Digital Poetry

Employment of computer technology to create, present, or enhance poetic experiences beyond traditional print formats
Nataliya Gorbina 2025-11-04

Explication

While Theo Lutz’s 1959 stochastic experiment on a Zuse Z22 computer is often credited as the first digital poem (Lutz 1959; cf. Funkhouser 37), the term “digital poetry” itself did not enter critical discourse until several decades later. As poetic experimentation evolved alongside advances in digital technology, a wide array of labels emerged in an effort to define these technology-dependent poetic practices. Among them were “computer poetry” (1959, 1960, 1962), “virtual poetry” or “vpoem” (1995), “cyberpoetry” (1996), “electronic poetry” or “e-poetry” (1996), “interpoetry” (1997/1998), etc., (for a more extensive catalogue of what Jorge Luis Antonio terms “various names for digital poetry”, see Antonio). These early efforts reflect a broader attempt to distinguish poetry created for and through digital media from both pre-digital literary forms and other types of electronic writing.

Although the definition of “digital poetry” continues to evolve, there is general agreement that this phenomenon cannot be reduced to a singular genre or form. Rather, the phrase “digital poetry” is most commonly used as an umbrella term encompassing what C.T. Funkhouser succinctly describes as “a conglomeration of forms that now constitutes a genre even though the creative activity itself – in terms of its media, methods, and expressive intent – contains heterogeneous components” (Funkhouser 1; cf. Friedrich W. Block et al. 13; Rettberg 118). Some of the intersecting practices it is seen to include are (cf. Strehovec): kinetic/animated poetry (e.g., bpNichol’s collection First Screening: Computer Poems 1984), code poetry (e.g., Mez Breeze’s collection Human Readable Messages: [Mezangelle 2003–2011] 2011), poetry generators (e.g., John Cayley’s poem “The Speaking Clock” 1995), and interactive poetry (e.g., Jim Rosenberg’s Intergrams 1993). Other examples include digital sound poetry (e.g., Jörg Piringer’s poem “80x25,” n.d.), ergodic/visual digital poetry (e.g., Lionel Kearns’s “Birth of God/uniVerse” 1965), and digital textscapes/installations with poetic features (e.g., Nalini Malani’s installation In Search of Vanished Blood 2012). As evolving as its definition, digital poetry itself is often regarded as a “process” both in diachronic terms of its ongoing engagement with changing computerised techniques (Funkhouser 1–2) and in synchronic terms of its ontological dependence as an “event” on the hardware and software needed to execute a specific digital poem (Hayles 181–182).

As such, digital poetry has inspired two main critical approaches, often used in tandem. The first wishes to establish a broader literary lineage and to explain the characteristics of digital poetry through its continuities with earlier literary traditions: for example, the ancient rhetorical practice of ekphrasis, an exercise aimed at engaging the audience’s imagination through vivid, descriptive language (Lindhé), concrete poetry (Stefans), language poetry (Glazier), or premodernist, modernist, and postmodernist techniques in general (Funkhouser 10–18). The second, rooted in the broader field of electronic literature, foregrounds the importance of media-specific analysis and the unique affordances of digital environments in which these works are produced and experienced (Hayles 2006, Rettberg).

Despite the rise of “digital poetry” as the dominant term in the field, alternative labels such as “computer poetry”, “cyberpoetry”, “e-poetry”, and the broader concept of “digital poetics” that avoids affirming “digital poetry” as a distinct category, remain in circulation and testify both to the field’s heterogeneous origins and the continuous lack of a fully settled critical lexicon (Funkhouser 22). Additionally, current critical discourse makes an important distinction between studies of digital poetry and studies of poetry in the digital age. The latter often explores both digital and digitised poetry, i.e. poetry that is neither born-digital nor fully technology-dependent and tends to circulate across digital and analog formats (Benthien, Matter et al., Stein).

See Also

• Born Digital - Media creation specifically for digital formats, utilizing the capabilities and features of electronic devices and software from their inception, rather than being digitized after creation
• Cybertext - Print or digital texts that require active participation from the reader not just to interpret the meaning of the text but also to navigate through it, for example by choosing alternative paths or entering data that alters the output
• Electronic Literature (e-lit) - Variety of born-digital genres and formats that engage the capabilities of computing, often investigating the materiality of our everyday interactions with digital media
• Ergodic Literature - Texts that require significant effort from the reader to traverse, often involving non-linear navigation and interaction that contribute to the narrative's meaning
• Generative Poetry - Poetry created through the use of algorithms or computational processes, often resulting in works that can change or evolve with each iteration
• Hypertext - Type of document comprised of interrelated textual nodes that are connected via associative links, facilitating non-linear traversal and reading
• Instapoetry - Poetry posted on the Instagram social media platform, which is characterized by brief, visually appealing texts that often incorporate themes of personal identity, traumatic experiences, and emotional catharsis

Works Referenced

Antonio, Jorge Luiz. “The Digital Poetry Genre.” ELP: Emerging Language Practices, vol. 1, n.d. https://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/elp-old/issue-1/digital-poetry-genre.php.

Benthien, Claudia. “Poetry in the Digital Age.” Theories of Lyric: An Anthology of World Poetry Criticism. Dir. Antonio Rodriguez. University of Lausanne, 2021. https://lyricology.org/poetry-in-the-digital-age/.

Block, Friedrich W., Christiane Heibach, and Karin Wenz, eds. p0es1s: The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry. Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2004.

Breeze, Mez. Human Readable Messages: [Mezangelle 2003–2011]. Traumawein, 2011.

Cayley, John. “The Speaking Clock.” Indra’s Net VII. Wellsweep Press, 1995. Diskette.

Funkhouser, C.T. Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms, 1959–1995. The University of Alabama Press, 2007.

Glazier, Loss Pequeño. Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries. University of Alabama Press, 2002.

Hayles, N. Katherine. “Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis.” Poetics Today, vol. 25, no. 1, 2004, pp. 67–90. https://doi.org/10.1215/03335372-25-1-67. 

Hayles, N. Katherine. “The Time of Digital Poetry: From Object to Event.” New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories, edited by Adalaide Morris and Thomas Swiss. MIT Press, 2006, pp. 181–206.

Kearns, Lionel. “Birth of God/uniVerse.” By the Light of the Silvery McLune: Media Parables, Poems, Signs, Gestures, and Other Assaults on the Interface. Daylight Press, 1969.

Lindhé, Cecilia. “‘A Visual Sense is Born in the Fingertips’: Towards a Digital Ekphrasis.” Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 1, 2013. https://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/7/1/000161/000161.html. 

Lutz, Theo. “Stochastische Texte” augenblick, vol. 4, no. 1, 1959, pp. 3–9. https://www.netzliteratur.net/lutz_schule.htm. 

Malani, Nalini. In Search of Vanished Blood. 2012, installation, Documenta 13, Documenta-Halle, Kassel.

Matter, Marc, Henrik Wehmeier, and Clara Cosima Wolff, eds. Audioliterary Poetry between Performance and Mediatization/Audioliterale Lyrik zwischen Performance und Mediatisierung. De Gruyter, 2024.

Nichol, bp. First Screening: Computer Poems. Underwich Editions, 1984. Diskette https://vispo.com/bp/.

Piringer, Jörg. “80x25.” Jörg Piringer – Digital Sound Visual Interactive Poetry etc., N.d. https://joerg.piringer.net/80x25/.

Rettberg, Jill Walker. “Electronic Literature Seen from a Distance: The Beginnings of a Field.” Dichtung Digital. Journal für Kunst und Kultur digitaler Medien, no. 41, 2012, pp. 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/17748.

Rettberg, Scott. Electronic Literature. Polity, 2019.

Rosenberg, Jim. Intergrams. Eastgate Quarterly Review of Hypertext, vol. 1, no. 1. Eastgate, 1993. Diskette.

Stefans, Brian Kim. Fashionable Noise: On Digital Poetics. Atelos, 2003.

Stein, Kevin. Poetry’s Afterlife: Verse in the Digital Age. University of Michigan Press, 2010.

Strehovec, Janez. “Text as Loop: On Visual and Kinetic Textuality.” Afterimage, vol. 31, no. 1, 2003, pp. 6–7. https://doi.org/10.1525/aft.2003.31.1.6.

Further Reading

Bootz, Philip. “From OULIPO to Transitorie Observable. The Evolution of French Digital poetry.” Dichtung Digital. Journal für Kunst und Kultur digitaler Medien, no. 41, 2012, pp. 1–12. https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/17746. 

Engberg, Maria. Born Digital: Writing Poetry in the Age of New Media, PhD dissertation, Uppsala University, 2007.

Funkhouser, C.T. New Directions in Digital Poetry. Continuum, 2012.

Kac, Eduardo, ed. Media Poetry: An International Anthology. Intellect, 2007.

Kjerkegaard, Stefan, and Dan Ringgaard. Dialogues on Poetry. Mediatization and New Sensibilities. Aalborg University Press, 2017.

Naji, Jeneen. Digital Poetry. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

Nelson, Jason. “Poetic Playlands. Poetry, Interface, and Video Game Engines.” Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities: Contexts, Forms, and Practices, edited by James O’Sullivan. Bloomsbury Academic, 2021, pp. 335–350.

Seiça, Álvaro. “Digital Poetry and Critical Discourse: A Network of Self-References?” Matlit: Materialidades Da Literatura, vol. 4, no. 1, 2016, pp. 95–123. https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_4-1_6. 

Strickland, Stephanie. “Born Digital. A Poet in the Forefront of the Field Explores What is – and is not – Electronic Literature.” Poetry Foundation, 2009. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69224/born-digital.

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