combinatory poetics

 Combinatory poetics came about in the twentieth century and is still a large part of electronic literature. Within Zurich Dada, abstract art took ahold and the poems were created by flow of consciousness with a newspaper and scissors. The product would be a representative of the creator and their mind. What I found interesting is that this would later be expanded to groups as well. Meaning, a group of people could sit together, pass around a paper and write whatever came to mind. The end would be a mash of questions, responses, and anything in between. This can create a sort of group unconscious product where creativity does not have any bounds. Programs allowing for electronically generated poetry, and in some cases stories, have boomed and give readers a wide range of poems. One that was mentioned in the text was Taroko gorge, I explored that in Intro Creative non fiction and found it fascinating that it never really ends. It has also transformed into an almost collaborative space. People can enter in their own words in whatever theme they desire and it can be added to the website with the original Taroko gorge poems. It was interesting to see a piece of electronic lit that has taken on a life of its own and has gained traction like that. 

https://www.house-of-trust.org 

I explored the House of Trust by Stephanie Strickland and Ian Hatcher. This is generative poetry that is made to honor free libraries. It was created based on The House of Dust, which was an early version of generated poems made in 1967. The website it is on is very simple, just a plain white background and the text and images continuously change. The first one that appeared for me was, 

"In the House of Trust I see the sign: 

Learn English I find English Instruction and the Adult Tech Lab 

Still I worry about access—

 Much of the material is lost forever"

I appreciated the simplicity of the website and how it was super user friendly considering the reader does not really need to do anything. However, I am not sure if these poems repeat or if they are continuously being generated for each individual viewer. 


This is the poem I assembled on Cent Mille Millards de poems 

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