Real Girl

[Anonymous]

I liked it. I did laugh a lot; a lot the lines seemed humorous to me. It also has wonderful imagery. I'm not exactly sure what's going on outside of the hotel room, but I think the point of your poem was to make it that way-- all that mattered was going on inside the room. i enjoyed reading it, and learned some new words-- teledildonics. I also gave my advice prior to watching your video that brings clarity to the poem, i'd rather show you what i got out of it from face value, because not all your readers will watch the video.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I commend you on the creativity!

I loved your comments.

Let me try addressing some of them. I'll first say that I'm very happy you enjoyed my poem. I've been writing for years now and I feel like I've reached a point in my writing where I'm mastering my craft. I hope others come to see this as well.

As to who this "real girl" is, I made it ambiguous enough to try and get people to think that she's a sex 'bot, only to then turn them on their heads by the end with the line "Alive in the beams, pure energy," which is to say she's alive in photonic beams - she's a hologram. I'm a huge Star Trek fan, so holographic matter was definitely on my mind when writing this up. And seeing as how we're now actually really close to changing photonic energy into matter, I felt a sense of futuristic realism added into this.

As to why she's glowing red, this was just an element of the story I really wanted to add in, given my absolute love of everything sci-fi. When it came to either robots or artificial intelligence, the color red was almost always associated with them - from the glowing red eyes of Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still, to the red light which made up HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. So I wanted a red light associated with "real girl" in some way to try and hint her nature to my readers.

When it comes to people wishing to watch someone have sex while using a drone, I truly do believe people will use commercial drones for this. Hell, I can't promise I wouldn't do it either! lol It's really just a much more advanced version of where people today use binoculars to peep in someone's window, checking them out. Plus, people are already using drones to peep on others.

As to the style of my poetry, I do deliberately strive for as much ambiguity as possible. I don't just want my readers to come out of reading my poems with a pre-fixed understanding of it. That would only alienate a large population of poetry readers who may not agree with my message. So instead I'd rather it be ambiguous to the point where people will come in and interpret the story's characters, setting, etc. their selves. I want them to feel like they're in the story!

And then, regarding whether or not a robot or an A.I. can mourn, I disagree insofar that this is a futuristic scenario. I'm of the growing popular opinion that robotic, and other artificial, beings will eventually acquire sentience - self-awareness and the ability to think for themselves. This comes with emotions, thoughts, dreams, etc. Once we're able to develop artificial consciousness, a holographic being attaining sentience wouldn't be that very strange.

Again, thank you for your comments. I hope you come to enjoy more over time.

Okay, awesome. I wanted to address these chronologically, but I completely relate when there's an inspirational thing you just need to add, so I'll start with that. To make the 'glowing' line congruent with the rest of your poem, I'll suggest a slight change. Possibly change the line to, "She replied, glowing bright red from a synthetic blush." Now, only take my advice with a grain of salt. As you said, you are coming to master your craft, and if you are satisfied, that's all that matters!

As for the people watching others have sex... you're probably right. I'll just leave it at that.

Now to the matter of artificial beings having feelings. I have seen/read some theories which predict this being attained in the distant future. I suppose they could easily be programmed in. I wasn't disagreeing with the statement you made; I'm saying most people are going to associate robots with being apathetic and devoid of emotion. Not really a problem, as I stated-- I am being nit picky.

A lot of this is an esoteric subject matter of [advanced] knowledge in Sci Fi. And I mean you really gotta know your stuff to understand this poem! Personally, I love Sci Fi, so I could resonate with a good portion of this. Be aware, these are just suggestions to what is already superb. But you put it here for other's critique, so I don't find it necessary for you to rebuttal everything... just leave it as is.

Good luck,

-Kevin