How to construct the genre of Digital Poetry: A user manual

11.30-12.20: Friedrich Block (Kassel, Germany)  

Abstract: Digital Poetry 'is' a young genre. But how can we speak about a genre here? It has been necessary to communicate and spread schemes of invariety and identification to tie together a high variety of artistic practice. Strategically, concepts and names of genre connected with different forms of institutionalization have been useful here. From this perspective I will discuss the systemic development of Digital Poetry and some closely related concepts in the context of earlier conceptual attributions to poetics. And my paper explores whether the genre(s) of what has been called Digital Poetry, or E-Poetry, or (New) Media Poetry (as well as Net Literature) is primarily a construct of curatorial and academic practice.