What is the first image that shows up in when you think poetry? Is it a sonnet written hundreds years ago? Well, you can press delete on that image right now because today, poetry isn't just neatly published words on your textbook. Digital poetry is two small words to describe the underground wave of poetry that you can experience through images, audio and words. It is also known as e-poetry.
Even though it has been known that poetry isn’t just a form of writing but an art that is spoken; it has adapted to the digital media where it is mobile and easily accessible. You could say it is has taken the “open-source” passage like OpenOffice.
Digital poetry began in the late 1950s. Long before personal computers, digital poetry had become a stable and accepted form of expression.
Yet, with the advent of personal computers, more innovation occurred. For example, in the 1980s Hypertext emerged as a form of poetry where text is interconnected in specific design, not necessarily linear.
Like:
Or Like This:
Certainly not your average poem in the works here.
Now, is there a clear definition of digital poetry? It's own definition evolved with the dynamic form. What some define as digital poetry, now is evaluated by other critics as "Poetry and New Media". Which in most basic terms, is a very similar classification. For the purposes of this blog, we shall just encounter this form as poetry innovated by computer technology.
