Phraselette: A Poet's Procedural Palette

Abstract

According to the recently introduced theory of artistic support tools, creativity support tools exert normative influences over artistic production, instantiating a normative ground that shapes both the process and product of artistic expression. We argue that the normative ground of most existing automated writing tools is misaligned with writerly values and identify a potential alternative frame-material writing support-for experimental poetry tools that flexibly support the finding, processing, transforming, and shaping of text(s). Based on this frame, we introduce Phraselette, an artistic material writing support interface that helps experimental poets search for words and phrases. To provide material writing support, Phraselette is designed to counter the dominant mode of automated writing tools, while offering language model affordances in line with writerly values. We further report on an extended expert evaluation involving 10 published poets that indicates support for both our framing of material writing support and for Phraselette itself.