This doesnt seem to be going out on Poetry Etc so I will post it
here. It demonstrates the neanderthal.
from the NB column of the Times Literary Supplement, 12 February 1999,
by J.C.
The latest issue of `Poetry Review' contains a half-page of tips on
where to go for poetry on the Internet, so, in our new enthusiasm for
"literature for all", we decided to check it out. We began at `Agnieszka's
Dowry' (www.enteract.com/~asgp/agnieszka.html). First up is a hint on
how to pronounce "Agnieszka" - "uk-NYEZH-ka. Simple. Anyone can do it"
- followed by a poem by Marek Lugowski, which babbles along in this
fashion: "romeo void girl is english at its/ gurgliest like a brook cold on a
hut hut hut late/ september sun day". As Marek is at the helm of
`Agnieszka's Dowry', you know roughly what else to expect.
At `The Periodic Table of Poetry' (n2o.com/elemental/), the intention
is to find a poem for each of the elements. The poems are contributed
by visitors to the site: "Copper" by Emily Therese Cloyd, for example,
jingles along like this: "Its color is orange, or maybe red/ Until it
changes to green, when to oxygen it is wed." That second line is only
a whisper away from a classic McGonagall hobbled hexameter.
Next we surfed to `Perihelion' (webdelsol.com/Perihelion), which is
edited by "some of the people who are helping to define the Internet
poetry community". These turn out to include some of the people who
are helping to produce `Agnieszka's Dowry' and `The Periodic Table'
(cyberspace is small, when you start to explore it). They include a
poet called Dancing Bear, who contributes two poems to `Perihelion',
one about ducks and another about herons. The latter asks what would
happen if his soul entered a heron's body: "would it still hunger for
fish/ or would it crave hamburgers".
There is also a "discussion" area, in which several poets discuss the
efect of the Internet on poetry in general. The participants seem unaware
that their love of the Net comes out as a sublimated reading difficulty.
One, "Kucinta", finds that "poetry on books seldom come with pictures,
unlike web-published poetry. They make dull reading sometimes." Another
web poet, "Karen", reckons that sometimes "the effect of reading a strong
immediate poem on the web is amazing. It's not like sitting down with a
book where there are codes of expectations." Karen believes that "we
haven't even begun to explore the media of the web as a medium for
poetry - poetry with links, options, sound, graphics." For Karen, the
media is the medium.
J.C.
[I should add that a few issues ago there was a favourable review
of `Jacket' and `The Richmond Review' by Hugh Kenner. And I believe
J.C. to be Scottish from his previous references.]
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