[Andrew Frisardi]

I'll have to get a copy of that Williamson collection, Gregory. I can see that a poem like the sonnet of his you posted in this thread could have quite a different feel in context.

Well, as I was tossing and turning unable to sleep last night, I thought of another contemporary poet who has worked with the language that's the subject of this thread: Richard Burns, the British poet I reviewed for Semicerchio (a mag. that Gregory edits for, folks). His collection The Manager (2001) is a book-length dramatic monologue in the voice of an executive who works for a multinational corporation. Burns uses the fiction in part to explore current idioms and jargon, as well as various dissociated mental states that go along with contemporary life. I liked this book a lot. I'll type some in below to give a flavor of the whole. Burns (also known as Richard Berengarten, by the way) calls the form he uses here "verse paragraphs." One of the things that strikes me about Burns's way of doing it is that the form allows him to go all over the place, free associate, disassociate. Also, the dramatic monologue framework gives the material (at least, in the course of the whole book) pathos.

Boarded the Twin Com and the look on her face said Heaven. Strapped her up front next to me and gave her a pair of phones. Everything A OK. We're cleared to taxi OK.

Wind at ground level 15 knots. Around zero three zero and gusting a bit. Visibility OK. Three knots at three and a half thou. But I go through the checks and would you bloody believe it

There's a drop of over 200 on the port mag. Completely out of parameters and I'm not taking chances with her aboard. So back we go to the shed . . .

VFR and once we're past the Needles it's Cavoc all the way. Look there's our shadow on the foam-flecked waves. Like a day in early June and I ease her into auto. At Ortac 50º North we join

The Mile High club . . .

and:

There go the dead again. Wailing. Constantly I hear them. Even when not listening. Even this side the partition wall.

Giggling in the office during coffee break. Conversing on the tube at the other end of the carriage. Beneath your voice on the phone.

In a meths drinker's snore from a bench on Platform 8. Whispering through the stadium under the crowd's roar. Crackling through gaps.

In The Ultimate in CD Hi-Fi Integration.Despite metal particle coating lasers and microchips. Like a horde of Hollywood extras

In a multi-million epic . . .

and (this last one using the form and typeface of a fax):

Sir Keith Lawdon Dubai

From: Rex Harmer <rex.harmer@prospect.com>
To: Sir Keith Lawdon
Dubai<fassbinder.suite@galaxyhotel.com>
Sent: 1 March 2001 09:34
Attach: brunofax.doc
Subject: Bananas

Hello Keith,

Sorry to trouble you with this but to judge by his fax (see attachment) Bruno appears to have gone bananas. Will try to contain problem but may need to consult you for directions. Can you send contingency instructions.

Thanks. Rex.

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[Tim Love]

As Janice points out, the real risk is of seeming dated.

Yes, though people still write historical novels. I don't know why poets might avoid mentioning tech more than novelists do. Some tech merely offers new ways to do old things (FAX replacing pony-express) but others affect big issues. Medical developments affect childlessness, our notions of death (borderline cases increase), our notions of identity (transplants, brain-changing drugs and surgery, sex changing). Cell phones and video phones let us more easily be alone without being lonely. Space and Time aren't what they used to be.

Note also that the UK has Informationist Poetry

I haven't yet managed to track it down to Updike

I can't recall where I read that - The Dark Horse? The source may well remain unknown. Updike's an unlikely inventor, I'd say.

But I still remain curious to see if anyone else has any successful examples of such poetry. I remember coming across somewhere a very witty poem based on the language of spam.

Perhaps the more interesting effects are deeper, more radical, than content - Flarf, HyperText poems, etc.

[Ed Shacklee]

Originally Posted by Tim Love

Perhaps the more interesting effects are deeper, more radical, than content - Flarf, HyperText poems, etc.

I've wondered how much poetry has been affected by setting -- if haiku or villanelles, for example, came about in part because they had an elegant look on paper of the size and style used back then. HyperText poems may enjoy only a brief time on the cutting edge as technology changes and improves.

[Gregory Dowling]

Originally Posted by Tim Love

Note also that the UK has Informationist Poetry

This would seem to be the most relevant answer to the questions I put in my first post. The Wikipedia article is very short, however, and I have to say that Googling hasn't thrown up much more information on this movement. I had certainly never heard of it in relation to Don Paterson or Kathleen Jamie. It seems to me that the term has not really taken off - and maybe the same is true of the movement itself.

However, having said that, I did some Googling on the apparent founder of the movement, Richard Price, and came across this webpage , which contains a very touching poem of his. It's not an "informationist" poem, but it does suggest he's a poet worth knowing. I wonder if anyone knows anything about him? Or about Informationist Poetry?

[Andrew Frisardi]

I like that Richard Price poem a lot, Gregory. I'm not getting the connection between that and the Informationist "manifesto" (if that's what it is). I was also surprised to see Kathleen Jamie in that list since I associate her with poetry full of imagery from nature and the outdoors.

[Tim Love]

I know little about Informationist Poetry, but Paterson and especially Jamie must be peripheral to it. I saw Richard Price in the "Identity Parade" anthology and marked him down as one to keep my eyes on. His poems in that book looked more like I'd expect "Informationist Poetry" to be - lots of Information presented using juxtaposition.