Me and John Henry

If you ever need an overly-rambunctious group of 5-years-olds calmed down, give me a call. I’ll gather them together, take out my guitar and have them sitting quietly with mouths open while I sing the song John Henry, the old folk song about a battle between man and machine. The captain of the railroad crew is about to replace his workers with a mechanical steam drill, who will do the work with no lunch breaks, health benefits or sick days. John Henry challenges the machine to a drilling contest. If he beats the steam drill, his and his co-workers job will be saved. The stakes are high and the drama is riveting. I won’t tell you the ending. 

 

The other night, my wife and I cooked delicious Burmese food for my daughter Talia and her boyfriend Matt along with a neighborhood couple their age (Marta and Drew) who we particularly like. Indeed, that couple helped me organize a Neighborhood Sing during the pandemic and John Henry was one of the songs I sang with them, their two children and some six other families. (Back then, we sang once a week and five years later, still gather once every few months.) As mentioned in my Back to Earth post, some of the spirited discussion had to do with the creeping and creep influence of AI and other technologies in our lives. 

 

The next day, Drew sent an e-mail thanking us for the dinner that included an AI-generated poem a la Shakespeare. On one level, the poem was impressive. But the gauntlet was thrown down. Man versus Machine. Could I beat it? 

Here’s the poem he sent: 

 

Hark, gentle friends, and lend thine ears to praise! 

For yesternight, a tapestry of mirth, 

Didst weave its spell through all our happy ways. 

The viands served did prove their sterling worth, 

A feast for kings, each morsel did delight. 

Our tongues, in converse sweet, did find their flight, 

Like birds aloft on currents warm and bright. 

And then the games, which did our souls ignite 

With playful jest and laughter's joyful sound. 

For such a night, where pleasures did abound, 

My deepest gratitude doth now resound!

 

After singing with his daughter’s 2^nd Grade Class in a neighborhood school, I walked back through Golden Gate Park and began composing my rebuttal. Below is my first-draft. It’s not amazing, but two points in case you’re judging the contest.

 

1)   The machine depends wholly on the previous accomplishments of human beings who take their lived experience through the neurons of their brain circuitry to create something new. If we raise an entire generation of children who have sold their creative power to a machine, there will be no more new poems for machines to plunder. 

 

2)   Drew’s own brain and heart may have been amused by a poem generated by a click on a phone, but would not undergo any notable transformation. I, on the other hand, felt as humans always do engaged in the creative act— involved, uplifted, energized, with the profound sense of accomplishment that any creative act offers.

 

These just some of the issues that we fail to discuss when we are mindlessly fascinated by our clever machines. Read on. 

 

REBUTTAL TO AI POEM ABOUT A DINNER PARTY

                        © 2025 Doug Goodkin

 

Since gold and steel and chips with epo-xy

Are all that gives to you your power.

How with outrage might beauty hold a plea

Whose song arises beholding a flower. 

O, how shall summer’s honeyed breath sing out

Against the techno-siege of our darkening days,

When you have no lungs to sing or shout,

No comforting touch or voice to praise. 

 

A sad pretense to read your words

Oh cold machine, why should we care?

With no tongue that tasted, no laughter heard. 

You did not live it, you were not there. 

A poor imitation my humble poem might be,

Yet the glory is, it came from me!