Wish-a-Poem is an interactive installation located across three libraries in Miami which allows visitors to simultaneously co-create a poem by rubbing a magic lamp. The project reimagines the magic lamp as a conduit for collaborative poetry creation, merging technology with storytelling. Each magic lamp is connected to three screens that display text and transmit-receive data in real-time. By rubbing a lamp, a verse will appear on one of the screens and on the same screen of the other locations, enabling three people in three different locations to interact and co-create a poem.

There are 30 different sentences, one for each screen, which will give us up to 1000 different possible poems. In addition to writing his own verses for this project, Merhi worked with O, Miami’s archive of poetry, looking at how people see themselves within the context of Miami. Then, he picked and edited some of the verses, and used AI to generate other similar phrases.

Having this project in public libraries provides accessibility to people from different neighborhoods, ages, and backgrounds. The phrases are played and displayed in the three main languages that people speak in Miami: English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.

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