The Steel Sonnets

Duntemann, Jeff. "The Steel Sonnets." Orbit 17. Damon Knight, editor. New York City: Harper & Row, 1975. Reprinted Souls in Silicon: Tales of AI Confronting the Infinite, which see.[1][2]

From Lulu review by Christopher Gerrib, retrieved 2 March 2023 (our slight reformatting): "The Steel Sonnets, is one of his [Duntemann's] earliest works, and it’s dazzling. The story is that of a robot, not programmed for emotions, which discovers one (loyalty) anyway, and acts on it."[3]

From James Nicoll Reviews, of Orbit 17, 25 January 2022, retrieved 2 March 2023:

“The Steel Sonnets” • (1975) • short story by Jeff Duntemann Monitored from orbit, robots explore an alien world. One is programmed with a wider range of emotional responses than its companion. As a perhaps unintended consequence, it is a poet. The other robot is baffled by the endless stream of verse. Danger presents a chance to transcend their programming.[4]

From Alana Joli Abbott's review in Mythopoetic Society on line: "In “The Steel Sonnets,” two robots make contact with a culture that thinks mythically, and the relationship between them grows into an understanding that leads one of them to question the nature of his own dedicated higher power."[This review originally appeared in Mythprint 47:10 (#339) in October 2010.][5][6]

RDE, finishing, 2Mar23