Peter Greco catches up with Tony Doyle who has recently published his collection of poems, Vistas and Visions of a Blind Man. These poems will entertain, challenge, amuse and perhaps even shock you. Some of them take a critical look at modern life, recent cultural changes and possible future scenarios. Tony also had his voice generated via Artificial Intelligence to read a few of his poems as part of an International Day for People With Disabilities celebration.
Well, that's a little bit of my guide dog, Patti by Tony Doyle. I guess in 2024 style. Let's catch up with Tony now. Tony, great to catch up, but always good to speak to you.
Nice to nice to chat to you, Peter. It's been a little while, hasn't it?
It's been a little while, but obviously you can't keep a good man out of the limelight for too long. This is about the background of this. This business and visions of a blind man. That's a very Tony Doyle type of title, but it's.
The title of a book of poems which I had published, uh, by Moonglow Publishing last year. And then Vision Australia produced an audio version of the book with a Sydney, um, fellow reading it, which was all appreciated. But of course, the big frustration being a totally blind poet as I think I'm allowed to call myself now, is that you can't read your own material. Uh, which is very frustrating because, you know, nobody. I've had my poems read by other people, both on the Vision Australia version of the book and also at poetry meetings and other gatherings. And it's just not the same as reading it yourself. So my frustration has been, you know, for the past year or two and chatting to a friend of mine who's a bit of a computer whiz, an Irish woman, and she basically said, well, we could do a synthetic version of your voice and get it to read your poems, and it's never going to be your voice or exactly how you would read it, but it will sound like you, especially to people that that don't know you well. The people that know you really well might be able to pick it, but you know, some of them are pretty convincing. Peter. So. So, you know, I had to wait a long time to get a sample. It was and it is a bit involved, which we'll talk through briefly at the on on next Saturday. The seventh event. So it took me a while to get a sample. And so it's not it's not long ago I got a sample of the first poem, Peter and and since then I've been editing with this Irish friend of mine, just doing a little bit of editing here and there. So what you've got is a couple of samples of poems, both one humorous and one quite serious, and um, uh, so, so this is the beginning of it in a way. Uh, there will be at the events on Saturday, there will be several poems read, and there will be, uh, live music alternating with poems from six musicians put together for this project. And at the beginning of the event, there'll be a 5 or 10 minute talk. Just chat, very relevant to blind people about what the process involved and how it may give some blind people some new ideas, a new resource, and a little bit about how it where it might go in the future.
You used I, didn't you?
Definitely. So it's an AI synthetic voice. And as I say, the 3 or 4 people that have heard samples so far seem to think it sounds pretty much like me. Was it a difficult thing?
And also, was it an expensive thing? So I know you got some funding through the Richard Llewellyn Trust, which is well deserved. So was it an expensive thing to do or a challenging thing to do?
Well, you know, um, I suppose like all projects, it's never, ever complete plain sailing. But so a few things that went, you know, a bit haywire and askew here and there, but generally it, um, it look, you can do it. Uh, the funding I got is for an overall project, which also includes a more elaborate festival fringe event next March, the first and the recipe.
Before that gets underway.
Absolutely. It's will be in the Ayres House Ballroom on North Terrace. Oh, brilliant. And that will involve synthetic versions of poems, intermittent music, which will be even more polished up by then. Um, and it will also have a segment of stand up, sit down comedy about blindness from me, of course. And so it will be a bit of a variety show, a multi-arts show.
I make an effort to get there for sure. I tell you what makes you write these poems, said one serious, one rather humorous, which is very amusing and appealing. What? What makes your juices flow?
Well, I'm what's called what I call myself a Covid poet because prior to that, I had no inkling at all towards poetry because it just wasn't something that had really interested me. I haven't read much poetry, so I'm quite ignorant about it really. But because I was stuck at home and there wasn't a great deal to do, I started playing around with words and and now I'm a, I'm a bit of a kind of sad addict. Um, okay. So, uh, look, I can't stop writing poems now. You know, I've written way over 600 poems, and, um, there are 277 poems in my book, and I. I've written more than that again since then, so. And it's it's kind of what I do to relax, but so I, I sit down and I think, oh, yeah. And it depends just what pops into my mind. So you know, and or I hear something on the radio, you know, a topical thing. I mean, I have written a poem called Gaza because there is some pretty heavy things going on in the world. Uh, so a lot of my there's quite a bit of my poetry, which is taking a very serious look at the world we live in, the world we've created, and what some of the, you know, perils maybe, uh, you know, there's quite a lot that are supporting, you know, environmental changes and trying to avoid a catastrophe with global warming. There are very mixed. Very mixed. I mean, I said to a friend of mine once, I said, can you think of a topic I haven't written a poem about? So he.
Thought he.
Thought for a little while, and then he came. He said, with great delight. He said, pigs. I said, well, yes. I said, yeah, I've written two poems about pigs. And the other is called Pam the Pig. So, uh, so they I cover a lot of topics, but when I do serious ones and sometimes a little bit gloomy ones, I offset that by writing humorous ones or, you know, sometimes a little bit absurd or, you know, ridiculous poems just for light relief and a bit of fun.
Tony, how do you do it? Because you are a person with a vision impairment, you are blind. So do you memorize it? Do you use a computer? Do you use speech? How do you do it physically? Well, yeah.
I use a lot. So I'm totally blind now and also partially deaf, which is, um, in many ways a bigger disability than blindness, which I'm a bit used to, but I use a laptop, I touch type, which is something I, uh, kind of taught myself, basically. So I touch type and I use Jaws screen reading software. And despite, uh, technology being my greatest source of frustration and obstacle, as you might appreciate, it's also a wondrous mix of, um, gizmos that enable you to do things we couldn't have done in the not so distant past. And so this, I think, Peter, is the next step in a way, because it really can be. It really could be an incredible resource for blind people. A friend of mine bought me a pair of these meta glasses. Oh, yes. And they're quite remarkable. So, you know, you're wearing glasses. You can make phone calls just with a couple of words. You don't have to press anything much. Or you can get a description of what's in front of you. You can do videos, you can play music. You can ask what, what, what shops are around or where the nearest doctors is all on a pair of glasses. And because Ray-Ban make them, they're quite stylish. So they don't, you know, they don't set you out like, oh, there's a blind person with those ugly big glasses on.
A good point, I tell you, you've got a big day coming up on the 7th of December. It's a sad day. Tell us about it. Where is it? And also the good news is it's free.
It's a free event. The other good news is it's fully licensed for anyone up to the interested I have. So is that the wassail wine bar? 95 Prospect Road, prospect. The doors open at 230 and the event will start at three. And it will go for an hour, and maybe just a little bit more than that. It will consist of a brief talk about AI and the process we've gone through so far with me and my Irish lass friend Sonia, and then it will be followed by intermittent poems and live music. The live music. The first few songs will come from duo Montana, and the next eight pieces of music are all instrumental and will come from orchid, which is a music ensemble that I have managed to put together for this project, and it's music that is not going to be horribly loud, like a lot of live music. It won't blast your ears off. A lot of it is very soothing music and but it's got some interesting instruments a harp, a flute, an accordion, and me on playing, uh, Celtic whistles. Oh, brilliant. Um, and, um, for the fringe show. We're hoping to also have, uh, a violinist with us, uh, but for December the 7th. So the music will be lovely, soothing, relaxing, and hopefully people will enjoy and have a laugh at some of the poetry they might be interested in. Uh, a description of the the project, the technology I, and a little bit about its potential and how it might be of use to blind people, especially people that want to write either poems or books and, and have their own voice reading or reciting it.
Terrific. And as you say, then hopefully or not hopefully. But in March there'll be another show that you'll be putting on. So if people want to find out more, do people need to book? Can they just rock up on the day? How does that work?
So on Saturday, December the 7th, just roll up. Uh, there'll be plenty of seats there. There'll be a couple of people there to assist people if they need any assistance with getting drinks or going to the bathrooms or anything. And um, so it's just turn up free event and it should be entertaining and a pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon. So everybody's welcome. It's not just for blind and partially sighted people because we're not exclusive, are we? No, we're very inclusive.
Quite the contrary.
We're very inclusive. So everyone is welcome. Anyone is interested and wants to join us for a fun afternoon. And, um, that's only a week and a half away now, so we hope to see some of your listeners there.
And what about the book? Will that be available there, or how can people get.
Copies of the book will be available? They are. My last few books are going out at $25 a copy, and you do get 277 poems for that. So it's kind of good value. And they're, uh, it's the kind of book where you can just pick up the book every now and again and read a poem or two and, um, be either mentally challenged or have a bit of a chuckle.
Tony, great to catch up again. We'll make a date. We'll catch up with you in February to promote your fringe show, but good luck on December the 7th. Just give us the venue again.
So it's the wassail wine bar, spelt w a double s a I l wassail, which is an Old English greeting. And it's 95 Prospect Road prospect. It's in the heart of prospect. Um, bus stop 11 on the G10 bus and the doors open at 230. The event starts at three. We'll go for just over an hour, and, uh, it's a it's a lovely little venue. It's cosy and quiet aesthetic. So, um, I think people will have a very good time if they turn up.
Good to talk to you, Tony.
And thanks always, Peter. You're always so supportive.
Tony. Door. There are just extraordinary. Extraordinary. That event coming up on December 7th. If you've missed any details, go to our show notes. Dot. All those details will be there.