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      October 19, 2023Alison BaileyFor a Robot

      Image: “Yellow Flowers” by Carla Paton. “For a Robot” was written by Alison Bailey for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, September 2023, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
      to write a poem
      first
      it must survive a kindergarten schoolyard trauma, a sunburn on an overcast day,
      bury, in a small paper box that once held a bar of soap,
      the thumbnail-sized frog that was once a polliwog it caught at Mrs. Anderson’s
      pond whose tail fell off and hind legs emerged like quotation marks & had
      been kept in the rinsed Best Foods mayonnaise jar
       
      must worry a tobacco-stained grandfather’s hand
      run over a jackrabbit on I-40 in the Arizona desert
      get divorced
      burn dinner
      confess its sins
      suffer food poisoning
      refuse to eat blue M&M’s
      hang, on a sweet-breezy July, laundry in Fishtail, Montana—eye the distant Sawtooth
      Mountains & hum “Waltzing Matilda” which it learned from Miss Vineyard
      in second grade
       
      must fear thunder
      rush to focus its binoculars on the wintering Lazuli Bunting
      tell white lies to be kind
      shout “Heavens to Betsy!”
      be part of a standing ovation
      endure recurring nightmares
      question the crossing guard about the origin of “fingers crossed”
      develop calluses as it learns to play the twelve-string banjo
      have its hair smell of campfire smoke
      swat, during a humid-summer dusk, at mosquitoes on a dock full of splintered
      cypress wood at Half Moon Lake in Eau Claire, Wisconsin
       
      forever dislike Brussels sprouts because it overcooked them and they smelled like
      rotten eggs
      must watch wind
      weep at a funeral
      lose anything
      imagine infinity
      doubt God’s existence
      die a little every day
      then, perhaps—

      from Ekphrastic Challenge

      Comment from the artist, Carla Paton

      “‘For a Robot’ is intriguing and evocative, melding together the realm of human experience with the concept of machine cognition. What makes it so captivating is its detailing of poignant, sometimes mundane moments that cumulatively shape a human life. The poem ponders on the prerequisites for authentic creation, suggesting that a robot must undergo a multitude of sensory and emotional experiences before it can truly create something as intimate as poetry. The assortment of events, from the whimsical refusal to eat blue M&M’s to the somber note of watching the wind weep at a funeral, emphasizes the vast spectrum of human emotions and experiences. It also subtly hints at the idea that even with sophisticated technology, certain depths of feeling and understanding will likely remain exclusive to humans. The poem’s fragmented structure, jumping from one scene to the next, mirrors the fragmented nature of memory and experience, offering a powerful meditation on what it means to be sentient, to live, and to create.”

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