NEW YORK — There was expectation in the room that someone would deliver a poem as lovely as a tree. Or not. The expectation was about choosing the worst of the worst — the worst bad poem of the year.

Was that poem written by an angsty middle schooler or an artificially intelligent algorithm? Is it easy to tell? Yeah, it’s not easy for us, either. Or for poetry experts, for that matter. A team of ...

The contest was named for the poet known for “Trees,” a 12-line verse published in 1913 (“I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree,” it begins). null NEW YORK — There was expectation in ...