Digital Found Poetry: Anagramatron

[primeideal]

We're stepping away from blogs that self-identify as being poetry, but I think this builds a good transition between the Tumblr blogs I've set up so far and my final example. Today's blog is Anagramatron, which scans Twitter for two different Tweets that happen to be anagrams. There is some manual control, for ruling out the cases when, for instance, two people post exactly the same thing. Or, when a typo of transposing two letters or words leads to substantively the same message.

 

There are, however, many coincidental anagrams out there. And allowing various punctuation in the two copies (including but not limited to Twitter hashtags) can allow for even more diversity of meaning.

 

It's dark in here. o n o

Inside North Korea

 

I wonder is it love ???

I lied, it's over now

 

#falldownthestairs

The final last words.

 

Overslept again

I love great naps!

 

I had the best night ever!

eh ive had better nights

 

The last one in particular I find interesting, because it reuses one of the important words (night and nights). If someone was trying to construct a clever anagram from scratch, this repetition could be seen as an inefficient use of the letters. Similarly, deliberate misspellings sort of defeat the purpose of building one's own anagram. (Yes, there is a community of users who have identified the hallmarks of a good anagram! Including being well-mixed and spelled well.) Here, the spontaneity of two different users inadvertently collaborating (in my opinion) makes up for these departures from the ideal. Natural misspellings open the door to a much wider range of coincidences.

 

Anagramatron FAQ