Digital poetry is a form of

electronic literature Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature encompassing works created exclusively on and for digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. A work of electronic literature can be defined as "a constr ...

, displaying a wide range of approaches to

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

, with a prominent and crucial use of

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

s. Digital poetry can be available in form of

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

, DVD, as installations in

art galleries An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

, in certain cases also recorded as digital video or films, as digital holograms, on the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, and as mobile phone apps. A significant portion of current

publication To publish is to make content available to the general public.Berne Conve ...

s of poetry are available either only

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" or ...

or via some combination of online and offline publication. There are many types of 'digital poetry' such as

hypertext Hypertext is E-text, text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typi ...

, kinetic poetry, computer generated animation, digital

visual poetry Literary theorists have identified visual poetry as a development of concrete poetry but with the characteristics of intermedia in which non-representational language and visual elements predominate. Differentiation from concrete poetry As the l ...

, interactive poetry,

code poetry Code poetry is literature that intermixes notions of classical poetry and computer code. Unlike digital poetry Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use o ...

, holographic poetry (holopoetry), experimental video poetry, and poetries that take advantage of the programmable nature of the computer to create works that are interactive, or use generative or combinatorial approach to create text (or one of its states), or involve sound poetry, or take advantage of things like listservs,

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

s, and other forms of network communication to create communities of

collaborative writing Collaborative writing, or collabwriting is a method of group work that takes place in the workplace and in the classroom. Researchers expand the idea of collaborative writing beyond groups working together to complete a writing task. Collaboration ...

and publication (as in poetical

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

s). Digital platforms allow the creation of

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

that spans different

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...

: text, images, sounds, and interactivity via programming. Contemporary poetries have, therefore, taken advantage of this toward the creation of works that synthesize both arts and media. Whether a work is poetry or visual art or music or programming is sometimes not clear, but we expect an intense engagement with language in poetical works.

History

Early digital poems include

Christopher Strachey Christopher S. Strachey (; 16 November 1916 – 18 May 1975) was a British computer scientist. He was one of the founders of denotational semantics, and a pioneer in programming language design and computer time-sharing.F. J. Corbató, et al. ...

's love letter generator (1952), the stochastic texts which were indirectly produced by the German mathematician

Theo Lutz Theo is a given name and a hypocorism. Greek origin Many names beginning with the root "Theo-" derive from the Ancient Greek word ''theos'' (''θεός''), which means god, for example: *Feminine names: Thea, Theodora, Theodosia, Theophania, ...

in 1959 by programming a Z22 of

Konrad Zuse Konrad Ernst Otto Zuse (; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, pioneering computer scientist, inventor and businessman. His greatest achievement was the world's first programmable computer; the functional program-c ...

;

Nanni Balestrini Nanni Balestrini (2 July 1935 – 19 May 2019) was an Italian experimental poet, author and visual artist of the Neoavanguardia movement. Context Nanni Balestrini is associated with the Italian writers' movement Neoavanguardia. He wrote for ...

's "Tape Mark I" in Italian, published in 1961; and Brion Gysin's English permutation poems from around 1959, done automatically with the collaboration of

Ian Somerville Ian Somerville (born September 1, 2000) is an American ice dancer. With his skating partner, Emily Bratti, he is the 2024 U.S. national bronze medalist and competed in the final segment at the 2022 Four Continents Championships. With his form ...

. These and other early digital poems are discussed in C. T. Funkhouser's ''

Prehistoric Digital Poetry ''Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms, 1959–1995'' is a nonfiction book by C. T. Funkhouser. It provides documentation and literary criticism of early forms of electronic literature and digital poetry, many of which are no long ...

.''

Hypertext poetry

Hypertext poetry is a form of digital poetry that uses links using hypertext mark-up. It is a very visual form, and is related to

hypertext fiction Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links that provide a new context for non-linearity in literature and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text ...

and visual arts. The links mean that a hypertext poem has no set order, the poem moving or being generated in response to the links that the reader/user chooses. It can either involve set words, phrases, lines, etc. that are presented in variable order but sit on the page much as traditional poetry does, or it can contain parts of the poem that move and / or mutate. It is usually found online, though CD-ROM and

diskette A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

versions exist. The earliest examples date to no later than the mid 1980s.

Interactive poetry

Interactive poetry is a form of digital poetry by which the reader may or must contribute to the content, form, or performance of the work, thereby influencing the meaning and experience of the poem. Interaction allows the reader to participate and influence the work and their experience of it. Interactive poetry is limited to a digital medium as it cannot perform the same function in other media such as print, which limits accessibility. Interactive poetry can also provide a different experience with each reading or from reader to reader and so analysis of this type of poetry can be challenging as the experience is not static.

Notable people

References

Bibliography

*AAVV, ''La coscienza luccicante. Dalla videoarte all’arte interattiva'', Gangemi, Roma 1998 *Jean-Pierre BALPE, "L'Ordinateur, sa muse", in "Pratiques" nº 39, Metz 1984 *Jean-Pierre BALPE, "La position de l'auteur dans la génération automatique de textes à orientations littéraires", in "Lynx" nº 17, Université de Paris-X Nanterre, Nanterre, 1987 *Friedrich W. BLOCK, Christiane HEIBACH, Karin WENZ (eds.), p0es1s. The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry, Ostfildern-Ruit, Hatje Cantz, 2004 (German, English) *Wayne CLEMENTS. "Poetry Beyond the Turing Test", Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 201

*Caterina DAVINIO, “Parole virtuali. La poesia video-visiva tra arte elettronica e avanguardia”, in "Doc(K)s. Un notre web” (libro e CD), serie 3, 21, 22, 23, 24, Ajaccio (F) 1999 *Caterina DAVINIO, "Scritture/Realtà virtuali" in "Doc(K)s" (web), 2000 *Caterina DAVINIO, ''Tecno-Poesia e realtà virtuali'' (''Techno-Poetry and Virtual Reality''), essay with preface by Eugenio Miccini (Italian/English), Mantova, Sometti, 2002. *Sergei A. DEMCHENKOV, Dmitriy M. FEDYAEV, Natalya D. FEDYAEVA, "Autopoet" Project: a Semantic Anomalies Generator or a New Existence Creator? in "Astra Salvensis" Vol. 6. Supplement 1, ASTRA, 2018. P. 639-646 * Tina Escaja, "Escritura tecnetoesquelética e hipertexto en poetas contemporáneas en la red.” in Espéculo (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). 24 (Julio-Octubre), 200

*Chris T. FUNKHOUSER, Prehistoric Digital Poetry, An Archeology of Forms, 1959–1995, Tuscaloosa, The University of Alabama Press, 2007 *Loss Pequeño GLAZIER, Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries, Tuscaloosa, The University of Alabama Press, 2002 *Eduardo KAC, New Media Poetry: Poetic Innovation and New Technologies, "Visible Language" Vol. 30, No. 2, Rhode Island School of Design, 1996. *Eduardo KAC, Hodibis Potax, Édition Action Poétique, Ivry-sur-Seine (France) and Kibla, Maribor (Slovenia), 2007. *Eduardo KAC, Media Poetry: an International Anthology (Second Edition), Bristol: Intellect, 2007. *Eduardo KAC, Telepresence, Biotelematics, Transgenic art, Association for Culture and Education, Maribor 2000 * *George P. LANDOW. Hypertext 2.0. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997. *Naji, Jeneen. ''Digital Poetry.'' Palgrave Macmillan, 2021. *Philadelpho MENEZES, ''Poetics and Visuality'', translation Harry Polkinhorn, San Diego State University Press, 1995. *Philadelpho MENEZES, ''Poesia Concreta e Visual'', São Paulo, Ática, 1998. *Philadelpho MENEZES(org.), ''Poesia Sonora: poéticas experimentais da voz no século XX'', São Paulo: EDUC (Editora da PUC), 1992. *Philadelpho MENEZES, "Poesia Visual: reciclagem e inovação", em revista Imagens, número 6, Campinas, Editora da Unicamp, 1996, pp. 39/48. *Philadelpho MENEZES, "Poetics and new technologies of communication: a semiotic approach" in Face - Revista de Semiótica e Comunicação, D.1, 1998, site: www.pucsp.br/~cos-puc/face *Kenneth MEYER, “Dramatic narrative in Virtual Reality”, in Frank BIOCCA e Mark R. LEVY (eds.), Communication in the Age of Virtual Reality, Hillsdale, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995, pp. 219/259. *Janet MURRAY, ''Hamlet on the Holodeck – The future of narrative in Cyberspace'', Cambridge, MIT Press, 1997. *Tom O'Connor, Poetic Acts & New Media, Lanham MD: University Press of America, 2006. *Walter J. ONG, ''Orality and literacy – The technologizing of the word'', Londres, Routledge, 1989. *Cynthia D. SHIRKEY. “E-poetry: Digital Frontiers for an Evolving Art Form.” C&RL News 64.4 (April 2003). *Janez Strehovec. ''Text as Ride''. Morgentown. West Virginia UP (Computing Literature), 2016. *Eric VOS. "New Media poetry - Theory and Strategies" in : Eduardo KAC (ed.), New Media Poetry: Poetic Innovation and New Technologies, "Visible Language" Vol. 30, No. 2, Rhode Island School of Design, 1996.

External links

ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Base

Dichtung Digital - journal für digitale ästhetik

The Digital Aphorisms of Rip Kungler

Cyberarts Web, with discussions, definitions and links

Electronic Poetry Center, SUNY Buffalo

Leonardo Electronic Almanac 14 5-6 (2006)

* ttp://www.totopoetry.com/ Toto PoetryA Digital Poetry Dictionary authored by Computers {{Digital art Poetry movements Electronic literature 20th-century literature 21st-century literature