[-empyre-] to all members: what is e-poetry to you?

[Stephanie Strickland]

Here is Jason, a little bit ago, defining what many aspects of
e-poetry/e-lit meant to him--and Donna Leishman also, as they each answer
a set of interview questions:

http://research-intermedia.art.uiowa.edu/tirw/vol9n1/

Stephanie


>
> All,
>
> (Thanks Davin and Alan for chipping in early).
>
> I know the notion of defining a genre/art/movement etc
> can be painful.
>
> But to being this conversation, I'm interested in people's stories
> about how they define E-poetry to others....anecdotes about
> describing their or other's work during interviews, dates, tenure
> reviews etc.  I have the hunch that much of the future fate of
> E-Poetry will be determined by how well we can share/show
> and tell what we do.
>
> One thing I do....at parties is I line up objects from the room.
> And then I ask the person to make a poem out of them. Then
> I ask another person to add objects to that object poem, branching
> them out, or stacking them up. I tell them to see each object
> as a sign, a symbol, a text. What kind of poem does hairbrush,
> remote control, Pepsi bottle, matches make?  From there, I have
> them use and move the objects.....or look at the room as one
> large interactive poem.  Then I say....so imagine that but in
> a web page or game interface or moving sliding movement
> across a screen.
>
> Most have no idea, but there are enough....."ahhhhhhhh ok!!'s
> to keep me trying.
>
> and others?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: davin heckman <davinheckman at gmail.com>
> To: soft_skinned_space <empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2009 10:00:23 AM
> Subject: Re: [-empyre-] to begin define e-poetry
>
> Thanks for starting this, Jason.
>
> Talking about e-poetry is something is something I guess I prefer to
> do when I am "out drinking," because then I have an excuse for saying
> things I later regret.  So, while I was really drinking coffee all
> day, I'll take advantage of the medium, and let you think, if you'd
> prefer, that I am half-smashed.  And, what the hell, maybe I am.  It's
> my spring break.  I could be a burglar trapped in Davin's basement,
> eating small amounts of rat poison, as far as anyone knows.  Stranger
> things have happened.
>
> But, I guess I'd have to say that electronic poetry is not all that
> different from other poetry in its intent.  As far as I can reckon,
> the best poetry comes when a writer tries to make something excessive
> out of something limited.  These limitations can result from
> consciously adopted formal constraints, or they can be imposed by the
> limitations of language, culture, imagination, or material form.
>
> I am less concerned with the specific form that a poem takes, although
> this question is always critical after the fact.  Shakespeare's plays
> deserve consideration alongside Faulkner's novels, Neruda alongside
> Dante, Jason Nelson alongside the Pixies.  But having said that,
> electronic poetry comes about at a very specific place and time in
> history--it is couched within a set of expectations that dictate how
> digital media ought to be read, it is situated within the larger
> history of poetry, it is made using particular tools, it is coming
> about during a particular cultural milieu characterized by
> globalization, media culture, neoliberalism, and "postmodernism," and
> its critics tend to be trained in a set of critical orientations
> (cultural studies, poststructuralism, posthumanism, queer theory,
> etc.).  All of these specifics place their own limitations on what and
> how the poet is to achieve an expression that transcends these
> limitations.
>
> In a nutshell, electronic poetry is tasked with representing what it
> means to be human (both in form and content), at a time when people,
> cultures, societies are in crisis over what this even means.
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