Poetry goes Techno (Draft)

Let's forget about the Web for a moment to consider what else technology has done for poetry. Like it or not, technology has not only made poets' lives easier (printing helped them read (and be read) more, pens and paper helped them write more) but it has also changed the nature of poetry: typewriters encouraged free-verse, and hypertext wouldn't be possible without computers.

Some more recent benefits that spring to mind are

rhyming dictionaries
CD/DVD recordings
computer-generated haiku
combining animated images and words

Poetry and multimedia

Music - Poets have been singing their poems for centuries. They've also spoken their poetry over music or percussion - Betjamen did it to strings. Joy Harpo's renditions tend to use jazz as a backdrop.
Stills - I'm growing to like the idea of mixing still images with text (following in the steps of Blake) but I've never done it. See my notes on Illustrating poetry.
Animation - Words can be animated (an update of "concrete poetry"), or words can be combined with simple graphics - for example, an abstract image (a digital fountain of colours for example) can be synchronised to a voice. Flash, Java, etc can be used. See
- vispo LANGU(IM)AGE poetry
- ubuweb (visual/concrete/sound poetry)
- Peter Howard's list of Hypertext Poetry and Web Art
Movies - Pop videos have become a legimate art form, but their words aren't always their strength. Tony Harrison's V appeared some years ago on the UK TV's channel 4. In the US MTV's Unplugged and in particular the "United Stated of Poetry" venture (Walcott, Cohen, Rita Dove, etc) were important.
One problem is how to balance words and images - if the images are dazzling who's going to bother with the words? On the other hand, one doesn't want the images to slavishly follow the words, showing a picture of a tree whenever the word "tree" appears. I suspect a successful movie poem needs to be watched a few times, so the WWW or CD/DVDs are perhaps their most appropriate media.
For examples, go to
- See and Hear Poetry from the Griffin Trust
- Poetry Archive
- Poetry in Motion
- Best Minds
- Candles for a Street corner
(you'll need Flash, QuickTime, etc). Resources include
My attempts (online - you'll need a QuickTime player) begin as poems. I then produce some movie clips to match the imagery. Sometimes the poem appears as subtitles. They need work!
Alternatively one can use pre-existing movie clips. The original soundtrack can be muted during the voice-over, speeded up or replaced by music.

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Updated November 2005

Tim Love