Defining Digital Poetry

I'd like to open up a discussion to our directors and advisors regarding the term "digital poetry". Later this week we'll move on to the next term, "archive". There's also room to continue and discuss the what / how / who implied by "of Canada". I'd like to reference a recent email Lionel sent to me. In it, he poses a certain question about the definition of our society in a very succinct way. Lionel says: "Of course it also depends whether DPAC means (1) An archive of Canadian digital poetry, or (2) A digital archive of Canadian poetry Those are two very different things." This point speaks to an issue that will undoubtedly come up repeatedly, and will need to be addressed. I'm really fence sitting on this issue, and could use more feedback. The motivation for the archive from my perspective is two fold, much as this debate suggests. I am interested in finding, preserving, and making public a period of literary history that is non-print oriented. I am also interested in where that cultural trajectory is headed. There is, as we know, a Digital Poetry Archive already, sponsored by the Department of Heritage Canada, which hosts works published in 19th Century schoolbooks of otherwise lost or obscure Canadian poets from that period. To continue in this direction would address the second of Lionel's suggested meanings for DPAC. Although it may be useful to make an affiliation with them (DPA), this is not strictly an interest of mine, and I see no crossover of the kinds of archives we would be working with. Making print digital is well beyond the scope of what I see us doing. Our source media are different, so is, to cop a McLuhanism, our message. However, there are a number of ways in which I see our work fitting into the second of Lionel's definitions. The act of rescuing an e-literature from the decay of magnetic recordings, or the obsolescence of digital ones, is clearly suggested in our mandate. As far as I know, there is no collective Canadian effort presently being made to assimilate, preserve and disseminate non-print works of Canadian literature, particularly poetry and poetics. What is included in such a broad definition of non-print poetry and poetics? Well, as per Lenore's footage, there are live events, both performance and discussion, that would provide important information to future poets, students, researchers, literary historians, and so on, and which we are on the verge of losing. If these were print, we could make some good scans and be done with it. Obviously, our task is more complex, not only technologically, but aesthetically. DPAC recovery projects imply a considerable amount of selection and categorization. We also have poetry on film, or cinepoems, on video, and videopoems, works on audio tape, or audio/sound poems, and all combinations thereof. Add to this the live performance and discussion footage I've just discussed, and quite a lot of diverse material might come to mind. Several times, we've discussed that we don't want to become a Poettube, meaning that with all the new multimedia-friendly computer techonology out there, the sense is that we'd be overwhelmed and doing what giant sites like Youtube are already covering. However, you probably know that I'm a fan of spoetry, or spam poetry. The arrival of Youtube brought out the spam poets, and people started videoing themselves reading poetic spam and posting it online. Ten years from now, I wonder what will become of all that. I'm not saying we need to store it, but it posits this same issue. If I sit down with my computer camera and record myself reading some poems, does that make it digital poetry? I'm ambivalent: my answer is both yes and no. This is an important query for the society. For example, how closely allied are we to our poetry colleagues, the video poets? Before it gets lost from the discussion, however, I'd like to address the first of Lionel's definitions, that is, DPAC as an "archive of Canadian digital poetry". Still need to clarify this. During his talk, Jim Andrews made the point that a lack of programming ability means the outcome of using any software to create poems is unlikely to surprise him. So on one angle, an angle to which both Jim and Chris can offer us deep insight, digital poetry is closer to programming, perhaps even code-jamming, than to performing, per se (although both definitions might need to come under scrutiny regarding the automation of performance and the performance of automation). I think this query addresses the future, where poetry is headed. As Jim mentioned in a recent email exchange, Ted Warnell and other code poets are somewhere seated, with me, on the digital poetry fence. Their work uses code as a semiotic resource for their poetry, which is visually directed, and doesn't necessarily "do" anything in terms of computational algorithms and so on. Yet the issue of the code is very important. It underlies the most basic acts of digital communications, and all but in rare instances, it does so invisibly, yet not without implications for the entire system of communication, information, imagination, inspiration, and so on. Now the crux of the issue: the notion of a poetics of digital space. The rapid proliferation of technologies diversifies practices and increases participation in digital poetries from many communities and in many forms. To move forward, a position needs to be taken as regards digital poetics, one that acknowledges the process of recovery and preservation while moving forward toward more complex issues of bring together those helping to shape poetic practices in the future, those whose work is forging new modes of poetic expression through digital media. If you've read this entry without your eyes rolling up in your head and your forehead contacting the desk in front of you, then I hope you'll take a moment to offer your opinion. Is the ambivalent, both-and, approach too general to be effective? Is an either-or approach necessary or too limited? If so, where does the emphasis belong? Personally speaking, I'm an enthusiast of digital poetry (1), and I want to know how we got here (2), and I want unborn poets to be able to find out for themselves one day.