Author Archives: genericpronoun

Oversharing: Canadian E-Lit and the Lyric Subject

This paper has been written in contribution to the ACQL Roundtable: “TrashCan: An Anti-Canon Manifesto,” presented as a part of the ACCUTE Congress, Sunday, 28 May, 2017.  My contribution to this anti-canon manifesto is a two-fold response to the general sidelining of new media poetics and digital literatures in CanLit. Canadian E-lit should, I wager,Continue reading “Oversharing: Canadian E-Lit and the Lyric Subject”

Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance

Hi Readers and Friends, If you like poetry and hate oppressive governments, misogyny, racism, transphobia, homophobia, and ESPECIALLY if you are goddamn tired of conceptualism, have I got a poetry anthology for you! I have a poem in Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance and it is just a stellar collection. First of all, theContinue reading “Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance”

CFP Reminder: Decoding Canadian Digital Poetics

For a long time now, Canadian poets have been credited with making significant initiatory experiments in the fields of electronic literature and digital poetics, but there has been relatively little work done examining what constitutes a Canadian digital poetics, what kinds of writing constitute the genre, and what new reading practices are invited by digitalContinue reading “CFP Reminder: Decoding Canadian Digital Poetics”

On Mark Sutherland’s Code X (Part Two)

The material of technology—the hardware—that each performer uses to engage with Code X becomes emblematic of the variant and variable reading practices provoked by the work. Obviously, there is a marked difference between Code X’s appearance in the Scratch exhibit and the way that I use it with my personal computer at home. But, thereContinue reading “On Mark Sutherland’s Code X (Part Two)”

On Mark Sutherland’s Code X (Part One)

In W. Mark Sutherland’s Code X (2002), a born-digital sound poetry machine that allows users to create their own sound poetry performances, a similar line is drawn between the work and a history of sound poetry, performance and installation art, and, to an extent, also concrete poetics. Despite the fact that, at its heart, CodeContinue reading “On Mark Sutherland’s Code X (Part One)”

I want you to do me: Jim Andrews and New Media Poetry

Prezi This paper originally presented at the Two Days of Canada Conference: “The Concept of Vancouver.” St. Catharine’s, ON, 13 October 2016. Last month at the conference as part of the launch of CWRC (the Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory) in Edmonton, I presented a paper on the state of Canadian Digital Poetics. Afterward, Lori EmersonContinue reading “I want you to do me: Jim Andrews and New Media Poetry”

Towards a Theory of Canadian Digital Poetics

In 2016 with many decades of transmedial and digital poetics under our belt, we must now work to define a Canadian literature that has already turned digital.
This paper presents a Canadian digital poetics that has, with some exceptions, had its eye keenly on the past, and on print, rather than looking forward to the engaging and radical potentials of networked connectivity.
The visual concerns of Canadian digital poetics are heavily indebted to concrete poetry, especially as it was interpreted in the print medium by earlier Canadian practitioners like bpNichol or Steve McCafferey.
Its aural concerns are heavily indebted to sound poetry as it was interpreted by early Canadian practitioners like the Four Horsemen.
Where Canadian digital poetics do engage with locative or spatial concerns, these are frequently approached using mapping tech or other qualitative means met with the intensely personal, almost confessional, and highly affective intrusions.
And finally and most importantly, Canadian digital poetics has tended toward author-effacing conceptualism rather than the kind of reader engagement we see in other electronic literary communities in the US or Europe.