The Limits of Artifical Intellegence in Reading Poetry: A Case Study of Warsn Shire's selected poems
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25130/jfa.conf.10.2.02Keywords:
Artificial Intellegence, Home, Warsn Shire, PoetryAbstract
This paper explores the shortcomings of artificial intelligence (AI) for reading poetry, taking Warsan Shire's forceful poem "Home" as its central illustration. The past few years have seen literary critique more and more draw upon AI-facilitated devices for unearthing patterns, motifs, and stylistic elements between and across works. These devices are convenient in many respects: they are able to browse through enormous amounts of easily accessed information at speed, spot recurring words or groups of words, and categorize tone or form. Yet, poetry is rich in emotion, culture, and individual experience so that it is difficult for AI to completely grasp. Shire's "Home" is a poem that discusses the traumatic experience of refugees forced out of their homeland because of war and threat. Phrases like "no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark" are rich in emotional and metaphorical content. A human reader feels the pain, fear, and urgency in these words, while an AI might only detect metaphor or categorize the topic as “migration” or “conflict.”Through a comparison of human and AI responses to Shire’s poem, this paper shows that AI can support analysis, but not replace the emotional and cultural sensitivity required for understanding poetry. The study argues that while AI is a useful tool, it lacks the human ability to empathize, to connect with trauma, and to interpret poetry as a lived experience. Therefore, literary interpretation—especially of emotionally charged texts—must remain a deeply human practice.
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