Poetry in the Digital Age

As a multifaceted and intermedial phenomenon, poetry in the digital age not only demands a rethinking and expansion of the traditional paradigms of literary studies but also attracts increasing attention from other humanities. This interdisciplinary handbook is thus addressed both to literary scholars and to the broadest academic audience interested in contemporary poetry research. It offers 50 contributions by an international collective of authors that highlight the diversity of contemporary poetry, examining it from a wide variety of complementing theoretical and methodological angles.

The handbook focuses on contemporary modes of poetry presentation that are often located beyond the book, e.g., on stages, in public spaces, as multi- as well as transmedia publications, or on digital platforms. Such intermedial poetic practices, which may supplement poetic language with elements borrowed from music, visual art, cinema, or theater and performance, are transforming the forms and functions of poetry. It four parts thus (1) adapt established concepts and parameters of poetry research to the digital age, (2) explore established genres and emerging formats, (3) introduce interdisciplinary perspectives and new research fields, and (4) engage in current debates.

This book critically examines how the production and reception of performed poetry has changed in the wake of digitalization. The interdisciplinary chapters in this volume deal with fundamental questions confronting performed poetry in the digital age: How are concepts like liveness and performativity being adapted to mediatized digital environments? How are platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok helping to popularize performed poetry, and what online formats are emerging? How is the ubiquity of digital technologies transforming fields like experimental sound poetry, and how are they performed on stage?

Bringing together authors from various countries and disciplines, this volume addresses diverse topics such as the evolution of poetry readings in Scandinavia; poetry slams as political criticism and a social practice in Brazil, the UK, the US, and Italy; the performance of AI poetry; posthuman entanglements between gendered bodies and technological devices in experimental sound poetry; the aesthetics and practices of poetic activism on the street and social media; and how recordings of performed poetry are being circulated in our current platformized, digital environment.

This book’s goal is to determine the significance of visual culture in the production of contemporary poetry and to sound out the insights poetry might generate into contemporary visual culture. Its main hypothesis is that poetry holds considerable potential for (post-)digital language, image, and media criticism. The visual dimensions of recent poetry encompass, for instance, kinetic writing in digital poetry, visual elements in social media poems, and (spoken and written) text-image interactions in poetry films as well as in book poetry. The articles examine these medial correlations and their political implications by asking how visual culture is applied, exposed, and debated in poetry. This volume brings together contributions by authors from various countries working in disciplines such as literary, media, and film studies, linguistics, cultural and visual culture studies, and in poetic practice. It covers poetry in English, German, Norwegian, Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Serbian, and also multilingual works. The book thus aims to promote international exchange between poetry researchers and stimulate further investigation into current relations between poetry and visuality from additional research perspectives and languages.

How to grasp poetry in its contemporary digital situation, a situation wherein poetry travels across digital and analoge media platforms and intended or not collaborates with computers?

Situating Scandinavian Poetry in the Computational Network environment investigates how heterogeneous forms of poetry in Scandinavia interact with and work in a digital media environment, how digital programmable and network media intervene with and shape new poetic forms or remediate older forms of poetry, and how digital and digitalized poetry through its self-reflexivity sheds light on digital media technology and its role for poetry and potentially for literature and aesthetics more in general. In doing so, it also argues for the importance of close reading poetry in digital media. It includes an historical and theoretical approach to poetry in digital media and analysis of poetic works in Scandinavia. The book is written within the framework of posthumanism and what N. Katerine Hayles calls "technogenesis", and makes up the argument that contemporary poetry constitutes and is constituted by a computational network environment of human and non-human subjects, wherein poems travels in an egalitarian media ecology .

The book is relevant for researchers and students in the field of poetry, students and researchers in the field of literary studies, media studies and digital culture studies, and teachers interested in presenting newer forms of poetry for their students.

Die interdisziplinäre Studie untersucht Lyrik, die in städtischen Räumen zu sehen oder zu hören ist. Aus literaturwissenschaftlicher Perspektive interessieren vor allem die Ästhetik, Sprachgestaltung und Ortsbezüglichkeit der präsentierten Lyrik, aus stadtsoziologischer Sicht die Einbindung der Projekte in stadtpolitische Konstellationen, Debatten über öffentliche Räume und ihr Beitrag zur Produktion des jeweiligen Raums. Das Spektrum der analysierten Lyrikprojekte ist vielfältig. Es reicht von Wandgedichten an Hausfassaden und Audiowalks in Stadtvierteln über Gedichte auf Lesezeichen, die vom Hubschrauber auf öffentliche Plätze abgeworfen werden, oder großformatige Projektionen an repräsentative Gebäude einer Stadt bis zu informellen, durch Dichter:innen oder Anwohner:innen initiierte Formen, etwa Gedichte auf kopierten Zetteln, die in Parks oder U-Bahnen aufgehängt werden und derart ihr „Recht auf Stadt" (Henri Lefebvre) beanspruchen. Lyrikprojekte in urbanen Räumen wurden bisher nicht untersucht. Die Studie schließt nicht nur dieses Desiderat der Lyrikforschung, sondern bietet durch den interdisziplinären Ansatz kreative Interpretationen von Gedichten in städtischen Kontexten, die für ein breites Lesepublikum interessant sind.