ChaptGPT and Book Reviews

 

Ask any writer who reviews books, how hard is it?

It’s hard, a genuine struggle to understand, digest, and then write something meaningful and true. Hours go by.

 

 

Enter ChatGPT.  I asked for a review of Karren Alenier’s book how we hold on. Within seconds, the bot produced thoughts that rang true. Here’s the conclusion:

“How We Hold On is a beautifully crafted collection that marries formal discipline with heartfelt depth. Alenier navigates memory, grief, joy, and language with elegance, offering an emotionally resonant journey through family ties, love, and loss—both intimate and universal. A compelling read for anyone who appreciates lyrical precision and emotional honesty.”

The only nit I might pick is that I meant for the title of the book to be in lowercase but that’s a hard thing to know given how my publisher rendered the title on the front cover and on the title page inside the book (all uppercase letters).

Furthermore, ChatGPT picks up the details. It knows that my section “Mama’s not a trapezoid” deals with the “complex relationship” with my mother. It recognizes that I wrote in various poetic forms from villanelle to Golden shovel. It draws professionally  from the excellent review that was published in the Mom Egg Review. What I mean by professional is that ChatGPT provides a quote from the MER essay. There is no pirating of the words in that review.  And surprise surprise, it also mentions the video of the reading I did from how we hold on for Poets vs. the Pandemic.

Now it seems justifiable to do profile reviews that provide the vital details plus key descriptors, first and last lines, and a short comment. Have a look at this format done for Fables from Italy and Beyond and The Mouth Is Also a Compass. 

The Grace of Guest Artist Diana Tokaji

 

Invitation to be a guest artist on her website is something the Steiny Road Poet does to promote other poets and to keep her website vital. Usually, she asks poets for permission to feature a short poem with short lines. However, for the month of April 2025, she asked Diana Tokaji to allow an excerpt from a long poem which also had some long lines. Her website format is not so flexible. Nonetheless, she was profoundly moved by the poetry (and prose) Diana had sent her and felt her words bore witness to the difficult times we are enduring.

I was also moved by her Facebook post that reads as follows:

In the kindest way, Karren Alenier occasionally invites fellow poets as guest artists on her site. This month I was so honored, an act that seems especially generous in an ever creepier world. It's not just the posting that is kind but the way she goes about it, with enthusiasm and her bright aesthetic in play. She read both of my books and expressed that Conversation 4 in SURVIVING ASSAULT especially speaks to these times, as it both empathizes with and asks us to rise above despair. Create Courage is the theme of that chapter - how do we manufacture courage when we actually don't feel it? She asked me to pull an excerpt out for this feature, and with hope that it's not too disjointed, that's what I did ...a short offering in the space. My thanks to her for this and multiple ways she touches and guides the artistic community.

 

Here's the cover of SURVIVING ASSAULT–Words that Rock & Quiet & Tell the Truth, of the book that the featured excerpt comes from. After reading SURVIVING ASSAULT, Steiny highy recommends you proceed to the prose memoir Six Women in a Cell: Survival and Sisterhood After Police Assault. These books are companion pieces.