Poetry in the (Digital) Wilds

Abstract

http://www.futureofthebook.org.au/featured-articles/poetry-in-the-digital-wilds/ The digital landscape is comprised of lines, tendril connections between events and objects, moments (past, future, present) and ideas. The field of digital poetry is driven less by mountains of accepted theories and practices than by the intersections of the artist/poet's life and their expression of those experiences through experimental and nearly unclassifiable digital creations. Digital poetry began as - and continues to be - a wild and lawless land. There are no clear rules, no dominant conventions, no semi agreed upon canon of "great works", not even a clear definition for the slim entry fields of grant proposals. Indeed, in 2008, the Electronic Literature Organization put forward a project with the United States Federal Archives who were collecting websites to spider (web bots) and archive in the national collection. Many digital writers were upset with this "canon building" activity, fearing this sweep of websites might be the only digital writing future aliens and/or archivists would ever know. The archive went forward, but it was clear despite decades of digital literature production, there continued to be a strong resistance to "pinning down" the genre. This story speaks to two common traits of the digital poet. First, they are typically mavericks, cowboys of the poetry/digital art world. And yet most have no desire to become pioneers, to lay roots and build towns, as they are quite satisfied with the occasional job rounding up code and/or fighting those greedy mine owners who want to tame hypertext. And secondly these electronic verse makers are continually riding the ever-changing gusts of technology, their practices bending, swaying and almost always breaking during spring storms. Even the term group, in the great cowboy tradition, only fits during weekends at the Saloon after some wayward academic conference.