In other words, the relationship between hardware, wetware and software remains a paradox. Either machines or humans are in control. However, since the latter possibility is just as obvious as it is trivial, everything depends on how the former is played out. We must be able to pass on to the coming generations - if not as the legacy of these times then as a kind of message in a bottle - what computer technology meant to the first generation it effected.
--Kittler, Friedrich A.
+
One thing about poetry: it is not dead nor dying. That might insinuate that the drive in people is as well and I don't believe that either. Poetry today, already removed from the halls of canonical, academic literature, is also removing itself from everything it has ever known as an artifact or object--and it has been doing it for a while. This evolution helped to break open a world of creativity for the writer/reader--the object and subject and text become more open to interpretation or multidimensional in such a way that even the line between creator and consumer can be blurred. This blurring of boundaries is a part of the evolution of the narrative in the Internet Generation. Constant contact with written/typographical language is now commonplace. Language is something that can easily be modified, expropriated, or cut & pasted. In fact, what other generation has had such a hands-on-approach with written language? Despite illiteracy rates the creation of language and its use is prevalent among this generation.
+Bob Holman+Marc Smith+Saul Williams+Christian Bok+Gary Sullivan+Kenneth Goldsmith
During the early 90's, Bob Holman (NYC) and Marc Smith (Chicago) and Slam Poetry/Spoken-word begin earning notoriety. This group of poets was more akin to Pinero than to Ferlinghetti or Corso and as far away from the academic system that was, in many ways, responsible for the rise of the Beats.
Marc Smith and Bob Holman fostered an environment (often in bars) where the Everyman: the laborer, the uneducated, the uninitiated, as well as the educated and informed could participate in the creation of poetry, free of any formal expectations in the structure of the poem. Some may argue against the poetical merits of Slam Poetry or Spoken-Word, pointing out its "outsider" or "outlandish" or "lowbrow" tendencies, but I think this is exactly what gives SP/SW its edge. National and regional slams (The National Poetry Slam, Southern Fired Poetry Slam) draw competitors and thousands of spectators from every single state in the U.S. to compete as teams or individually or watch, and The World Poetry Slam… you get the idea.
By the late 90's into the early 2000’s something was in the air and SP/SW was well on its way to international recognition as a poetical art form, boosting the profiles of many artists (like Saul Williams, Paricia Smith, Taylor Mali, Roger Bonair Agard, Suheir Hammad, Beau Sia, Maggie Estep). During this time a new (largely urban) audience was being masterfully tapped into by hip-hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons with Def Poetry Jam. DPJ took the raw energy and style notorious in the Poetry Slam and removed it from the context of time regulation , scoring, and drunken heckling. Often this style was/is political, militant, revolutionary, sexual, self-referential and shows could *SOMETIMES* feel like a hyped version of Speaker’s Corner with rap interludes. Regionally, poets like Talaam Acey and Poetri and Shihan we’re/are fostering large scenes all over the country.
Meanwhile inside the academies, innovators such as Christian Bok and Flarfists like Gary Sullivan, and so and so, were using systems of poetics that were as equally outside of the book ends. Also, Kenneth Goldsmith (Chicago) has utilized language as an object worthy of a canvas or wall-space and founded the awesome Ubuweb. What do these artists of these have in common? The internet and Media. Holy shit, the internet and internet media is fucking huge and this is changing the rubric for what poetry is (and what it will become). Being able to broadcast, discuss, and create poetical works via video, audio, and typographical articles over the Internet flipped the medium upside down. .
+Flarf+Object+Tao Lin+ Steve Roggenbuck
Flarf poetry began using the internet-as-medium with Google searches to create lines, stanzas, couplets, or poetry that was often humorous and Dadaist in nature. Social networking sights and blogs have taken poetry medium and consumption to a whole ’nother level. This is all still just the tip of the ice-berg. Poetry as a medium on the internet is becoming more and more interesting as it breaks through the veil of how poetry is created and consumed (mainly by “poets“).
Among this current generation Tao Lin exists as a hybrid between mogul and influential artistic innovator. Much like the poet’s featured on Def Poetry, Lin used the media to an advantage. All of this works though, very well, and it is amazing to think others may be doing the same thing in other parts of the world with or without knowledge of anyone else doing the same thing. Perhaps they are not imitating at all inasmuch as they are participating in a larger aesthetic mode of mixing/playing with media; reacting in the same visceral way to what is happening in the world and with culture so, the ownership given to Tao may be a bit premature, even though he is a bad ass mother fucker who forged a path. The brilliance in the how of Tao is his use of the internet, the real life acts of anarchy, vandalism and friendship.
Most every profession, and certainly the Literary, includes a high level of social networking, but among the internet generation it is in hyper-drive. Social Networking Sites are all means of accelerating connectivity within various communities online. Today, having a presence on the internet and writing for the SEO optimized world with metatized everything is just how it goes. This is a fast, synchronistic world. For example:
On Tuesday April 19, Pop Serial blogged that a collaborative microflarf poem was occurring. This is interesting synchronicity to me, when considering the death of poetry. I was frankly blown away by this. First, A 1,400 comment microflarf poem exists and second, it jumped to 3,0600 in just a few hours and would eventually reach well past 10,000.
What it is going on here? This stunt was pulled on the wall of the pop-teen-fashion-icon-tastemaker-all-around-cool Bebe Zeva after refriending or friending poem creator Steve Roggenbuck. Around 50 people were tagged in a photo capture of the re-friending/friending and then the Flarf hit the fan. Augmenting a core group of 15-20 contributors, people dropping lines, interacting, spamming, or showing love all day and all night--contributing to the discourse. Completely interactive, it is/was an internet live-in. One creative person, who apparently was a key figure in the collaboration, Jim Rowley, created a video in support of it. To read more, go over to Beach Sloth. Ron Silliman was often mentioned/tagged but remained totally silent. I, for one, am curious to know what his thoughts are on this epic and ongoing Flarf thread (last I read it was nearly to 20,000). Anyway, does this sound like dead poetry? Here’s my point: poetry is not dead.
enjoyed reading , ty
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