I used to write — poems, stories, essays, daily journal entries, thoughts on napkins, whatever I could use to spew ideas on. . . . I got into building more websites “just for fun” — there’s a lot of creative energy that goes into getting the CSS and HTML, the content and audience, just right. And now I organize. My creative needs are met by arranging people, ideas, and spaces together like I used to string together words or snippets of code. The result is still a piece of art — something I can point to and say, “I did that, and it’s beautiful, it’s even more interesting than I imagined it would be, and it has an effect on the people who encounter it.” Only now the art is much more alive. It grows and changes and takes on its own personality and it needs to be constantly fed and nurtured to survive.
I’ll be honest: poems were way easier. They certainly didn’t care if I got sick.
About a month ago, when I was having a crisis of direction, I called my dear friend Melissa and demanded,“What do I want to be when I grew up, again??” She said, “Sarah, you’re a poet who raises armies and brings people together, and sometimes those poems look like websites.” And sometimes those websites look like armies. And sometimes those armies look like poems.
- Sarah Dopp, Professional Creative
This is a long quote, but I kept it mostly intact for a couple reasons:
1. Sarah Dopp is a great friend of mine who deserves all the attention she gets. If you have a creative social project for the 'net, she's one of the first people to talk to.
2. I usually think of poetry as merely language, organized observation in service of restructuring the apparent world. But this quote raises the question about "poetry" as it relates to other art (and non-art). To hear Sarah and her friend Melissa tell it, creative social websites like Genderfork are much like poems. Genderfork takes a series of observations concerning the world, namely gender, then uses language (both visible and invisible (css, html)) to structure an exploration of those observations, the result of which is surprising to the "author" and elicits an emotional response from the reader much like a poem.
Genderfork started as a series of positioned statements in the form of picture and narrative. What happened next is really interesting and perhaps informs the evolution of poetry on the 'net: The singular author became multiple authors, each working together to extend the content, tone, and ultimately the "life" of the site. Just like a written poem, Genderfork left the control of the original author and was consumed and appropriated by its audience. And instead of keeping it at arms length, they rolled up their sleeves, stuck their hands in and made it better. If it's not poetry, it might be more successful than any poetry I know.
Even at more traditional(?) literature collaborative blogs, such as HTMLgiant have a slightly poetic feel. However, sites like that, though full of collaboration and displayed language construction, are still mostly external links. Genderfork is mostly internal language published.
Also of note, quickly, is the reference to poems being "easier." I understand the sentiment: that creating an ongoing site/project requires more energy from the author, but to what extent? When the authorship multiplies, the effort fades, correct? Something to chew on.
What do you think? Can websites be poetry or merely poetic? Does Genderfork fill the requirements of poetry? Is there a future of ongoing poem-sites that become fixtures in the poetic landscape? Do they already exist? Let me know your thoughts, give me examples!