definitions.

how digital poetry differs from paper poetry

wikipedia:

digital poetry refers to a wide range of approaches to poetry that all have in common prominent and crucial use of computers. digital poetry can be available on the WWW, CD-ROM, as installations in art galleries, etc. a significant portion of current publications of poetry are available either only online or via some combination of online and offline publication. there are many types of 'digital poetry' such as hypertext, kinetic poetry, code poetry, and poetries that take advantage of the programmable nature of the computer to create works that are interactive, or are generative of text, or involve sound poetry, or take advantage of things like listservs, blogs, and other forms of network communication to create communities of collaborative writing and publication.

digital computers allow the creation of art that spans different media: text, images, sounds, and interactivity via programming. contemporary poetries have, therefore, taken advantage of this toward the creation of works that synthesize both arts and media. whether a work is poetry or visual art or music or programming is sometimes not clear, but we expect an intense engagement with language in poetical works.

p0es1s:

the term "digital poetry" applies to artistic projects that deal with the medial changes in language and language-based communication in computers and digital networks. digital poetry thus refers to creative, experimental, playful, and also critical language art involving programming, multimedia, animation, interactivity, and net communications. the term "digital poetry" corresponds with other phrases that also emerged in recent years, such as "electronic poetry," "new media poetry," or "cyberpoetry." the attribute "digital" emphasizes in this context its symbol or semiotic nature that influences the ever-so-effective culture of computer technology in a specific way.

"e-poetry: digital frontiers for an evolving art form" by cynthia shirkey:

concrete poetry: print and electronic poetic form in which the arrangement of words on the page or screen is as meaningful as the words themselves.

e-poetry: generic term for all types of poetry written, published, and meant to be read in a primarily electronic environment.

flash: program by Macromedia enabling authors to create videos and multimedia.

hypertext poetry: form of poetry using a nonlinear linking system that allows the reader to spontaneously create the poem.

javaScript: coding language allowing designers to incorporate visual elements into Web pages.

new media poetry: poetry written in an electronic environment that relies heavily upon graphics, videos, sound, and other elements.

quicktime: program by Apple that allows authors to make movies and other types of media pieces.

sound poetry: poetry form that places emphasis on how the poem sounds when read or performed out loud.

visual poetry: print and electronic gestalt-oriented art form in which visual elements, such as typography, calligraphy, painting, photography and drawing, are co-mingled with words to form poems.

From Homer to Hypertext

digital novel is digitally and computer-based literary work of art, sometimes containing graphics and sounds, designed and based on a link structure. the literary digital novel contains interactivity and narration and is therefore situated between, but does not include, the full digital reproduction of printed literature on the one hand and the game genre on the other.

fashionable noise: on digital poetics

cyberpoetry is nearly a school: that it almost consists of certain theories; that its group or meta-groups or groups of meta-grouped groups of meta-practitioners will either revolutionize or demoralize or democratize poetry if their attack upon the book meets with any success. cyberpoetry does not exist and it is time that this preposterous fiction followed the trace, the spectacle, the rhizome...and they eighty-thousand north american progressive dadaists into oblivion...if cyberpoetry is a genuine verse-form it will have several singular definitions. i can define it only in negatives: 1) the lack of limitation to black and white words on a page, 2) the lack of possibility for mechanical reproduction (there being no original), 3) the lack of closure and the lack of choice...cyberpoetry, having no pattern against which to place itself, appears "free," but is often merely unintelligible, which we think is good, but it's bad.

 

there are two types of digital poetry