Topeka Magazine | fall 2023

Brookwood Retail Liquor

Cruise Holidays

Dillons

Fox The Barber

H&R Block

Heart and Home Design Co.

Interior Design Resources

Kansas Drug Testing

Linen Tree & Company

Madison Avenue Boutique

Pam Luthi Insurance Solutions

Prairie Trading Company

Ryan’s Pub

Shear Heaven Styling

SoulFire Nutrition

Stillpoint Massage and Body Work

Stitching Traditions

Tequila’s Mexican Restaurant

The Burger Stand

The Laundry Chute

The Tasteful Olive

The Wild Bird House

TopCity Tech

Triple Edge Barbers

Wheatland Antique Mall

Welcome to the fall 2023 edition of TopekaMagazine!

If you haven’t tried elote, this edition’s cover story by Tom Averill and Nick Krug is designed to ensure you have the knowledge to choose the type of street corn dish that you would like best at any of the recommended Topeka locations. It’s a perfect fall dish.

Two other stories in this edition mark important developments: Jeffrey Goudie bring us an interview and discussion with Washburn University’s first female president while Tom Averill talks with writers and thinkers in Topeka and across Kansas about how poetry reveals essential differences between humans and AI chat programs.

And then, for fun, we have the goats and the fibbers: Bill Stephens joins the region’s newest brigade of goat gardeners and Barbara Waterman-Peters talks with Marcia Cebulska on how her family’s tall tales inspired a new book.

We hope you enjoy this fall edition and look forward to seeing you again when our winter edition releases in December.

—NATHAN PETTENGILL, EDITOR

Editor Nathan Pettengill

Art Director/Designer Alex Tatro

Copy Editor Leslie Clugston Andres

Advertising Representative Angie Taylor ataylor@sunflowerpub.com (785) 832-7236

Photographers Nick Krug Bill Stephens

Writers Thomas Averill Jeffrey Ann Goudie Bill Stephens Barbara Waterman-Peters

AI Art Savva Pettengill

Digital artwork rendered by the program MindJourney with text prompt taken directly from this edition's article on AI poetry.

DEPARTMENTS

10 GOAT GARDENING

A herd of hungry goats has helped the county clear out troublesome weeds and plants at a public park in southeast Topeka

12 ELOTE ELEVATION

Corn—a staple in Mexican cuisine—is having its moment with a new trend in elote dishes, from street corn to standout sandwich additions

TOPEKA FAMILY

19 FAMILY AS INSPIRATION

Topeka writer Marcia Cebulska talks about the family stories, legends and lies that inspired her latest work

22 VISION AND TRUST

JuliAnn Mazachek returns to Topeka to begin a new era at Washburn

FEATURES

24 IT'S NOT A POET, AND IT (BEEP! BEEP!) DOESN'T KNOW IT

Humans struggle, learn, and surprise. Computers do that, but virtually. And poetry shows us the difference.

SERENITY

The North Topeka Arts and Entertainment District (NOTO) has introduced a new sculpture that draws on the talents of area artists and the magnificence of the setting sun. “Serenity” is a multisectional, kinetic sculpture of iron gates with colored paneling that catches and sunlight and scatters soothing colors across Redbud Park. Created by John Hunter and designed by Barbara Waterman-Peters (who also appears as a contributing writer in this edition), the sculpture was also made possible through a series of group and individual donations. The sponsors and additional information can be found online at NOTO’s official page, explorenoto.org/serenityproject.

Join Us?

As our publication continues to grow, we’re looking for new contributing writers to cover and submit stories about life in Topeka. Previous writing experience is highly preferred, but expertise in a subject field is also valued. If you are interested, send an email and resume to TopekaMagazine editor Nathan Pettengill at npettengill@sunflowerpub.com.

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Goat Gardening

A herd of hungry goats has helped the county clear out troublesome weeds and plants at a public park in southeast Topeka

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY Bill Stephens

Two goats begin eating away overgrowth at Lindbloom Park.

If your fields full of Convolvulus arvensis are overwhelming and in need of clearing, you need to look no further than some Capra aegagrus hircus. Translation: to get rid of your bindweed, get goats.

That is exactly how Shawnee County Parks and Recreation decided to clear out a section of overgrown land at Lindbloom Park, near SE 45th and Croco Road.

“We used the goats to clear the northern two acres of bamboo, bindweed, and poison ivy,” says Tom Hammer, the department’s natural areas development supervisor.

The goats are part of a commercial operation that Hammer and the department learned about when consulting with other regional departments about successful eradications of obnoxious weeds.

Mary Powell runs the service from Longton, a small community in the southeast corner of the state. She describes her main contribution as being the “taxi driver” for her trailer full of hungry goats. She usually delivers some 75 goats, the far majority of these are does, ranging in age from two months to 14 years. But there are also eight wethers (neutered males), and Powell can easily list their names: Aaron, Matthew, Walter, Mr. Chompski, Pippin, Frodo, Cub and Thor.

She describes her herd as the “green alternative” to chemical applications.

“Goats are small enough in size that they have little impact on the ground they are working. Their tiny feet aerate the soil and their ‘goat berries,’ which are easily degradable, are a great way to fertilize the soil with essential nutrients and organic matter,” Powell says, noting that this fertilization also deters the reappearance of target plants. “Seeds ingested by goats are often denatured, so they cannot germinate and that slows down the re-seeding of noxious weeds.”

Goats have a high metabolism, so they are always hungry. They can eat up to 5% of their

body weight in a day and relish most weeds, brush and invasive trees found in Kansas. They are also, true to stereotype, curious and prone to roam.

Before she lets the goats out of their trailer, Powell encloses the target with a chest-high portable fence to contain the goats and keep them off nearby roads. The goats will make a break for it if there are any holes in the fence, so she is careful to do a thorough job when she sets up the fence. “The old-timers tell you that the only fence that will hold a goat would also hold water,” she adds as she keeps an eye on her herd.

Mary Powell releases some 75 goats after arriving at Lindbloom Park. Based in Longton, the herd travels across Kansas and into neighboring states when hired to devour invasive plants and weeds.

Elote Elevation

Corn—a staple in Mexican cuisine—is having its moment with a new trend in elote dishes, from street corn to standout sandwich additions

STORY BY Tom Averill | PHOTOGRAPHY BY Nick Krug

Brothers Jordy (left) and Jordan De La Torre operate Los GemElotes catering and food cart as high school seniors.

Mexican food and corn are inseparable. If we’re at a Mexican restaurant, we usually start with complimentary chips. Wherever we find ourselves, we order main dishes of enchiladas, tamales, tacos, tostados, flautas, gorditas, posole and mulitas, all prepared with corn tortillas, masa, or hominy. These main dishes are usually served with rice and beans. But why not more corn?

I recently visited nearly a dozen local Mexican restaurants and food trucks, including a run to Fiesta Topeka, in search of a deliciously fresh corn alternative. Elote is Spanish for “corn” (along with the more general maiz) or “corn on the cob.” Also known as “street corn,” elote is mostly served throughout Topeka in a cup rather than on the cob and is usually steamed or boiled, not grilled. Besides cup or cob, elote is sometimes served on a platter, on top of chips, nacho style.

No matter how elote is served, the ingredients are standard: corn, mayonnaise or sour cream, butter, cotija or other cheese, lime juice or lime wedge, all topped with a sprinkle of … well, everything from chile powder to Tajin (available in grocery stores; a combination of chile pepper, sea salt, citric acid, and dehydrated lime juice) to crushed chips (Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Takis Fuego, etc.) to a house blend of spices. These ingredients combine for a taste that is rich and light, sweet and tangy, mild and spicy, all those flavors in one side dish.

Fiesta Elotes

This year’s Topeka Fiesta was a magnificent opportunity to sample elote.

At a food cart at the corner of Seward and Chandler, Jordan and Jordy De La Torre were serving all three versions of corn: elote entero (corn on the cob), esquites (corn in a cup), and Hotchilotes (chips in a bag). The brothers are 17-year-old twins (gemelos in Spanish), rising seniors at Highland Park High School. Their business name combines gemelos with elotes to make Los GemElotes. They opened in June 2022. Inspired by word from a cousin about Los Angeles street food, they went to California and came home primed for their own venue.

Jordan says that within six months they had found a cart “and we were buying ingredients, coming up with our own take on what pleased us and would please our customers.”

The twins’ Hotchilotes (chips in a bag) are inspired by Tostilocos, a popular LA snack consisting of Tostitos tortilla chips topped with layers of cucumber, jicama, Japanesestyle peanuts, tamarindo candy, chamoy, hot sauce, lime juice, and other ingredients, usually served on a platter. Jordan and Jordy keep the chips in the bag and offer a variety to choose from. I chose Takis Fuego and watched Jordan slit the bag open lengthwise and spoon in a layer of queso. Jordy added corn, sour cream, cotija cheese, jalapeños, and chile powder. A wickedly rich and tasty treat it was. Their Hotchilotes put the “street” in street food: sold on the street and easy to eat on the street.

Los GemElotes normally sets up at 1234 SE California, Tuesday–Saturday from 5:30 to 10:00, or until they run out. And, according to Jordan, they often do. During Fiesta week, they were busy shucking 500 ears of corn one day. “We cook it halfway before we go to the Fiesta,” Jordan says, “then finish it there, to keep it fresh. All of it is cut off the cob not long before serving.”

Business is going well. After high school, Jordan says, “we want to go to college. We’re not sure where yet. But we want to major in business or business management.” When I asked if they’ll sell elote after college, he says they aren’t sure: “But something like that. We like being our own boss.”

Another Fiesta stand, this one without a name, sold elote in a cup and on the cob. I sampled the elote entero: fresh, very sweet corn, slathered in mayonnaise, dusted with parmesan cheese, squirted with butter and sprinkled with mild chili powder. It’s a tasty addition to the usual Fiesta food (we order enchiladas and tamales) served at Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Where’s the Elote?

Pablanos Grill Cemitas, a food truck at 3035 SE 6th Street, also set up at the Fiesta. Early in my adventure I went to their East 6th Street location and ordered elote in a cup, the corn crisp and

sweet, rich with butter and mayo and topped with cotija cheese and chili powder.

At Casserolle, 2410 SE 6th Street, the bright yellow kernels are in a cup and layered generously with mayonnaise and cotija cheese. The additional spices are serve-yourself from a counter that has many options, including a spicy house blend of chile powder and salt. The elotes entero, served on a stick, is slathered with mayonnaise, topped with cheese, sprinkled with spicing choices from the counter. Elotes Chorredos is elote served over a choice of Doritos, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos or Takis Fuego.

I happened upon Zoila’s Café at 1000 SE 6th Street and wandered in hoping for elote. Though not on the menu, Juana Zoila Silva, owner and lone cook that day, said she could make it. Zoila’s elote was worth waiting for: crisp sweet corn, generous mayo and plenty of cotija cheese. No lime, no chile powder topping, but one of the richest of the elotes I had.

El Taquito, at 29th and Fairlawn, serves their elote in a cup: crisp sweet corn, lots of mayo, generous cotija cheese, chili powder, with a wedge of lime. A great combination—rich, sweet, citrusy, with cheesy depth.

La Casita Mexican Restaurant, at 3032 SE 6th Street, serves soft, sweet corn in a cup, with a hint of lime, and topped with cotija cheese and chipotle powder. They offered more spice if I wanted it, and I should have: heat complements sweet.

At El Ranchito Mexican Restaurant and Marisqueria, 3425 S. Kansas Avenue (once Carlos O’Kelly’s), the kernels were smothered in sour cream and mayonnaise, topped with parmesan and tagine powder, and served in a cup with a generous lime wedge. Simple and delicious.

El Torito, at 3000 NW Topeka Boulevard, a supermarket with a restaurant attached, serves elote only on the weekends, in their deli area. I ordered and watched the preparation, the kernels cut off the steaming cob, served in a cup with mayo and a generous amount of cotija cheese

Elote can be served in various ways, such as a corn on the cob variation (above) and in

cup (below).

and sprinkled liberally with Tajin—crunchy, sweet, and fresh.

I’m sure there are other restaurants and food trucks that serve, or will serve if asked, elote. The dish seems to be increasingly blended in with other non-Mexican dishes. I went to The Pennant, 915 S. Kansas, not a Mexican restaurant, after reading the summer 2023 Topeka Magazine that described their Get Elote of This burger (I substituted salmon), the protein smothered with elote. The corn was lightly charred, enhancing its flavor, then mixed then with the usual sour cream/mayo, cotija cheese and spices, and served with a lime wedge on the side. I wondered if the elote could hold its own paired with meat, but it was distinctive and tasty. Elote was also a surprise visitor to Lady Bird Diner in Lawrence: Elote Mac. Their Instagram post described it as “a big bowl of creamy mac n cheese topped with charred corn, cut right off the cob, chili mayo, cotija cheese, cilantro, radish and Tajin.” I didn’t venture there—this is Topeka Magazine, after all.

Still, wherever found, elote is a bright, fresh side, a worthy rival to the usual rice and beans.

Elote is often served in a cup with chili flakes, mayonnaise, lime, and more.

A Few Words about Corn

• Corn was originally a grass but has been so cultivated that the original species is said to no longer exist.

• Corn is the stuff of myth and legend among several Native American, Central American, and South American cultures, several of which have a Corn Mother figure who entered the earth to feed her people.

• Nixtamalization is a process named from the Aztec language Nahuatl: nextli is “ashes” and tamali is “corn dough.” Corn is soaked in lye (from ashes), then dried; then the kernels are ground into masa. This process increases the body’s ability to absorb corn’s protein content, making corn more nutritious, enough that it can sustain a people as a staple crop. Other benefits include an increase of calcium and vitamins A and B3 (niacin). It also makes corn easier to preserve.

• The first Thanksgiving, according to James Trager’s The Food Chronology, was a three-day feast in 1621. Colonial pilgrims hosted nearly a hundred Wampanoags. The menu included, among other items, duck, deer, cornbread, wild plums, watercress, “possibly wild turkeys shot by the colonists,” and, surprisingly, popped corn, For the pilgrims, these foods were novelties. Europeans had never seen corn, let alone popcorn.

Family as Inspiration

Topeka writer Marcia Cebulska talks about the family stories, legends and lies that inspired her latest work

STORY BY Barbara Waterman-Peters | PHOTOGRAPHY BY Nick Krug

Award-winning Topeka author and playwright Marcia Cebulska says she knows who to credit for her latest work, Lovers, Dreamers & Thieves (Flint Hills Publishing, 2023).

“This memoir is about the saints and sinners who shaped my writing and my life,” Cebulska notes.

“One day, I sat down at my computer and typed the sentence, ‘My cousin Susan married a pig farmer.’ And so, it began. ‘My cousin Wally collects nun dolls.’ ‘My great-grandmother was a blacksmith.’”

Every day for 13 months, Cebulska sat down and wrote a story beginning with a family legend.

Among these stories is the anecdote about her grandmother, who would kick her shoe across the room as she retold the Polish version of Cinderella. And there is one about her father, who had a penchant for gambling.

As with any official family history, it turns out sometimes that fact and fiction intermingle like an unsorted box of photos.

“Turns out you can’t always rely on hearsay and memory,” Cebulska says. “I learned that my grandmother lied about her age on the immigrant boat from Hamburg. My father’s case involved the Secret Service and a lie detector expert. Some stories had been reduced in the telling because of shame, others embellished for the sake of glory.”

As a writer, Cebulska feels no compunction in adding to family legend.

“I sometimes felt the need to add details to help depict a character I knew well or to paint a picture of a place or time. What kind of toys did we have in 1950? Why did my grandmother buy that vase?”

Cebulska explains. “My friend Cecil talks about the need, when storytelling, to ‘tart it up a bit.’ Good storytelling sometimes requires tarting it up a bit to paint a clearer picture, convey a complex character. Just as fiction can sometimes get at truth better than a statistic, storytelling can sometimes get at truth through the creative use of illustrative details. Guilty as charged.”

Marcia Cebulska's latest book draws on family lore for inspiration.

A Writer’s Bio

A graduate of Barnard College with a degree in philosophy, Marcia Cebulska has written 22 produced plays, two screenplays, and three books. Her writings have won the Jane Chambers International Award, the Dorothy Silver Award, several master artist fellowships, and a National Endowment for the Arts commission.

Born in Chicago, Cebulska has lived in Miami, Mexico City, New York, Seattle, Copenhagen, Athens, and the Greek Islands. She moved to Topeka in 1997, when her husband, Tom Prasch, accepted a position at Washburn University.

Cebulska on Writing

I Write Because...

• It helps me make sense of my life.

• I believe creativity to be one of human beings’ greatest gifts.

• It makes me feel like I have goddess-like power and outrageous fun at the same time.

• I have a strong need to communicate.

• I have a strong need to communicate artfully.

• Every once in a while, I get a note from a reader or audience member saying,

• “Your play changed my life.”

• “I laughed so hard! Thank you. Thank you.”

• “That was my life up there—how did you know?”

• “I loved this book so much that I could not put it down.”

• When I don’t write, I feel adrift, cranky, and miserable.

• I like to invent words. And worlds.

• Writing’s got me by the heart, the brain, the neck and it won’t let go.

Vision and Trust

JuliAnn Mazachek returns to Topeka to begin a new era at Washburn

STORY BY Jeffrey Ann Goudie | PHOTOGRAPHY BY Nick Krug

At an April town hall meeting at Washburn University, JuliAnn Mazachek, who had just become the university’s first female president in February, discussed the administration’s ambitious seven-year plan for a comprehensive physical update to the 158-year-old university.

The plan’s impetus was the opening this fall of the newly constructed Robert J. Dole Hall, which houses the Washburn University School of Law. This freed up the old law school building, after a makeover, to house Mabee Library, the honors program, and the department of education, among others. Across campus, some outdated buildings will close, some will be repurposed, and Henderson Hall will get an upgrade.

“Some of this will take trust,” Mazachek says about the size and scale of the plan.

In early May, the Mazachek administration made an even bolder announcement regarding the expansion of scholarship opportunities for students who graduate from Shawnee County high schools. One of the initiatives, the Washburn Shawnee County Promise Scholarship, enables Shawnee County students to attend Washburn tuitionfree if they qualify for Pell grants. Washburn will close any financial gap that remains if other grants and scholarships don’t cover all the tuition. Additionally, all other Shawnee County high school graduates will be eligible for the Thrives Scholarship, $1,000 a year for four years. Shawnee County students enrolling in Washburn Tech, a unit of Washburn University since 2008, will receive up to $750 for each year of their program.

Mazachek says that these initiatives constitute “a bet on this community.”

“We take seriously our commitment,” Mazachek adds, pointing out that Topeka and Shawnee County tax dollars help fund Washburn. “We are the technical institution. We are the community college. And we are the university here in Shawnee County, and we plan to do what we can to create the most successful and thriving economy that we can right here in this county.”

Mazachek herself was a first-generation college student. She was born in Topeka and lived in the city until the

After serving for years in various senior roles at Washburn University, JuliAnn Mazachek became the school's president in February.

age of 6. Her family then moved to St. Louis. Her grandmother, a considerable influence on her, was still in Topeka, and made a financial investment that allowed Mazachek to finish college.

She enrolled at the University of Missouri-Rolla, now Missouri University of Science and Technology. There she met her husband, Keith, on her first day of school and also became friends with a fellow student whose father was a professor at the college. She remembers the professor explaining physical dynamics at the kitchen table by moving plates around. He became the provost and then the chancellor at the university.

She says he was one of the “kindest, most uplifting people” she had ever been around. She also notes that the professor, who became the provost and then the chancellor at the university, showed her a career model “different from what I had thought that I might be able to do with my life.”

Mazachek finished Rolla with a bachelor’s of science in mechanical engineering. She went on to earn an MBA and a Ph.D. in accounting from the University of Kansas.

She began her academic career as a Washburn faculty member, teaching accounting before becoming the dean of the school of business, then president of the Washburn University Foundation, then vice president for academic affairs. She left to become president of Midwestern State University, but when long-time Washburn president Jerry Farley retired, she returned to take the top job. She says she recognizes the significance of being the first woman to lead Washburn, where two-thirds of the students are female, higher than the national average of 55% women undergraduates.

Many people outside of academics celebrated Mazachek’s return to Topeka.

Matt Pivarnik, CEO of Greater Topeka Partnership, a consortium of organizations dedicated to economic prosperity in the area, describes it this way: “I felt like we had won the lottery when the board announced she was coming back to Topeka.”

Pivarnik met Mazachek shortly after arriving in Topeka over seven years ago. When asked what most impressed him in her time as Washburn’s

president, he said he knew Mazachek would make “big moves and positive moves,” and that she had exceeded his expectations.

Marshall Meek was hired by Mazachek in 2015 at the Washburn University Foundation. He succeeded her as president of the foundation when she became vice president of academic affairs at Washburn, and he briefly served as interim president of the university after Farley retired. Meek, impressed with the vigor with which Mazachek has pursued various initiatives and changes at the university, says that immediately on her return she started seeking feedback from the university and the community. He says Mazachek has always been “laser-focused” on the quality of education at Washburn. But he predicted that making college affordable to students “will be the highlight of her career.”

Alan Bearman wears several hats at Washburn: vice president for strategic management and student success, dean of university libraries and a history professor, to boot. Bearman says of Washburn’s 15th president, “She brings a sense of optimism and energy that is just perfect for this moment.”

When asked what she herself is most proud of in her early months as Washburn’s president, Mazachek doesn’t hesitate. “That is easy,” she says. “Hands down. The … announcement that we made to offer our Shawnee County scholarship programs. … This is something that we made happen fast because this is something that has been in my mind and others’ minds for a long time…”

She is happy “to be able to double down on our investment and our commitment to Shawnee County, and to be able to know that we were going to help students be able to go to college who wouldn’t otherwise be able to go to college.”

In 2017, Mazachek and others began working to improve Washburn’s 34% graduation rate. Today’s rate, at 54%, represents an improvement of nearly 60% and is among Mazachek’s proudest team efforts.

Just as her grandmother encouraged her, telling her as a teenager that she had a real sense of purpose, Mazachek can now demonstrate to the students at Washburn that they, too, can achieve remarkable things if they live a purpose-driven life.

it's not a poet, and it (beep! Beep!) doesn't know it

Humans struggle, learn, and surprise. Computers do that, but virtually. And poetry shows us the difference.

Artificial intelligence—its uses and abuses, its advantages and threats, its potential to make us more efficient yet also more vulnerable, our power to manipulate it, and its power to manipulate us—has been dominating the news, especially in the world of writing. ChatGPT is creating everything from legal briefs to obituaries, real estate descriptions to sonnets. So it seemed natural to ask: “Given AI’s leap in generating creative text, can it write creditable poetry?”

As a professor of creative writing and Kansas literature at Washburn University, I taught people not only to write poetry but also to appreciate the best literature of our state. Since my retirement, I’ve taught classes for the Osher Institute (over-55 adult learning housed at the University of Kansas), the most recent course on prairie writing. We studied 30 prairie-themed poems, and I gave my students a challenge: Pick your five favorite poems, pick five words or phrases from each one, then write your own prairie poem. Many rose to the challenge. Participant Alice Eberhart-Wright wrote this:

April Devotional

Bluestem, meadowlark. Walk, listen. Stop! Taste first wild strawberries. Sing each season:

Hymns of coyote sorrow; thrill of summer storms. Feast under blue skies pillowed with clouds.

Fill your nostrils with smoke at dusk— Your eyes, radiating with seasonal burns, Give thanks for hills of redbuds tiptoeing from Sleeping Flint Hills. Stark black branches, Pink-inked pens.

I especially like her tiptoeing redbuds, their blossoms “pink-inked pens.” That’s real poetry: surprising and satisfying.

How might ChatGPT do, given a similar challenge? To find that out, I recruited David Lee King, digital services director at Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. We asked AI to create poetry grounded in the Kansas experience. Could the program write a creditable poem? Could it simulate the highest art of language, poetry? We wanted six poems, including a sonnet, a sestina, several prairie poems (some of them using a model; we inputted the 30 poems I collected for the Osher Prairie Writing course).

The artificial intelligence program Mindjourney rendered this image (above) when asked to create a picture based on this text from the article: "ChatGPT was often a reluctant student, unable to respond to commands about rhyming and poem length." The program Dall*E 2 rendered this image (below) when asked to create an illustration based on the AI poem "Heartland Hues: Ode to Topeka, Kansas" on page 26.

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The results were not immediately satisfying. As King told me, “The output of ChatGPT is as good as the input, or the prompts, we provide.” So, we gave as much input, and as many prompts, as possible. For one free-verse poem with the theme of “prairie seasons,” King made 34 prompts, including such instructions as “emphasize weather and seasons”; “limit length to 30 to 50 lines”; “do not rhyme” (ChatGPT loves rhyme and never could comprehend free verse—no meter, no rhyme!).

“This is still in the experimental stages,” King later said, “and requires a lot of interaction with a generator who has to think of and give creative commands. ChatGPT was often a reluctant student, unable to respond to commands about rhyming and poem length.” But King remained a patient and persistent teacher.

Once the poetry was generated, King and I met with Traci Brimhall, current Kansas poet laureate, who teaches at Kansas State University, and Leslie Von Holten, who writes about the prairie and prairie poetry. Before reporting our commentary, I want to share a couple of stanzas from two of the ChatGPT poems, to give a feel for what we reacted to. The first is the poem that King had to urge through 34 drafts, and the second focuses specifically on Topeka:

Seasons on the Kansas Prairie

Kansas prairie, vast and wide, Where earth and sky seem to collide, A place where seasons come and go, And weather changes, a natural flow.

In winter, the cold winds bite, And snowflakes dance in the pale light, A white blanket covering the ground, A silence that fills the world around.

Heartland Hues: Ode to Topeka, Kansas

Topeka, heart of Kansas, where the prairie winds whisper through sun-kissed wheat fields, and the Kansas River flows.

This city has a soul, woven with hard work, determination, and pride.

What to make of such poetry? According to King, ChatGPT works by choosing “the next most likely word.” No wonder, then, that the work is full of cliches like “come and go,” and “white blanket” for snow. As Von Holten observed, “The poems have vocabulary, expected words, but not with the intention of making the reader think.” Brimhall agreed: “It’s just noise. Because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t add anything to our experience as human beings. It has no

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being, no personal experience, no emotion. Being a person is hard, and needs our attention, so we want poetry to help us be human and attentive—not just noise.” Compare the stanzas above to poet Steven Hind’s evocation of season and prairie: Prairie,/ you say, and hear the grass/ speaking through the thorny wind/ season after season.

I agree with Brimhall and Von Holten. ChatGPT poetry has no voice, no individuality, no mental or intellectual geography— something that we create over years of work as writers. “The poetry reminded me of old patriotic songs,” said King, “but patriotic about Kansas, as full as they are of standard, even expected and predictable thoughts.”

We all agreed that the poems resemble poems. But they do not read as though they were written by a poet, “by an individual,” we all said in one way or another. When a good poet writes a patriotic poem, or any poem for that matter, it will go beyond clichés.

“A good poet pays deep attention to language, to images, to subtleties in thinking and expression,” Von Holten says. “ChatGPT doesn’t have that.” Brimhall agrees: “Poets are learning all the time, are getting better at craft and art, and after years are often still struggling to get it right. Artificial intelligence isn’t struggling, so how much chance does AI have of accomplishing real craft and art?” King notes that “ChatGPT does best with standard forms and structures, with things known, fact-based and maybe ‘logical’—but not beyond.”

From my own knowledge as a writer, each piece we write comes from years of our unique experience and singular engagement with language. ChatGPT has no accumulated emotional experience or depth. Think of the lived experience with place and language in this poem by Kansas legend William

Stafford:

The Little Girl by the Fence at School

Grass that was moving found all shades of brown, moved them along, flowed autumn away galloping southward where summer had gone. And that was the morning someone’s heart stopped and all became still. A girl said, “Forever?” And the grass. “Yes. Forever.” While the sky — The sky—the sky—the sky.

Poetry is a good tool for comparing human and AI writing skills because poetry is difficult. Even when intelligent humans try for poetry, they often have trouble going beyond. The botgenerated poems remind Von Holten of poems her ancestors “might be moved to write after seeing a beautiful sunset or having a remarkable experience. Admirable expressions of a moment, formal in rhythm and rhyme. They are written in poetic form, but are not quite what we expect from poetry.”

For me, the best versions of the AI poetry we created still read like some of the newspaper verse published in rural Kansas newspapers at the turn of the 20th century, what one Kansas poet labeled, “flapdoodle, jingoistic verse.” They are

AI as Rough Draft

I took the idea of using AI as a rough draft seriously. Here is the initial version from ChatGPT, "Whispers of the Prairie."

Whispers of the Prairie, by ChatGPT

On the Kansas prairie, the land stretches out in vastness and flatness. Underneath the wide sky, the grasses sway and rustle with the rhythm of the wind. In springtime, the prairie is lush with life. Wildflowers bloom in brilliant hues, and the grasses grow tall and green. Prairie chickens dance and call, and newborn calves take their first steps. Summer brings a different scene. The air is thick with heat, and the grasses turn golden and dry. Thunderstorms roll across the horizon, lighting up the sky with jagged bolts. Prairie dogs scurry in and out of their burrows, and coyotes howl in the distance. In fall, the prairie transforms again. The grasses fade to shades of brown, and the leaves of the cottonwoods turn yellow. Geese fly overhead in V-shaped formations, and monarch butterflies migrate south. The prairie is alive with the sound of crickets, and the smell of harvested fields. Winter brings a hush to the prairie. The grasses lie dormant beneath a blanket of snow, and the wind bites with icy teeth. Cattle huddle together for warmth, and the only sounds are the crunch of boots on snow and the distant call of a solitary bird. Through all the seasons, the prairie endures. Its beauty and resilience a testament to the power of the land and the sky.

Using the ChatGPT version as a rough draft, I revised and created my own version with a new title.

Prairie Seasons

Kansas prairie stretches vast, level, under wide sky, Grass wrestles wind.

Spring wildflowers dance with Prairie chickens, and newborn calves take first steps.

Summer air thickens until black clouds bolt the horizon. Coyotes shrill thunder.

Fall grasses fade to brown, cottonwood leaves to yellow. Geese V themselves south. Winter grasses rest under snow. Icy wind bites huddled cattle. Boots crunch crust.

A solitary bird is enough. The prairie, land sky, season after season.

Shakespeare, AI and Nose-Pickers

My nephew Will Averill, writer, poet, and playwright among other things, asked ChatGPT to generate a Shakespearean sonnet imploring his son to keep his fingers from his nose. The result:

Oh dear child, my sweet and cherished one, I beg of thee to heed my humble plea, And let thy little fingers find no fun

Indiggingdeepfortreasurethat’sunclean. Thy nostrils, made for breathing in fresh air, Shall not be used for mining of thy nose, For such uncouth behavior isn't fair

To those who round thee, fair or foul it shows.

Oh, think of all the germs that may lurk there, A host of tiny beasts that doth abound, Just waiting to attack and do their share Of making thee feel unwell and unsound.

Solistentothymother'sgentlevoice, And pick thy boogers not, but make a choice.

He shared it with friends without telling them it was AI-generated, and was told that the sonnet lacked zest, color, and “Will” behind it.

Given his experience with ChatGPT, I asked Will for some observations.

“ChatGPT writes poetry like an eighth grader,” Will said, “knowing something of language and form, but lacking emotion and depth. What makes art great is the struggle against our limitations. ChatGPT is not struggling. It is unaware that it has limitations.”

On the act of writing, Will observed that “ChatGPT lacks the capacity for self-destruction, the knowledge that we write to keep from destroying ourselves. … We sense the struggle of the writer to make sense, to be original, to be both chaotic and comprehensible. As readers, we benefit from being part of that process. ChatGPT does not begin to participate in that process. So, there’s no real relationship that can develop between writer and audience, each improved by the interaction.”

The program Dall*E 2 rendered this image when asked to create a stylized oil painting based on the ChatGPT poem "Whispers of the Prairie" on page 27.

Don’t let a big bank

Bank Local

simplistic, literal, as though written by Amelia Bedelia, the children’s book character who makes mistakes because she can’t understand more than one meaning of a word, planting light bulbs instead of flower bulbs, stripping sheets by taking shears to them.

We all agreed that the ChatGPT poetry lacks elements and emotions that poets are known for: invention, surprise, freedom, insight, and love. In poetry, we take a journey with the poet; in ChatGPT we go nowhere new. King reinforces this notion: “Chat has no individuated language: it has words, and it is digesting and spitting out only words, but without personality.”

Since all of us went into the project of AI poetry with open minds, we weren’t initially eager to be critical. But we had no choice. Perhaps it was a relief to each of us that ChatGPT won’t be replacing poets soon. Brimhall does use elements of AI with her poetry students. In one exercise, they take their own poems, use Google translator to see it in another language, maybe two, then they ask Google to translate it back to English, thus “creating insights into possible changes in the language.” King has used ChatGPT to write rough drafts, everything from his own biographical statement to blog entries. “Of course, they need a lot of revision,” he adds.

I began with the notion that we might fear ChatGPT and artificial intelligence because we worry about being manipulated and tricked, or about finding ourselves in a future where information is separated from human interpretation, where we can’t tell the difference between falsehood and truth. Perhaps we are already moving in that direction, and AI is a sop for our alarm. As Thad McIlroy wrote in the Publishers Weekly article (6/2/23): “There’s much chatter about the (very real) threat of Amazon being flooded—truly flooded—with books generated largely via a GPT. It’s already happening.” Certainly, we’re overwhelmed by the potential of AI to change our lives. But, from what we saw in the ChatGPT Kansas poems, we don’t yet need to despair that the highest art of language, and its practitioners—poetry and poets—will soon be replaced. As human beings, we have a lived experience and a need to share it. AI will never have life, or a need to share. It is generated; we are generative.