'twas brillig and the slythy toves

Before I could post this... I had to re-learn how to sign in and post...  so I could record my thinking on web poetry.

1) searched for web poetry – came up with a lot of e-poems which were playful and challenge conventional ideas of genre, form , content, presentation, analysis….

For example:  http://www.arras.net/web_poetry.htm

In particular: http://www.arras.net/RNG/flash/dreamlife/dreamlife_index.html

 BUT

Did not seem to be any more interactive in terms of collaborative or fluid production of text… the  reader – or viewer – still more-or-less a viewer – or reader (with the caveat that all readers produce meanings).  Production of meanings but not construction of arfefact or particiapeation in performance..

There must be more to this… surely it should be interactive, participatory, challenging boundaries between author and reader…

So

2) searched for hyper-text poetry

This was more like it

Especially …. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_poetry

This seems to sum up everything we need to think about ( I know… Wikipedia again!)

Consider: hypertext poetry, collaborative poetry (writing and publication), digital poetry, computer generated poetry, different media, interactive poetry (Interaction allows the reader to participate and influence the work and their experience of it.)

But then immediately came up against a problem

3) The hyper link to:

http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/jabber/

was dead – shame as this looks like a very important and early example of the genre? Form?

 So – I searched for it elsewhere to find that you have to BUY the opportunity to participate in this poem… leading me to ponder on the relationship between  the writer and the reader – has it actually changed – we have to pay the author to play the poetry-game.

So rather than a collaborator – we are now a customer – a consumer --- so where is the  democratisation offered by the digital revolution?

 4)  Decided I need to do some more reading – found this bibliography but will also ask a friend to recommend key texts.

http://leonardo.info/isast/spec.projects/newmediapoetry.html

5) Definitions here – useful

http://course1.winona.edu/geddy/Eng353/hypertext_poetry_and_fiction.htm

6) BRILLIANT PLYFUL INTERACTIVE SITES

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall01/johnson/PG3.html

http://www.clickablepoems.com/

 

But again – interesting mix

Some obsolete, some interactive, some just links to video performances… some linking to sites where you have to PAY…