FREQUENCY WORD LIST

The lines of all the poems in Frequency are constrained by the fact that I used only 200 of the most common English words in them. The poems generated by Frequency are built from a pool of 2000 lines I wrote. The process of writing the lines was not aided by the machine and was painstaking work. I wrote a set of ten lines beginning with each word, only using the other words in this list in the rest of the line. It is perhaps not unsurprisingly difficult to make meaningful expressions with such a limited vocabulary, but in the end I was surprised by how flexible these base units of our language can be.

the	of	and	a	to	in	is	you	that	it
he	was	for	on	are	as	with	his	they	I
at	be	this	have	from	or	one	had	by	word
but	not	what	all	were	we	when	your	can	said
there	use	an	each	which	she	do	how	their	if
will	up	other	about	out	many	then	them	thes	so
some	her	would	make	like	him	into	time	has	look
two	more	write	go	see	number	no	way	could	people
my	than	first	water	been	call	who	oil	its	now
find	long	down	day	did	get	come	made	may	part
over	new	sound	take	only	little	work	know	place	year
live	me	back	give	most	very	after	thing	our	just
name	good	sentence	man	think	say	great	where	help	through
much	before	line	right	too	mean	old	any	same	tell
boy	follow	came	want	show	also	around	form	three	small
set	put	end	does	another	well	large	must	big	even
such	because	turn	here	why	ask	went	men	read	need
land	different	home	us	move	try	kind	hand	picture	again
change	off	play	spell	air	away	animal	house	point	page
letter	mother	answer	found	study	still	learn	should	America	world

Frequency: Frequency word list: 2009 by Scott Rettberg and the machine