Digital poetry between the printed page and cinema: the difference in agency structures

Abstract

This article delves into the early era of 'digital poetry', focusing on poems from the digital poetry collection First Screening (1984) by bpNichol — a poet renowned for his 'movies of words'. Two poems from this collection — 'Letter' and 'After the Storm' — were initially published in print, coming out in 1967 and 1973, respectively. The poet's creative journey from crafting 'poem-pictures' to producing 'poem-movies' sparks inquiries into the contrasting subjective frameworks of printed poems versus their digital adaptations translated into a media language akin to cinema. The author suggests analysing the layers of media mediation in printed and digital texts as distinct material conditions of communication prompting readers to encounter a 'moment of intensity', as Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht put it, and undergo a creative experience of es­trangement enabling them to connect with the subject behind the text. The variance in media mediation shapes specific subjective structures. In both cases, the subject behind the text is a submedial subject (Boris Groys). The structures of literary and cinematic imagination allow the recipient not so much to relate to the author as to acquire an unexpected co-author, a sub-medial subject capable of replacing the author's intention with another intention or compro­mi­sing the former. In printed text, identification is possible with the submedial subject, whereas in digital text, disidentification is feasible. The evolution from literary text through digital cinema to interactive digital forms highlights the difference between the recipients of literary and digital texts. The recipient of a literary text brings to life the narrative or a lyrical 'self', actively enga­ging with the text through imagination. The recipient of a digital text identifies with an 'ava­tar' capable of making choices that influence plot development but is less effective at enriching un­folding scenes and events with additional meanings.