booktorrent

From booktorrent

"Poetry is arguably one of the most intimate and spiritually connecting forms of public communication that humanity has yet devised, an art that speaks from one heart to another. Is there any place for a computer in this relationship?" -Cynthia G. Wagner

Contents 1 Introduction 2 Digital Poetry as an Artform 3 Digital Poetry Generators 4 References

Introduction

The computer has shifted the way some poets think about their writing as it transforms poetry from text on a page to a multi-sensory experience incorporating sound, image, and movement. This change attempts to redefine poetry as something other than writing, and reading as something more than interpreting text on a page. New terms have been applied to these roles such as "poet/programmer" and "reader/user". While some say "New media poetry has come of age and begins to be under the same type of scholarly scrutiny as for instance postmodern literature was in the late 1960s/early 1970's" [1] in my own research I've found little to hold onto as far as born-digital poetry in the form it is now finding any real critical or societal popularity in the near future.
The digital age of media has a special effect on poetry as a literary field that has often seen experimentation and creativity. Poetry as a literary field has often seen experimentation and creativity, which it is clear born-digital poetry attempts. However, there is little out-of-the-box thinking in the majority of internet poems, most are flashier power point presentations or incredibly over-the-top digital stories.

"Even the constraints of the printed page permitted visual enhancements through the arrangement of words on a page and the additions of illustrations; adding music to words creates songs. The multimedia age permits and encourages new ways of approaching poetic communication, such as three-dimensional installations in virtual reality, which invite direct participation of the reader/viewer" - Cynthia G. Wagner[2]

Digital Poetry as an Artform

Although certainly entertaining and occasionally (and objectively) inspirational, born-digital poetry will never achieve the reverence of written textual poetry in it's current form. Unlike Digital Journalism which is coming to replace it's previous medium, digital-poetry will inevitably fail largely because it doesn't feel like art. There is something undeniably corny about digital poetry media, it doesn't have the hold that poetry does and I find it incredibly difficult to take seriously. Many internet poets would beg to differ though, "John Cayley calls his poetry 'literal art' emphasizing the letter as well as the literal qualities of the letter: it's malleability and specific materiality." [3]

Digital Poetry Generators

Like the incredibly popular blog generators that came along with Web 2.0, Digital Poetry Generators gave everyone with a computer the opportunity to explore the latest artform.
Some of the most popular:

• Poetry CreatOR2
• RoboPoem

References

• Maria Engberg, Morphing Into New Modes of Writing: John Cayley's RiverIsland
• Engberg Video Maria Engberg discusses Morphing Into New Modes of Writing
• Cynthia Wagner, Poetry In The Digital Age