>that the internet and
digital technologies have led to longer poems. Of course long poems existed
before (Pound and Olson could both go on) but i think poems written on
digital media and published on digital media tend to be longer becuase the
medium has few space limitations<
not sure about this, Ian. Our Victorian, and pre-Victorian, forebears went on, poetically, at considerable, even VERY GREAT length,
a 500 to a thousand line poem was regarded by many as nothing more than a brisk morning walk. There were shorter versifiers of
course, Mr GMH and Ms Dickinson for example, but an extended effusion was by and large a par for the course, think just of Shelley,
Keats or Wordsworth, let alone, going further back, the goings-on of Spenser or Chaucer or Milton etc etc.
I tend to feel, re the debate's subject, rather like the mountaineering argument: because it's there. Which leads one to 'it's there
because it's there'!
All the Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Spectare's Web, A Chide's Alphabet
& Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
----- Original Message -----
From: "ian davidson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2004 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: Poetry & the Internet
Hi Rupert and others
I think the technology used for the writing process might change the act of
writing, even if I'm not sure of its significance. Olson talked about how he
could use the typewriter to space out the poem and indicate the 'breath' or
'breathing' of the poet. And there was a whole batch of 'typewriter' poems
where poets used the technology to construct the page by visual design and
techniques like overscoring. I don't have it in front of me but Bill
Griffith's Morning Land is a hand written text that completely fills the
page, and it's either on the book or he says it in an interview somewhere
that medieval? writers filled the page so as not to waste whatever they were
writing on. In both those case the technologies impact on the writing.
And in Bill's case the poetic line becomes a luxury, all that wasted space.
This links to something else I wanted to suggest, . Unfortunately researching this would be
really boring so I wondered what others thought before i had to get out my
calculator.
Ian
>
>Hi
>
>Hey, this is just a discussion - and there are points all round which are
>important and significant. Paul, I cannot imagine Lawrence delivering
>anything "read on vellum!"
>
>Of course, the Internet is developing and we've to run with it as poets.
>Great. Also, whatever poets can do with and by the Internet is brilliant
>too. But doesn't Lawrence have a point: technology cannot write a poem.
>However things change, that act (action), remains the same?
>
>All best wishes, Rupert
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