chrisemezue/jidenka

The objective behind this effort is to use Artificial Intelligence in creating a poem, which will not only carry the African experience and worldview, but will reveal and share Africa’s poetic sensibilities and styles. # Jidenka Jide Nka is a conceptualized Artificial Intelligence platform, which will enable the machine creation of poems and stories within which African sensibilities and literary styles can be incorporated. The inspiration for this project came from the duo’s attempt at creating an African poem with the Google’s Verse by Verse artificial Intelligence platform. Although, the duo succeeded in creating two poems, yet they saw that their creation was overshadowed by western styles and sensibilities, hence the need for an artificial intelligence platform that could be dedicated to African literary creations. From an indigenous African language phrase that means “always hold on to creativity” or “always be creative,” Jide Nka machine learning model will enable the production of diverse literary creative styles that reflect the richness of the African literary landscape. ## Initial attempt - The African Robo Poems The two poems “Pause and Wander” and “The African Poetry is” herein called African Robo Poems were composed by G.M.T Emezue using the Google AI platform Verse by Verse. The process of producing an African poem via Google’s Verse by Verse AI platform was a very interesting and memorable experience. The instructions on how to select “muses,” (who were prominent American poets from different generations) were quite easy and simple t o follow. And at the input of the first line of poem, these “muses” will provide line suggestions, from which one is required to make a choice. Interestingly, since my objective was to write a poem, which while being universal, still reflected African worldview and sensibilities, I was initially startled when I encountered linguistic images that were alienated from the African environment and cultural norms. This is not surprising since a poet’s style is determined in part by the images associated with his/her poetic diction. Thus, since the muses were all non-African poets, it is not surprising that the poetic styles, images and …