Map Haiku – February 5, 2020 at 09:54AM

My first instinct was to go to my childhood home in Levittown, Pennsylvania. Clearly it is cold and rainy there because many of the poems referenced that fact. In addition to grabbing local data from OpenStreetMap, they are also grabbing current weather conditions from OpenWeather. The slightest move of the move will generate a new poem.

Trying out a more urban feel I went to nearby Philadelphia.

There is a “Locate Me” button though it was several miles off when I tried it. Also if you know your approximate latitude and longitude you can get nearby by manipulating the URL. There is also a crosshairs icon but I also found this to be off by a block or two. You can also change the language to French, Spanish or Czech, just be warned it will also change your location.

If you are in an area without much detail your poem will be “There’s not much around…” The OpenStreetMap data through its amenity tags will give the poem local context about restaurants, bars, bus stops, etc.  Supposedly if you’re near a supermarket it will reference that and generate a poem about aisles or cashiers or food but I tried a couple of known stores and only got references to Starbucks. I tried my local airport and got this unrelated poem.

For a random exploration I went to Arjona, Colombia (found by changing my URL coordinates) – it was quite apparent that my location was near both a cemetery and a school based on the poems I got. I was able to confirm this on OpenStreetMap.

Try it out.