My poetry machine was based on Jacob’s Ladder, a fun childhood toy. The ladder is comprised of plywood, ribbon, and nails, and words were laser cut on the back and the front. Since I felt some of my found words were not poetic enough, I searched for the most used words in poetry and combined it with ones I already had.

In order to create poetry out of Jacob’s ladder, I needed to find groups of people that could interact with the objects. The Jacob’s Ladder was two-sided, and there were five different versions with different word arrangements. Poems would be read starting from the top and read from left to right. I decided to ask two groups of my friends, as well as three groups of strangers, to be a part of my poetry project. Below are the poems they generated: