Digital Poetry - New Media, New Forms

The internet revolution transformed poetry as fundamentally as printing had five centuries earlier. Digital media enabled new forms of composition, distribution, and reader interaction that challenged traditional assumptions about literary creation and consumption.

Early Digital Experiments

French digital poetry began in the 1980s with computer-assisted composition experiments that extended OULIPO techniques using electronic tools.

#### Xavier Malbreil: Hypertext Poetry

Xavier Malbreil (1960-) created early hypertext poems that allowed readers to navigate through interconnected text fragments:

Le Cœur volé

``` [CLICK HERE] → memory [CLICK HERE] → desire [CLICK HERE] → loss ```

This branching structure transforms reading into active exploration rather than passive consumption.

Internet Poetry: Collaborative Creation

The World Wide Web enabled collaborative poetry projects that involved multiple authors and readers in ongoing creative processes.

#### Poezibao: Digital Community

The website Poezibao, founded by Florence Trocmé, became central platform for contemporary French poetry, featuring both established and emerging poets while facilitating discussion among readers and writers.

Social Media Poetry: Twitter and Instagram

Contemporary poets adapt their techniques to social media constraints, creating micro-poems and visual poetry optimized for digital sharing.

#### Rupi Kaur Influence: Minimalist Aesthetics

Though Canadian-American, Rupi Kaur's Instagram poetry influenced French poets to experiment with minimalist forms designed for mobile phone screens:

amour 2.0

tu m'aimes like tu me quittes unfollow

(you love me like you leave me unfollow)

This technique adapts romantic poetry to digital-age vocabulary and relationship patterns.

Artificial Intelligence: Human-Machine Collaboration

Current experiments explore how AI can collaborate with human poets to create new forms of literary expression.

#### Botnik: Algorithmic Surrealism

French poets experiment with AI tools that generate text based on large literary databases, creating "cybernetic surrealism" that updates automatic writing techniques for the digital age.