Digital in Poetry

appointments in lusophony scene

Abstract

The paper’s aim is to relate some Portuguese-language contemporary poetry to the most relevant technological phenomenon in the last decades, the computer and digital revolution. Three hypotheses to proceed with such approach are proposed: a) the machine as a poetry-generator, executing the poet’s developed project, as in the work of Antero de Alda and André Vallias; b) the incorporation of tech universe in socalled traditional poetry, such as in the exploitation of barcodes in Manuel de Freitas’ Isilda ou a nudez dos códigos de barra, or the appropriation of advertisement and joke in a visual poem by Patricia Lino, or the cloning of e-mail format in Fabiano Calixto’s correspondence poems; and c) the usage of video platforms and social networks as a means of broadcasting and distributing poetry, especially YouTube, in which formats as videopoem and battle rap registers have become common.