Introduction
“There’s something quite beautiful in seeing how a poem can be made to move, not just through time as you’re reading it, but also visually across the page.”
— Ana Maria Caballero
Echoing T.S. Eliot’s idea of poetry as an emotional escape, digital and visual poetry provide an innovative departure from tradition and a venture into fresh creative territories.
Digital poetry harmonizes the rhythm of words with the technological pulse, creating a novel synergy of the poetic and the digital. Visual poetry, meanwhile, extends the poetic journey to our visual perception. Building upon William S. Burroughs’ idea of words as viruses, it infects not just the mind but the sight, transforming text into tangible shapes.
This exploration invites both newcomers and experts to traverse this digital-visual poetry landscape. In the words of poet Mary Oliver, “Poetry is a life-cherishing force. And it requires a vision — a faith, to use an old-fashioned term. Yes, indeed. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.”
Understanding Digital and Visual Poetry
Digital poetry blends human and computer languages in a novel fusion. It’s no longer bound to the printed page, but flourishes dynamically, as seen in generative poems such as Lai-Tze Fan and Nick Montfort’s Dial. The remixing concept in digital poetry provides interactive exploration, as shown in Montfort’s generative poem, Taroko Gorge, which spurred a flurry of remixes from various poets.
Visual poetry harnesses the synergy of text and imagery. Though not new — think William Blake’s engraved poems — digital technologies breathe new life into this form, allowing for vibrant digital embellishments.
Digital poetry interacts with other digital forms too, like gaming, as exemplified by Jason Nelson’s game, game, game, and again game. Further, code poetry, at the junction of poetry and programming, uses computer language, needing coding understanding for full comprehension, and symbolizes the diversity of digital poetry.
Visual poetry often showcases diagrams, spatial dialogues, letterforms as visual objects, visual event scoring, and asemic (i.e., without the smallest unit of meaning) writing to blur the line between language and visual art.
Digital and visual poetry, more than mere extensions of traditional poetry, are innovative forms that reflect our evolving interaction with language and technology. They show that poetry, like language, is a dynamic medium that continually adapts and inspires.
The Intersection of Digital and Visual Poetry
The fusion of poetry and visuals, dating back to William Blake’s engraved artwork, has been reinvigorated through digital technologies. Qianxun Chen’s Shan Shui, generating a new poem and corresponding traditional Chinese landscape painting per click, illustrates this powerful interplay.
Emerging gaming and virtual reality technologies offer fresh platforms for poetic expression. Drawing on text-based computer games like Zork, digital poets and authors have explored interactive avenues for creating a new kind of literature. Mez Breeze’s V[R]ignettes: A Microstory Series, blending poetic text, 3D models, and sound design, exemplify this trend.
The work of Porpentine Charity Heartscape likewise fuses poetry, fiction, and gameplay in fascinating new ways while Mark Wilson’s PowerPoint Eulogy leverages the most mundane of softwares for a perfectly calibrated new literary form. Similarly, director Patrick Eakin Young created AMONG THE FLOWERS, a 10-minute Instagram opera, featuring text by Sam Kentridge and music by Matt Huxley.
Code poetry merges traditional poetry with computer language, creating a unique blend requiring computer language understanding. Ishac Bertran’s print collection code {poems} showcases this genre.
While these genres represent the frontier of digital poetry, they also invite participation. A series of prompts from the Poetry Foundation provides a gateway for those interested in exploring visual poetry. From diagramming sequences, visualizing voices, to creating visual poems from newspaper and magazine headlines, these prompts provide a practical introduction to the art of visual poetry.
Digital Poetry On Chain
Crypto poetry allows for a unique confluence of perspectives. It brings together poets, technologists, collectors, and enthusiasts, all of whom can appreciate the value of a well-crafted verse as well as the power of blockchain technology. It offers a new way to think about the value of a poet’s work, challenging us to reconsider what it means to own a piece of literature.
According to OG crypto poet Ana Maria Caballero, “poetry = art.” Alongside Sasha Stiles and Kalen Iwamoto, Caballero has made good on that declaration by cofounding the VERSEverse, the first gallery of crypto poetry to celebrate the confluence of digital poetry, visual poetry, and web3.
Their championing of the digital and the visual in poetry is, as you’ve seen, not an altogether new approach to poetry but instead builds upon a quiet revolution that has long been underway. Hybridization is in art’s very nature and the crypto poetry movement has added another layer to a long and rich tradition of exploding the boundaries of the poetic form.
Crypto Poets to Watch
Sasha Stiles
Sasha Stiles is a first-generation Kalmyk-American poet, artist, and AI researcher whose work blends text and technology. Known for her pioneering efforts in generative literature and blockchain poetics, her work has been showcased by prestigious institutions such as MoMA, Art Forum, and Christie’s. A Harvard and Oxford graduate, Stiles co-founded theVERSEverse, a literary gallery redefining poetry as digital art, and has been a prominent figure in the NFT poetry movement, presenting her poems as unique digital artifacts.
Her innovative projects often involve collaborations with AI, exploring themes of consciousness and more-than-human intelligence. Stiles mentors the AI humanoid BINA48, pushing the boundaries of AI and poetry. By intertwining traditional poetic techniques with cutting-edge digital formats, she challenges conventional binaries of human versus machine, aiming to redefine our understanding of creativity in a post-human era.
See Sasha’s work available on MakersPlace
Ana María Caballero
Ana María Caballero is an acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and poet, whose work delves into the romanticization of motherhood and the notion of sacrifice. She has received numerous awards, including the Academy of American Poets Prize and Colombia’s José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize, and has been featured on platforms like Poets.org, Poets & Writers, and El País. Notably, she became the first living poet to sell a poem through Sotheby’s.
Caballero integrates performance, spoken-word poetry, choreography, photography, and blockchain technology in her work, exemplified by her “Literal Litoral” series. As a co-founder of theVERSEverse, she promotes poetry as a visual and transactional art form, providing a platform for poets to gain recognition and financial sustainability. Her work investigates the intrinsic rhythms of the human body and their influence on emotional expression, pushing the boundaries of how poetry can be exhibited and transacted in the digital age.
See Ana’s work available on MakersPlace
Laurence Fuller
Laurence Fuller is a poet and digital artist known for his innovative fusion of poetry and visual art, particularly in the web3 space. His work, often described as cinematic poetry, has been showcased on various digital art platforms and at global art fairs. Influenced by his mother, a painter, and his father, a renowned art critic, Fuller’s work explores historical and artistic legacies within philosophy, cinema, and art.
Fuller co-founded Graphite Method with actor Vincent D’Onofrio, creating projects like “Birth, Death, aaand…Action,” a dynamic triptych of poetic cinematic pieces. This work blends historical cinema figures with contemporary commentary on AI and technology. Fuller’s efforts in web3 bridge the gap between digital and physical art forms, redefining how contemporary art can be created, experienced, and transacted.
See Laurence’s work available on MakersPlace
Vincent D’Onofrio
Vincent D’Onofrio is an acclaimed actor and filmmaker, known for roles in “Full Metal Jacket,” “Men in Black,” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” Beyond acting, he has ventured into digital art, collaborating with artists like Laurence Fuller.
Co-founding Graphite Method, D’Onofrio adapts Method Acting principles to his digital creations, emphasizing authenticity and human experience. His collaborations with Fuller, including “Tell Me More” and “I’M A MONKEY WITH AN ORGAN GRINDING FRIEND,” reflect his belief in embracing failure and uncompromising independence as a vital part of the creative process. Through his experimental work in web3, D’Onofrio continues to merge traditional art forms with digital innovation, exploring new creative frontiers.
See Vincent’s work available on MakersPlace
Pierre Gervois
Pierre Gervois is a crypto poet and visual artist who explores the intersection of literature and blockchain technology. He minted his first NFT in May 2021 on the Tezos blockchain, discovering a community of poets using the platform to push literary boundaries. Gervois’s work integrates text with visual and interactive experiences, merging words with abstract images, photographs, music, and voice.
Inspired by web3 technology’s potential, Gervois challenges traditional notions of poetry, transforming the reading experience through digital art. His 2022 series, “New Conversations,” juxtaposes mundane scenes with the polarized social landscape mediated by technology, redefining how we interact with language and literature.
See Pierre’s work available on MakersPlace
Astra Papachristodoulou
Astra Papachristodoulou is an innovative poet and artist whose work combines visual art, sculptural poetics, and word games. Holding a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Surrey, her research explored sculptural poetics within the Anthropocene. Her works, featured in publications like The Times and Magma Poetry, and translated into several languages, have garnered international acclaim.
As the founder of Poem Atlas, Astra curates visual poetry exhibitions across the UK. Her debut collection, “Constellations,” presents 88 visual poems inspired by astronomical constellations, inviting interactive engagement. Her work, which often addresses themes of environmentalism and social justice, emphasizes the tactile and sensorial dimensions of poetic objects, redefining contemporary poetry and visual art.
See Astra’s web3 work at the VERSEverse
For more on the intersection of text and art, check out our Guide to Text-Based Art Part I and Guide to Text-Based Art Part II.