A sixteen-page zine, collecting nine computational poems adapted from the first chapter of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. With each progressive poem the parameters of the algorithm are changed slightly, starting with a barely readable mash of characters and ending with something with diction which is recognizably Melville's own.

It's recommended that these poems be read out loud—or at least attempted to.

about the series

A Hive of Mechanical Wasps, a procedural poetry series:
#1: post meridiem
#2: or, the whale
#3: exchange of letters (with Emma Stewart)
#4: gold chocobo

The Hive Bundle: Get Print + PDF copies of all the zines in the AHMW series with a 40% discount.

A Markov chain is a model of what item in a sequence will occur next and at what probabilities, given some number of previous events. By choosing from these probabilities randomly, new sequences can be generated.

Markov chains are a swarm of mechanical wasps—text is their wood, which they chew and digest into a mushy pulp before reshaping it into a new form to make their home in.

prices

PDF Version: PWYW (Suggested: $0.0025/word — $3.28)
Print Version: $0.40/gram ($10.00)