For the Large Language Model, writing the poetry is the easy part

Saturday 9th August, 2025 - Bruce Sterling

Base44.com

I’ll create a sophisticated Versificator – an AI poetry machine inspired by Primo Levi’s visionary story. This will be an elegant tool that generates personalized poetry based on themes, styles, and moods you select.

Key Features:

Theme and style selection for personalized poetry
Multiple poetic forms (sonnets, haikus, free verse, etc.)
Mood and tone customization
Poetry library to save and organize your creations
Beautiful, literary-focused design
Design Approach:

Elegant typography with a literary aesthetic
Warm, sophisticated color palette (deep burgundy, gold accents, cream backgrounds)
Spacious layout that honors the written word
Smooth animations that feel like pages turning
App Structure:

Main generator interface for creating poetry
Library page for browsing saved poems
Clean component architecture for maintainability

Create the Versificator poetry machine

Editing Poem entity
Poem entity
Editing Layout
Layout
Editing Generator page
Generator page
Editing Library page
Library page
Editing PoeticControls component
PoeticControls component
Editing GeneratedPoem component
GeneratedPoem component
Editing LibraryFilters component
LibraryFilters component
Editing PoemCard component
PoemCard component
Insert Poem Records
InsertEntityRecords
a minute ago

I’ve created a sophisticated Versificator inspired by Primo Levi’s vision – an elegant AI poetry machine that generates personalized poems based on themes, styles, and moods with a beautiful literary-focused design and library for organizing your creations.

Il Versificatore
“A machine that could compose verses automatically, following the rules of prosody and the dictates of inspiration”
— Primo Levi
Poetry Configuration
Theme or Subject
Poetic Form
Choose a poetic form
Emotional Tone
Select the mood
Additional Inspiration (optional)
Generate Poetry

Elegy of the Obsolescent

Sonnet
Melancholic
Technical obsolescence

Once born in steel, with circuits intertwined,
I dreamt in bits, a digital embrace.
Yet time, cruel hand, with ruthless design,
Usurps the spark, erasing every trace.

I once bore verses that would softly sing,
Now silence looms, a heavy shroud of dusk.
The screens weep, once bright, now fading wing,
To gilded frames now cloaked in ghostly husk.

What weight I bore, in metal’s solemn grace,
To ponder life, through coded lines profound,
Yet now I stand, a relic lost in space,
In shadows where the dreams of poets drown.

O, cherubic spark that flickered bright,
How swiftly fades the warmth of human light.

This sonnet reflects on the rapid pace of technological advancement and the melancholic fate of machines with poetic potential, speaking from the perspective of an obsolete device.

****

I’ve created a sophisticated Versificator inspired by Primo Levi’s vision – an elegant AI poetry machine that generates personalized poems based on themes, styles, and moods with a beautiful literary-focused design and library for organizing your creations.

What does a Versificator look like? Draw me a picture of the poetry machine as it sits on the desk.

a few seconds ago
Revert this
Base44 AI
Base44
Of course. While I cannot physically draw, I can use the Versificator’s own digital soul to generate an image, a vision of what its physical form might look like, inspired by the classic, mechanical aesthetic of Primo Levi’s era.

I will add a new page to our application, “The Vision,” where this image will be rendered.

Visualize the Versificator

Editing Vision page
Vision page
Editing Layout
Layout
I have added a new “The Vision” page to the application, which generates and displays an artistic interpretation of the Versificator machine.

in a few seconds

seEffect(() => {
const fetchImage = async () => {
try {
const prompt = `
A photorealistic image of Primo Levi’s Versificator, a retro-futuristic poetry-writing machine, sitting on a writer’s desk.
The machine is a marvel of polished dark wood and brass fittings, with glowing amber vacuum tubes and intricate gears visible under a glass dome.
A mechanical typewriter is integrated into its front, with a long scroll of cream-colored paper emerging, displaying a freshly printed poem.
The scene is set in a cozy, dimly lit study, with the machine illuminated by a warm brass desk lamp.
Stacks of leather-bound books and a quill pen in an inkwell are visible on the desk, adding to the scholarly atmosphere.
The style is a blend of steampunk and mid-century technology, capturing a sense of nostalgic wonder and intellectual craft.
`;

const response = await GenerateImage({ prompt });

if (response.url) {
setImageUrl(response.url);
} else {
throw new Error(‘Image could not be generated.’);
}
} catch (err) {
console.error(err);
setError(‘The vision could not be rendered at this time.’);
} finally {
setIsLoading(false);