Poetry in the Age of AI | Perth Poetry Festival 2026

Perth Poetry Festival 2026

Poetry in the Age of AI

Can a Machine Write a Poem?

Date: Sunday, 30 August 2026

Time: 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm

Venue: Mattie Furphy House, 88 Wood Street, Swanbourne WA 6010

AI can produce a sonnet in seconds. But is it a poem?

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly changing the way we work with language, raising questions about creativity, authorship, copyright and what it means to make something genuinely new. For poets, those questions go to the heart of the art form.

News about Artificial Intelligence is everywhere now, including warnings about its potential power from CEOs of the companies at the forefront of its development. At the same time many argue for its potential in enhancing our life and work. They are not thinking particularly of art, where there is great concern with AI voraciously swallowing creatives’ work and ignoring copyright law. Should poets be worried? Can AI write creatively?

In The Guardian, journalist Nesrine Malik claims that AI has a “vapid voice” devoid of creativity:

“You can produce a thousand Dickenses and Rumis through AI, but you can’t create a new iconic writer. You can only draw on the chorus of styles that already exist. You can only derive, never create.”

Yet Nobel prizewinning Polish author Olga Tokarczuk has shocked many by praising AI’s potential for “creative thinking” and calls it “kochana” or “beloved” in Polish.

The panel of Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon, Dennis Haskell and Roe Kanchi will ponder the implications for writing poetry of AI, both now and in the future as it rapidly develops – with, we hope, a great deal of audience participation.

In conversation:

• Dennis Haskell AM, poet and Emeritus Professor at The University of Western Australia

• Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon, writer, songwriter, and educator

• Roe Kanchi, poet, IT consultant and Web Officer at WA Poets Inc, working across technology and the poetry community

The panel will consider what AI means for poets now, and what its rapid development might mean for writing in the future. Rather than attempting to settle the question, the conversation will make room for competing perspectives on creativity, originality, technology and the changing conditions in which poetry is written.

And this conversation is not confined to the panel. A substantial part of the session will be opened to the room. Bring your questions, concerns, experiences and disagreements. Whether you use AI, refuse to use it, are curious about it, distrust it, or simply want to understand what all of this means for writers, you are invited into the discussion.

Accessibility:

This event is wheelchair accessible. Please contact us if you have specific access requirements and we will assist wherever possible.

Acknowledgement of Country:

We wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we are operating on, the Whadjuk people and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and community. We wish to acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city and this region. We pay our respects to them and their cultures; and to elders both past and present.

Poetry has always changed alongside the technologies through which we write, publish and read it. The question now is whether AI is another tool, something fundamentally different, or both.

Visit perthpoetryfestival.com for the full festival program and more information.

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