March 14, 2026
I would like to share a poem with you. It is called “how you will leave”, and it goes like this.
in this session in this talk we will explore you will learn this session we session we will learn how to and how to this talk we will learn how will leave with talk we will will explore how you will leave by the end
You may wonder, what is this poem, and why would I like to share it with you?
First off, it’s really not a poem at all. Or rather, it is only a poem because I say so. And I say so, because I read some poetry into it. Maybe you will too. I hope so.
Poems are usually written, and this wasn’t written per se, not in any conventional sense. It also wasn’t generated by a large language model, although such models may have had some influence over the choice and order of lines. What it undisputably is, without my insistance that it is a poem, is a list of the most common trigrams taken from the abstracts so far submitted to NDC Oslo, where I serve as a member of the agenda committee. A trigram, as you may know or guess, is a group of three consecutive written units, in this case words. All the trigrams included in the list occur more than 100 times in the abstracts, sorted from most to least prevalent. And I claim that the list can be read as poetry.
Now, with what authority do I claim that it is a poem and not just a list of trigrams? First, with the authority vested in me as a human being! I am a self-aware mortal being living on a vast planet, subject to both joy and pain, sickness and health, bound by time and death, and this naturally imbues me with the melancholy, despair, and need for belonging that is the source of all poetry and its appreciation. Second, I actually have a degree in literature, so I have both some practical experience in judging the literary qualities of texts and some theoretical bedrock to ground it in.
So why do I claim that this text qualifies as poetry? The most important reason is that it obviously is. But if that’s not sufficient for you, allow me to elaborate.
First, somewhat superficially, there is the outline. It looks like a poem. If you squint at it, it has the right length and shape for a poem. It has short lines of exactly three words each, which is modernistic on the one hand, but can be seen as a crude, mechanical imitation of classical poetry with strict rules of form on the other. (The fact that it has “the right length” for a poem is through my choice - I could have chosen a different cut-off for the list of trigrams.)
Second, there are the repetetive elements. There is no rhyme or alliteration in the traditional sense, but the lines are very self-similar. It resembles a sort of rhyme, but instead of melody and rhythm, it produces a sense of stumbling and fumbling, as if the author were struggling to find the right words, trying many variations over the same theme (“in this talk”, “in this session”), occasionally stuttering (“this session we/session we will”), halting just on the curb of saying something important (“learn how to/and how to”) or somewhat sheepishly acknowledging that “talk we will”. The poem also uses a very small number of different words, which gives an impression of being trapped or hampered by lack of imagination in the experimentation. The author seems to doubt their ability to express themselves and to reach their audience.
Nevertheless, there is a certain movement through the poem. It’s not just a jumble of lines, it progresses and accumulates meaning underway, from the setting of context (“in this talk” or “in this session” - in this poem?), to exploring and learning (meanwhile struggling with connecting to a “you” and establishing a “we”), and then the heart-breaking shift from learning to leaving (“will learn how/will leave with”), where the syntactic similarity yet semantic chasm between “learn” and “leave” is particularly salient. The shift is underlined by the echoing of near-identical lines, going from “we will explore/you will learn” in the beginning to “will explore how/you will leave”, before the poem ends in the poignant, desolate, very human and existential realization that “you will leave/by the end”. Also note how the articulation of this insight coincides with a shift in the poem from fumbling confusion to coherent clarity, signifying a resolution and acceptance of something true that the author has been reluctant to express, because they have been reluctant to admit it.
The implications of this movement from connection to departure are all the more striking when we consider how the text has come to be. Who is it that “speaks” in this poem? It is everyone, and no-one in particular. It is the distilled essence of what is communicated from the prospective speakers to the audience of a conference, but perhaps also from the would-be poet to their readers? Come! Join me! We will explore, we will learn, something, who knows what, it matters not - but ultimately, and perhaps before we quite figured it out, you will leave, and the “we” will evaporate once more. As such, the poem accurately describes the collective experience of its authors.
Do you see it too?