I've been considering embarking on a small A.I. project recently, and have been trying (though not very extensively, I admit) to determine the current state of the art in generating lyrical content or poetic verse, and wondering if this is possible by utilizing Perl's powerful text abilities.

Aside from a somewhat cryptic module on CPAN, and a few miscellaneous "Perl Poetry Generators" online here and there, I haven't been terribly successful in finding anything that might fit my needs. What I would like to do, eventually, is create a module that had the capacity to generate different styles of verse (i.e. haiku, the stanza, the sonnet, etc).

Does this sound like it would be interesting? Or has this already been accomplished and/or perfected? I would like to find an area of programming that still has a bit of the pioneering feel left, if possible.

Perhaps later I'd like to extend the module and add advanced features later on such as the ability to call use PerlVerse::Sonnet; or $third_verse = Stanza->new();, perhaps. There are many possibilities: if the Soundex algorithm (a la Knuth) was used with this application, it might be able to generate alliterative phrases or perhaps even complex rhythmic devices, which would further the likelihood of generating verse with a bit more "personality" and perhaps even the ability to fool a human being into thinking it was written by a real person.

Before I embark on this venture, I ask for your opinion as to the current state of the art, possible hurdles I would face, and whether or not you think this has been satisfactorily completed before, to ensure that I'm not unnecessarily reinventing the wheel. Basically, I am just asking for preliminary feedback at this point, or maybe trying to brainstorm for ideas from other Monks.

I am not even sure how feasible this sort of thing is, although my suspicion is that this would be much less painful to attempt to create using Perl than certain other languages. Does anyone here at PM have experience with this sort of thing? Would this be a good way for me to learn about linguistics, A.I., and in the process, attempt to write my first module? Or do you think I am wasting my time?