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DIGITAL POETRY
by Jorge Luiz Antonio
In broad terms, the constituents digital poetry are the existence of a computer (hardware and software); digitality; the presence of infographic images; the existence of a kind of poeticity, with or without the presence of the word; sounds associated with words or music, integrated to the whole set; the plural signification of the infographic image, whether associated with words or not; the possibility of interaction with the digital text, through an interface, including the possibility of modifying it; the constant use of intertextuality and hypertextuality; and storage on magnetic media such as video-cassettes, cassette-tapes, floppy, Zip or hard disks, CD-ROM – although this does not rule out storage on paper, either partially or totally.
The use of a computer, even if we are reading a piece of traditional literature such as a sonnet, implies a mediation which alters the final product (1). Access to poetry through a machine is totally different from opening a book, a magazine, a newspaper, or a copybook. The computer re-makes the text (2).
If mapping the constituents of digital poetry has been a constant problem, finding a denomination has been equally difficult. Below is a non-exhaustive list of terms which have been used at different times, sorted into alphabetical order:
Cin(E)Poetry (US) – creative work of film and poetic video makers. The group involved is called LTV (Literary Television), which was previously known as Film Workshop. They collected a very big file to be distributed to television, cable broadcasters, educational institutions, and Internet webcasters. Cine(E)Poetry experiments with visual images, using video, film, animation, sound and computational techniques, and all these non-verbal languages share a special focus with spoken and written poetry as something essential to the whole.
Click poetry – David Knoebel (US, 1996) – Using words, links and spelled words (sounds), Knoebel equates the turning of the pages with clicking.
Computer poem – Théo Lutz (1959, Germany), Nanni Balestrini (1970, Italy).
Cyberpoetry (3) – For Barbosa (1996) it is essentially permutational poetry, and for Capparelli and Gruzynski (1996) it is a visual and interactive poetry adequate to the digital and electronic media; the term is also used by Komninos Zervos and Brian Kim Stefans.
Sérgio Capparelli and Ana Cláudia Gruzynski’s site
Komninos Zervos's site (Australia)
Cybervisual – named by E. M. de Melo e Castro for a series of infopoems which were presented in a collective exhibition in Italy.
Diagram-poem – non-linear experiences by Jim Rosenberg since 1966, with a series of multi-linear poems called "Word Nets" that, from 1968 on, evolved into the "Diagram Poems."
Digital Clip-poem – Augusto de Campos at his site (1997).
Digital poetry – term used since at least 1990, especially derived from digital poetics.
Electric word – although using word instead of poetry, Jim Andrews presents some considerations about the use of the poetic word in a digital-electronic context. (Andrews 1997-1999).
Electronic poetry or e-poetry – generic name given to poetic works on computer (Funkhouser 1996); also name of the EPC – Electronic Poetry Center, directed by Charles Bernstein and Loss Pequeño Glazier, at SUNY Buffalo, N.Y.
E-Poetry – subtitle of Glazier’s book (2002) and the name of the International Digital Poetry Festival.
Galleries and net anthologies – texts blocks or galleries, more specifically visual poems (Capparelli et al 2000).
Holopoetry – denomination given by Eduardo Kac in 1983.
Hypermedia poetry – "includes graphics, moving visual images, and soundfiles linked with (or instead of) printed text; a variety of intertextual associations and graphical combinations are possible" (Funkhouser 1996). A Brazilian example is Andre Vallias’s "Aleer: Uma Antologia Laboríntica."
Hypercard – alphabetic and visual texts are arranged on a series of digital filecards and linked to each other; some files include sound; the supercard enables the use of video (Funkhouser 1996).
Hypertext – historically, written text only, with links to other writing; some titles include static visual images; gradually evolving (Funkhouser 1996).
Hypertextual poetry – George Landow (1995) on the use of non-linear models applying hypertext.
Infopoetry (4) – Melo e Castro, with two different meanings, one in Álea e Vazio (1971) and another, in the paper "The Cryptic Eye" at Yale University in 1995.
Internet poetry – poetry that circulates via e-mail.
Interpoetry or hypermedia interactive poetry – Philadelpho Menezes and Wilton Azevedo’s CD-ROM title and theory (Antonio: 2001).
Intersign poetry – Menezes (s.d.) in the Estúdio de Poesia Experimental (Studio of Experimental Poetry) at the Communication and Semiotics Program at PUC SP.
Kinetic poetry – poetic genre in which animations are created in poetry by means of various techniques (Capparelli et al 2000).
Looppoetry – CD-ROM created by Wilton Azevedo that is based on time and repetition.
Network hypermedia – predominantly exists on the World Wide Web (WWW); currently without synchronous sound and video capabilities (Funkhouser 1996).
New media poetry – term used by Eduardo Kac in an anthology of essays under the same title (1996) written by Jim Rosenberg, Philippe Bootz, E. M. de Melo e Castro, André Vallias, Ladislao Pablo Györi, Eduardo Kac, John Cayley and Eric Vos.
New visual poetry – experiences that go beyond traditional visuality, producing 3-D visual poems (Capparelli et al., 2000). One Brazilian example is Elson Fróes’s "Popbox."
Palm poetry – experiment by students of the College of Fine Arts, University of Philippines under the coordination of Professor Fatima Lasay.
Permutational poem – Nanni Balestrini (1970, Italy), Silvestre Pestana (1981, Portugal) and others.
Pixel poetry or pixel poetics – Melo e Castro’s Algorritmos (5) (1998).
Poem-on-computer – Gilberto Prado and Alckmar Luiz dos Santos (1995).
Poems factory – computer programs that generate text (Capparelli et al., 2000).
Poetechnic or digital poetics – Plaza and Tavares (1998: 119) do not separate poetry from poetics; they use digital poetics to denominate the various ways of making infographic images. Plaza and Tavares use Luigi Pareyson's concept of poetics (the various forms of poetics have operative and historical characteristics) as well as Umberto Eco's (poetics is an operational program initially proposed, or even better, it corresponds to the project of formation or attribution of a given work).
Text-generating software – programs that automatically arrange words and images (Funkhouser 1996).
3D transpoetic – Melo e Castro (1998).
Videopoetry – although it refers to poetry made with video techniques (Melo e Castro, Arnaldo Antunes and Julio Plaza, for example), the expression can mean video treatments of poems, as Ricardo Araújo did with some Brazilian poets.
Videotext – language media and distributor of information by means of a telephone as a means of broadcasting. Despite the use of the suffix text, it was used for poetic production (Plaza 1986).
Virtual poetry or vpoem – Ladislao Pablo Györi (1995).
As stated above, this list is not intended to be exhaustive, but it does show some of the names that have appeared as digital poetry has developed.
NOTES
(1) To the notion of poem we can extend the notion of word + sound + image in a digital-electronic environment, which includes hypertextuality, hypermedia, interface, programming, and so on.
(2) It is necessary to say that other techniques (paper, ink, print, pencil, etc.) also determine other kinds of limitation and configuration of the subject to these technologies.
(3) Examples: cyberpoetry, for Komninos Zervos, is a combination of concrete, sound and computer poetries; langu(im)age, according to Jim Andrews, is composed by visual, sound, verbal and electronic poetries; visual poetry from cyberstream is Ted Warnell's term; the mixture of visual and verbal poetries with the use of computer and collaborative work and hypertextuality; and so on.
(4) Infopoetry is mentioned in 1997 by E. M. de Melo e Castro.
(5) Possible translation: the word algorritmos is composed by algo (something) plus ritmos (rhythms), but the whole word algorritmos is related to sound poetry and rhythms in verbal poetry and also reminds us, from the sound point of view, of the word algoritmo (algorithm), which is related to computer programming.