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trAced
Poetry
Poetry sites are very common
on the Web as any Websearch will soon verify. The problem is that an awful
lot of the sites are awful - and not in the sense of inspiring awe. Here
are a few places which shouldn't be a waste of your time. Many of the sites
listed under Literary Journals and Websites contain poetry as well.
Aabye's
Baby
There's a poem a week for
a year on this easy to use site. At least that's the case in the main section,
the archives have maybe another fifty to dip into. The poetry is straight
text (although sometimes the text is rather convoluted - you'll end up
scrolling horizontally as well as vertically in Tim Allen's "The Abandoned
Vertbrae" even if you have your screen resolution set to 1024x768) rather
than multimedia or graphically enhanced and covers a variety of styles
with contributors from Australia, the UK, and the US.
The
Albany Poetry Workshop
Here's a chance for you
to submit your poems for review by other readers. Basically, your poems
will be published online for a short time during which others can -mail
in their criticisms and of course you can send in your criticisms of others'
work.
Atlantic
Unbound
Among the offerings from
the general literary site The
Atlantic Monthly - motto: Politics, society, the arts and culture.
Bound since 1857, unbound since 1993 - is this section where RealAudio
streaming can be accessed. For those who just don't get poetry by merely
reading it, this is a boon. The list of poems available is impressively
long, the style mainly traditional.
Bad
Poet's Society
The society, based at Nottingham
Trent University, says it is the first poetry society affiliated to the
Student Unions of either University in Nottingham. The venture started
in 1999 and the group hopes to be putting a magazine together shortly.
Members, current or ex-members of NTU Student's Union are eligible, willing
to contribute time and poetry are sought.
Breakfast
Surreal
An ancient site in Web terms
- stretching back four years to a time when poetry was rare on the Web,
this is a selection of links to various poetry homepages. Some are good,
some are bad.
Buffalo
Electronic Poetry Society
This site was formed in
1994, and by April 2000 was logging eight million visitors a year from
90 countries. The poetry that the site is interested in is that which
takes advantage of the medium of the Web, incorporating multimedia and
interactivity. The site posits electronic poetry as a natural extension
of paper-based typographical experiments using moving imagery and sound
as well as fonts colour and graphics. The e-poetry link on the home page
connects to digital media work in progress where kinetic, hypertext and
programmable poetry can be explored. It goes without saying that visitors
should go armed with the latest browser versions and a range of plug-ins
for multimedia, such as: Flash, Shockwave Director, QuickTime and RealPlayer.
Burning
Press
Describing itself as "an
energy nexus for various literary projects" this is a site that should
appeal to those with any number of overlapping interests: poetry, multimedia,
and online writing and communities. With projects such as the CybpherAnthology
of Discontiguous Poetries, you might expect a forward-looking site
where traditional form and values per se are pushed. If so, you probably
won't be disappointed.
Carma
Bums
The Carma Bums are a group
of touring performance poets and their homepage at the University of Washington
was living proof that poetry sites don't have to look boring. It had a
graphical front page with inventive links. unfortunately it is now defunct,
but there is still plenty to explore at their new site on Mindspring.com.
Electronic
Poetry Centre
A well-connected place this
one. There's a good zine list and you can subscribe to the email journal
RIF/T.
The
Eyrie
Neil Harding has built a
site in the upper reaches of cyberspace, well on CompuServe's Ourworld
server at any rate. The poetic refreshments on offer for those who come
to perch range from pub poems of the rampant sort to "not quite the worst
poem ever" - very refreshing they are too.
IndiaWorld
Poetry
Poems in English and otherwise
are featured on this site. From November until December 5, 1999 a poem
a day is being posted, a fresh one each day by a poet of the week, to help
showcase the work of Indian poets to those in the know and those looking
to widen the scope of their usual reading.
Inter/face
Electronic Literary Magazine
Although a literary magazine
it mainly publishes poetry but competent poetry.
Internet
Poetry Archive Homepage
A small site at the moment
housing material on Czeslaw Milosz and Seamus Heaney but promises to become
larger. Also, will have sound and graphics for that multimedia experience.
Kurzweil
Cyber Art
A downloadable poetry generator
which doesn't rely on random suggestions is a novelty that might just
come in useful for poets and lyricists. The software uses modelling
techniques to create verse in the style of one or more poets, and includes
an essential "plagiarism avoidance algorithm". Examples of work produced
are on the web site, mixed in with work by human poets, to provide an
impromptu sort of Turing test where visitors can try to decide whether
the examples cited are computer generated or the products of human imagination.
Living
Poets
A large and colourful site
edited by Sean A Woodward. It's packed with poems and articles about poetry,
and welcomes email submissions of more. There's a good collection of artwork
in the gallery, a lively news section, plus the inevitable links to poetry
rings. It's more than proof enough that you don't need to be a dead poet
to be a good poet. The stated aim is to bring content and style to the
Web. A noble intention, and a good effort too. The frames almost work throughout
without the need for horizontal scrolling which makes a pleasant change.
Lynx:
Poetry from Bath
Although emanating from
the University of Bath, this is not an academic poetry site. The editor,
Douglas Clark says the stress is on readability. That's not to say that
anything will get published here. Quality rather than quantity is the keyword.
In any case the site's remit is not merely to publish poetry, its interests
are broader. "What this magazine is really about is articles and writers
are invited to submit if they have some point to make."
NEWSpoetry
A poem a day until
Y2K may be more than most can manage, but not William Gillespie. Mining
the meaning of new and news, this site (run by a trAce/Alt-X hypertext
competition winner) is a year-long exercise where you're invited to join
in and help the original brief of posting a new poem a day about a news
story of the day. Print poets have to rely on text and, if they're lucky,
a cartoon or photo to accompany their words, when newspapers print their
work. Newspoets here can avail themselves of sound, hypertext and CGI scripts
as well.
Peter
Finch Poet
Poetry resources courtesy
of a poet. Readers of A&C Black's Writers' & Artists' Yearbook
and Macmillan's annual Writer's Handbook will recognise his name
- he compiles the self-publishing section for the former and the poetry
section of the latter. Much good advice about publishing is on offer as
well as his own works and links to other literary sites.
Poems
Poetry Poets
Loads of links to poetry
related material such as Internet Poetry archives, Winconsin fellowship
of poets, Charlotte Mew etc.
Poetic
Generator
This experimental site is
basically an experiment in real-time Web collectivity so is not pointedly
literary, although the theory surrounding it and perhaps even the results
may be of interest to those who live and breathe online life.
The
Poetry Book Society
The Poetry Book Society
is an organisation that provides the latest information and guidance about
contemporary published poetry in the UK and Ireland. Founded by T S Eliot
in 1953, it's recent Web site strives to reach a global poetry community
and to provide links to e-commerce sites.
The
Poetry Exchange
This is another place where
you can send your poems to be criticised and give criticism in return by
email. You can also just submit poems to be published on the page. There
are also links to other sites.
Poetry
In Britain
An online club that describes
itself as "for anyone, old or young, romantic or rapper, sonneteer or gunslinger,
who loves poetry". It's a simple site based on chat rooms and messaging
where poems are posted and discussed. Membership is free and feedback on
work posted is said to be quick.
The
Poetry Kit
The Poetry Kit, edited by
Ted Slade, is an online magazine that features poems and related articles,
reviews and interviews. It also highlights events, courses and competitions
- in the UK and elsewhere. The Autumn 1998 issue has interviews with Ted
Burford, Peter Howard and David Kennedy, and poems from Janet S Buck, Ted
Burford, Chris Byrne, Peter Howard, David Kennedy, Larry Jaffe, Coral Hull,
Michael Rothenberg and CK Tower.
The
Poetry Society
All the way from London,
England! The premier UK site with details about competitions, information
for teachers, projects, news, a cafe, links and workshops.
Poets
And Writers Online
The claims to have "all
the resources you will need to succeed" may be oversell, but the resources
here are impressive all the same. There's news and advice from agents,
poets, writers and editors, and links to other American poetry and writing
sites. There's a neat search engine which will help you locate poets and
fiction writers (listed by publisher and agent if you like). If you're
looking for information about workshops, writing programmes, conferences
etc, this is a good starting point. And if you want to sign up for some
poetry seminars in New York City for a measly $10, surf no further.
Pyrowords
This is a literature site
which mainly focuses on poetry, of which there is no shortage, although
there is also some short fiction. The variety of poetry is quite extensive.
Included are collaborative works, and making use of the online medium,
some interactive works.
Riding
The Meridian
The impact of the Internet
on poetry has been much quicker to make itself felt than in many other
literary forms. This site, that has been coming online since 1999, looks
at the work of multimedia poets exploring how to use HTML to poetic effect.
But, while examing the theory and practice of sound, vision and hypertext,
it does not ignore old fashioned stand-alone text. Christy Sheffield Sanford,
the first trAce writer in residence, is on the masthead as co-curator of
the hypertext section. She and trAce director Sue Thomas are both among
the participants in the Roundtable Dialogue in volume one issue two.
Snakeskin
George Simmers runs
the excellent Snakeskin, which has hosted some intriguing material. Modern
poetry is to the fore, but the zine often features work that draws on Net
technology whether based on Java applets or more straightforward hypertext
techniques.
So
It Goes
"...is the first digizine
completely dedicated to poetry on the Internet." At least, that was what
it used to claim. It had a good reputation, but is "under massive construction"
it now says, "new issue April 15th". Unfortunately, it doesn't say what
year so it's either late, very late or incredibly late.
Stream
of Consciousness
A small zine worth looking
at if only for the interesting way poetry and graphics are merged. Definitely
not the kind of thing you find on paper.
World
Poetry
Promoting a range of poetry
was one of the aims behind this project. "Promoting strong accessible poetry
which moves the senses and soul without fogging the mind is our primary
motivation". American poets form the starting point, although the mix is
promised to become global later. Not for a while, though. In the summer
1999 reading was on temporary hiatus, but volunteers for the project were
still being sought. Only poets with a minimum of 12 publications in magazines
or anthologies (not including self publication and vanity press) are eligible
to submit work.
Zeugma
Although this is a closed
workshop group for those who take their art seriously, applications are
invited from poets and judged on the merits of their work rather than their
publication or educational records. The membership is international, the
favoured style extrovert and concrete rather than Plath-derived and self-referential.
Submissions and critiques form the basis of the email based workshops for
those to whom "writing poetry is a magical, desperate and necessary act".
©
1995-2000 trAce Online Writing Community
Last amended
August 1, 2000
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