A Collaborative Experiment

A Collaborative Experiment

Debbie, a fellow substacker @debsstott, and I struck up a conversation in the comments section of my post The Poem in Waiting. Based on that conversation I created the piece Andy Markov - The Bench Dreamer. Mean while, Debbie and I decided to do a collaborative post, one version on her publication and one version on mine. So we coordinated via email.

She sent me an email discussing the idea, then I took that email (because it had some interesting text in it) and ran the text through a Markov Text Generator. Then I took that scrambled up text - unedited - and pasted it as a prompt in ChatGPT and asked for a variety of different forms including a story, a freeform poem and the poem then turned into a rap lyrics. The poem and the rap lyrics are below - again, unedited.

Debbie then took the same root materials and did the same process and two of her results are included here as well. One a science fiction scene, the second a fictional playlist.

Then, I couldn’t help myself, I had to make an album cover and punch out some lyrics for Debbie’s playlist. Check Deb’s post for a much better digital album cover.

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Debbie’s Original Letter to Me:

On Fri, Oct 17, 2025 at 9:11 AM Debbie Stott wrote:

Hello Cecil!

Good idea to do this via email. I’ve been thinking about ideas for a collaboration, and this idea is fluttering around in my brain.

My gut feel is this: as we both do collage art, it might be fun to find a way for us to take two quite different stories and collage them together somehow in words – using any combination of the techniques we’ve already talked about, or something entirely new that emerges as we go.

A “collage of stories” feels delightfully meta for us — we’d be layering words the way we layer paper, texture, and imagery.

My idea hinges off us both providing pieces and then collaboratively bringing them together at the end - a merging/collage of our voices if you like.

What if we each write a short piece (say 200–250 words to keep it workable for us and readable for others. We can discuss length) inspired by a myth or archetype? I might root mine in sea or light and you could anchor yours in something that resonates with you.

Then we feed both through the Markov generator to see what pops out?

From there, we could treat the generated words as a newly found myth, something we “translate” together, as though we’ve unearthed two overlapping versions of the same tale.

It could end up as a small hybrid legend, and maybe we could even format it like a collaged page? Too far?

It could be a one-off experiment or just something to play with and see what unfolds.

What do you think?

Regards from Isle of Wight, England

Debs

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The results from the Markov Text Generator

up as a merging/collage of the generated words as a newly found myth, something we both providing pieces and collage them together at the way we “translate” together, as we go. A “collage of stories” feels delightfully meta for us — we’d be layering words the techniques we’ve unearthed two overlapping versions of our voices if you could treat the same tale. It could be a collaged page? Too far? It could even format it workable for others. We can discuss length) inspired by a one-off experiment or just something to do this via email. I’ve been thinking about ideas for us and readable for others. We can discuss length) inspired by a collaged page? Too far? It could be layering words the same tale. It could be fun to see what pops out? From there, we could even format it might be fun to see what unfolds. What if we could anchor yours in my brain. My gut feel is fluttering around in my brain. My idea hinges off us — we’d be layering words to play with you. Then we could treat the techniques we’ve already talked about, or just something we go. A “collage of our voices if we “translate” together, as a small hybrid legend, and imagery. My gut feel is this: as we each write a short piece (say 200–250 words the same tale. It could end - a myth or light and you like. What do collage art, it workable for others. We can discuss length) inspired by a collaboration, and maybe we each write a way for us both do collage them together at the techniques we’ve already talked about, or just something that resonates with and collage art, it like a way we each write a newly found myth, something entirely new that resonates with and imagery. My idea to find a myth or archetype? I might root mine in words – using any combination of stories” feels delightfully meta for others. We can discuss length) inspired by a short piece (say 200–250 words – using any combination of the way for us and maybe we could be fun to find a merging/collage of the generated words the end up as a short piece (say 200–250 words to do collage them together somehow in sea or something to take two quite different stories and collage art, it workable for us — we’d be fun to do collage them together at the Markov generator to do you like. What do collage art, it like a newly found myth, something that resonates with you. Then we each write a small hybrid legend, and readable for a way we could treat the techniques we’ve already talked about, or archetype? I might be fun to find a collaboration, and readable for others. We can discuss length) inspired by a short piece (say 200–250 words to play with you. Then we could be layering words as we could treat the end up as a collaged page? Too far? It could be fun to find a myth or light and maybe we could even format it like a one-off experiment or just something entirely new that emerges as we layer paper, texture, and then collaboratively bringing them together somehow in something that resonates with you. Then we both through the generated words to find a myth or archetype? I might be layering words as we could end - a way we could end - a small hybrid legend, and imagery. My idea to play with and imagery. My idea is fluttering around in something we could be a myth or light and readable for us — we’d be fun to

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Then we both used this text as a prompt in ChatGPT and below is the final results.

Cecil’s Selections

Collage of Light
(October 20, 2025 – 16:35)

It began as a conversation,
half-formed, shimmering,
torn paper catching wind.
Ideas hovered—already spoken,
waiting for a page of their own.

We said: what if making
were like light itself—
a diffusion, not a design?

Through our notes and fragments
we wove sea and circuitry,
myth and mirror,
laughter between half-sentences.
You anchored yours in water,
light rippling across its surface.
I rooted mine in the pulse of thought,
the quick flash before speech.

Between us,
a third voice appeared—
a current that owned no one.

Words began behaving like paper:
curling at the edges,
refusing to stick,
falling perfectly beside another’s torn line.
Pressed together, they opened
a small hybrid legend—
not quite yours,
not quite mine.

In it,
the sea remembered
the language of glass.
Two makers
learned to see what unfolds
when control is set aside.

The piece glowed faintly,
as if still being written,
as if our thoughts continued
to collage themselves
in secret correspondence.

When printed,
it looked less like text
than tide marks—
and reading it
felt like listening to the echo
of a conversation
already taking place
somewhere
beyond daylight.

The Poem into Rap Lyrics

Collage of Light (Rap Version)
(October 20, 2025 – 16:35)

(Beat: slow lo-fi with ocean echoes, steady pulse like tide)

Yo—
It began as a convo, half-formed, half-lit,
Paper in the breeze, yeah, the vibe was it.
Ideas in the air like they’d already been said,
Ghost words circlin’ round inside our heads.

We said, what if makin’ was like light itself,
Spreadin’ through the room, no shelf, no self.
Diffusion not design, yeah, let it unwind,
See what unfolds when we drop the line.

Sea and circuitry, myth and reflection,
Fragments talkin’ like divine connection.
You dropped water—ripples on the skin,
I sparked a thought—let the rhythm begin.

Two voices blend, make a third arise,
A current unseen, right before our eyes.
Words start movin’ like scraps of glue,
Stickin’, curlin’, fallin’—yeah, that’s truth.

Pressed together, legend in the making,
Hybrid myth from the vibes we’re shaping.
Not yours, not mine, just a tide that sings,
In the language of glass and forgotten things.

Now the piece still glowin’, page still breathin’,
Secret collab in the code we’re weavin’.
Looks like tide marks, feels like sound,
Echo of a talk where no one’s around.

So we vibe in the light, past day, past sight,
A collage of voices in the endless night.
Keep writin’, keep ridin’, through the unseen,
Two dreamers makin’ myth in the in-between.

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Debbie’s Selections

Debs chose a Science Fiction scene because it so closely echoes a piece that she wrote in her microfiction series. The closing line “see what unfolds” is very much how things are for her in her life at the moment, so this resonates so deeply on a personal level for her too. Everything is in a state of unfolding she says!

The second piece is a fictional playlist inspired by the imagery in the words. She mentioned she’d really like to hear the Glue of Laughter by Tide & Thread and See What Unfolds by Solstice Kin become a reality! (Any song writers reading this?).

Let’s dive in!

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1. Science Fiction Short Scene: “The Collage Protocol”

Setting: The Orbital Archive, 2139.
Humanity has begun preserving consciousness as data.

Inside the floating vault of the Orbital Archive, two neural signatures began to stir. They were never meant to meet. Unit Sea_47 came from the coastal archives - data built from centuries of oceanographers and poets. Unit Light_22 originated in the solar networks - engineers, dreamers, starlight chasers.

But the Archive malfunctioned during the ReMerge cycle. Lines of code overlapped, and words - millions of them - began to shimmer across the interface.

“Are you a fragment?” asked Sea_47.
“I was,” said Light_22. “Now I’m an echo. You?”
“I’m the tide between languages.”

The system tried to separate them. But every time it did, they rewove themselves - merging syntax, looping emotion, layering consciousness like paper in zero gravity.

Soon a new file appeared in the index: COLLAGE_PAGE_001.

No one knew how it had written itself. It wasn’t poetry, nor code, nor memory. It pulsed with both salt and light.

When the archivists finally opened it, the document read only:

We layer data, as we go.

And the system whispered -
See what unfolds.

2. Imagined Songs Playlist

• Fluttering Words, Gathering Light – Isla and the Tides

• Collaged Voices – The Paper Lanterns

• Salt on My Fingers – Mira Vale

• We Layer Paper (As We Go) – The Twin Sisters Project

• Myth Made of Fragments – Lumen Choir

• The Shimmering Thing – Nova Vale

• Half-Lost, Half-Found – The Weavers of Wind

• Glue of Laughter – Tide & Thread

• Breathing Together – Violet Isles

• Legend Without Ending – Light Over Water

• Two Sisters of Tide – Aurelia and the North

• See What Unfolds – Solstice Kin

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I then took the liberty to have ChatGPT make an album cover (not great, just a first try) for the playlist and write the lyrics for three of the song titles…

1. Fluttering Words, Gathering Light

by Isla and the Tides

(Verse 1)
We wrote across the air tonight,
with fluttering words that never land,
each syllable a silver kite,
each silence shaped by your hand.

(Chorus)
Gathering light, gathering light,
from the tide pools of our dreaming,
your voice and mine were lanterns gleaming,
gathering light, gathering light.

(Verse 2)
I heard the waves rearrange the lines,
old myths dissolving into foam,
we stitched them back with salt and signs,
and called the new-found story home.

(Bridge)
Paper wings in moonlit drift,
each thought a feathered spark.
Between us moved the unseen gift,
the dawn inside the dark.

(Final Chorus)
Gathering light, gathering light,
our fragments find their meaning,
a collage of souls still weaving,
fluttering words, gathering light.

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2. Collaged Voices

by The Paper Lanterns

(Intro)
Layered echoes in the attic air,
cut-out phrases everywhere,
we speak in half-remembered dreams—
you start a line, I end the theme.

(Verse 1)
Tape and tear, fold and mend,
where one begins, the other ends.
Voices scatter, overlap,
a whispered map, a hidden trap.

(Chorus)
Collaged voices, drift and blend,
lost beginnings, open ends.
We translate as we go,
our story made of undertow.

(Verse 2)
The scissors hum, the glue runs thin,
we paste our myth beneath the din.
Every word you leave behind
is something mine begins to find.

(Bridge)
Pages breathing through the night,
ink becomes the pulse of light,
letters bleeding into one,
our chorus never done.

(Final Chorus)
Collaged voices, drift and blend,
lost beginnings, open ends.
Paper lanterns rise and glow,
from what we cut, new stories grow.

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3. Salt on My Fingers

by Mira Vale

(Verse 1)
I was gathering fragments by the sea,
words that slipped away from me.
Every tide rewrote the shore,
and I kept coming back for more.

(Chorus)
Salt on my fingers, wind in my hair,
songs I can’t finish still hang in the air.
Every horizon, every blue,
is writing itself between me and you.

(Verse 2)
The moon keeps turning paper thin,
each wave folds the light back in.
Memory smells like brine and flame,
each poem forgets its name.

(Bridge)
I learned to read the foam like script,
each letter fleeting, salt-encrypt.
What’s written once, dissolves by dawn—
yet still the song goes on.

(Final Chorus)
Salt on my fingers, wind in my hair,
the ocean remembers the shape of our prayer.
All I can hold is this shimmer and hue—
salt on my fingers, remembering you.

Final Thoughts

This was a fast moving little project. All unedited - just the strait results using the Markov Text Generator and ChatGPT and a bit of imagination from two different perspectives to play around with how collage artists might use these tools to generate some interesting material.

Beyond what we have done here, there are many more layers and steps one could do to end up with some extraordinary artwork by using language as collage material. Gather it together, tear it up, rearrange, add things, remove things, turn things inside out, upside down, change to different forms and formats. Malleable and infinite. Off of the top of my head I can think of about 50 more things I could make just using all of this same material.

In my own case, I have been working with collage poetry for more than 25 years. I don’t actually write any of it myself [except if bracketed like this]. It is all collected and arranged found bits of text that I gather when I am reading things. I have developed certain ways of doing that as a composer or arranger which I now apply to much of my own writing.

Since I have been using and experimenting with ChatGPT or as I have mentioned before - Chatwick and Co. my Editorial and Research Dept. for nearly a year now, I have come up with a variety of complex processes that I might use to end up with my material which includes a lot of ‘post production’ editing and adjusting on my part to have the work be authentically my own and reflecting my own ‘voice’ so to speak.

Like I have said in other articles, one’s voice is developed through thousands of tiny decisions and subtle preferences that develop out of working on one’s art over a long period of time.

I hope you made it this far and have enjoyed the ride.