "hameçons" de poésie depuis lesquels travailler)
May 28, 2024
This was all-consuming. I waffle between a 4 and a 5. It’s novel and inventive, but if I *must* be critical, I question how much lasting power this story has, as opposed to being “of the moment” in 2024. Having said that, in this moment, I really enjoyed it.
January 29, 2025
So thought-provoking! Interesting how this novel interrogates the relationship between art and AI without actually telling the reader what they should think. I loved the morally grey, not entirely likeable protagonist; it’s not often I read novels narrated by 75-year-old women. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time.
December 29, 2023
ok i really really enjoyed this
January 20, 2024
I really liked this one. Propulsive in a quiet way. Flashbacks that felt at home. Digressions that made sense. A story that felt real. I don't often keep excerpts from books I read, and I even more rarely include them in my Goodreads reviews. But this one caught my eye:
"There's a line I read once, by an Egyptian poet whose name I cannot remember: that a diary's function is not to show you who you are, but who it is you have ceased to be."
"There's a line I read once, by an Egyptian poet whose name I cannot remember: that a diary's function is not to show you who you are, but who it is you have ceased to be."
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