on burning books & writing poems

first a mini-rant re AI, then a couple new poems. let me know your thoughts in the comments.

also, with the new work coming, I may need to slow my output here for just a bit (probably 2-3/month instead of 3-4/month). I love writing here, but because I do (love it), I put quite a bit a of time into each one. and I’d rather aim to maintain quality > quantity. the slack will pick up as the releases approach. which is yay. okay, on to that mini-rant…

this week I read the terrible news that AI companies are buying up millions of old, rare books, feeding them into their LLMs, and then proceeding to destroy them.1

not to build the world’s largest library, or to simultaneously preserve these near obsolete books, or even to resell them… no, they tear the spines off, scan them, and shred them.

why? because the old books are AI-free and they need fresh, virgin thought to keep their up-and-to-the-right fantasy going.

“Physical books published before this date [pre-2022] are structurally clean of modern poisoning tools.” — isbndb.com

[insert crying]2

people are drawing comparisons to the destruction of the library of Alexandria, or the Mongols destroying the House of Wisdom library in Baghdad, or to the Nazis’ burning of books. I am naive and believe most of the evil we humans perpetuate on each other is incidental, or negligent. in other words, I think malicious evil is rare.3 sometimes I just think people unknowingly participate in forces older and larger than they perceive.

they don’t say, “hey, let’s be like Nazis and destroy books!—let’s pull a Genghis Khan and obliterate all knowledge that we don’t possess!”

but they don’t seem to see (or care) that they are feeding the soul of humanity, our art, to an anti-human spirit. a spirit that says, “I can have this all to myself… everything they made is mine.”

maybe it really is the “greatest art heist in history”. maybe it’s another pre-cursor to digital feudalism. maybe soon we’ll have to buy a subscription just to think.

but it’s hard to see this kind of concerted effort [gestures at guy pouring a million books into a data center] as a path to human flourishing.

upgrade to paid

part of the disconnect, I think, is that art, writing, music, et al, are viewed as products, as content to be remixed and exploited, rather than as a means of human connection and making meaning... and if you’ve been around [the planet] for a little while, you know that art and shared suffering are some of the most resonant and beautiful experiences you can have as a person, as part of the whole human tapestry.

but if AI can digest all our writing and do all that for us, and if work and suffering have no more economic value, then why do we need to write books at all?

to the writers of various kinds—how many of us, searching for the right way to say something, regularly stretch ourselves to the limit, lose sleep, pore over dictionaries, books, articles, and wrestle with a chord or a line… just to be able to articulate something that we feel needs to be said?

why is art bound up with a kind of suffering?

I think the answer is that this is how we are formed as people.

in struggling, the plant climbs the trellis to reach for the sun. it must grow more branches to support its own growth, the roots go down looking for more water and nutrients, the flowers give way to fruit requiring more outward growth, which in turn creates shade and food for others. seasons change, growth is paused, leaves are lost, dormancy observed like a monk retreating to his cell. and when the sun returns, the plant reawakens, turns its face towards the sun, and sets out new branches and leaves again, in pursuit of the light of life.

this is the inheritance of writers, and perhaps of all human endeavor—this stretching for the sun.

growth is connected with struggling—that’s just the way of life.

I shudder to think of a world where humanity has outsourced our struggle towards the light, one where we’re kept in an artificial world where no growth or fruit is expected of us, one where we’re surrounded by the idea that we have nothing to give to the world around us, that our highest aim is to be entertained and stroked and coddled our whole lives.

if you can show me how the trajectory of the growth and aim of these AI companies reflects the natural order (rather than mirroring the growth of a cancerous tumor that harms its host), then by all means put it in the comments…

mini-rant over.

but I think it’s important that we keep on writing. this is part of how we find our way.

so I thought I would share a couple poems from the new collection to go a little way towards that.

these are both more structurally woven (ie, formal). try reading them aloud.

I have written a couple other mini-articles on themes I touched on above. check them out if you please:

work sucks / work is life

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February 26, 2025

grateful for work and tired still. I thought I’d reflect on this passage from Genesis and hopefully draw out some

7.29.26 Update: since I began writing this, and likely in light of all the negative press (and probably traffic / emails), isbndb.com has removed a landing page featuring a story called “Printed Books Sourcing for Your AI LLMs Dataset Needs”. the link is removed, but it may have been connected to a featured an article titled “Building AI-ready Book Catalogs: Six Dimensions That Matter”, which you can still read here, thanks to archive.org’s Wayback Machine.

thanks for being here. I [usually] write weekly sharing poetry, songs, musings, thoughts on creative life, and hopefully some encouragement…

also, I’ll be joining The Gray Havens for some dates coming up this fall—the dates here in MN, WI, IL, OR, WA, PA, OH, IN & KY. more to come in CT, NC & TN.

my store is here. my collection of poetry, Snowmelt to Roots, is back in stock (yay)! my music & other merch are in my shop. and to listen to my music, go here.

you can still preorder my new album & poetry book here.

if you’re interested in having me out for a concert, a talk, a workshop, etc., please write to contact@zachwinters.com. new concert announcements will appear here (soon to come).

with gratitude,

Z