Wikipoetri 2.0 is a web-based interface utilizing wiki technology to allow users to contribute or modify poetry content. Wiki’s are often used to create collaborative and community websites. In fact, Wikipedia is one of the best know wikis in the world. Although Wikipedia is often ridiculed for its inaccuracies and contributor’s bias, the founders of Wikipoetry 2.0 say that the reason is that Wiki’s have not found their correct media for wikis to be applied.
Now they’ve found it: Poetry.
From Wikipedia:
Poetry (from the Greek poiesis, a “making” or “creating”) is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning.
What this means is that you can write poetry about anything and it doesn’t really have to mean anything. Shoot, it’s perfect for wiki’s!
Having a site like Wikipoetri 2.0 is like a freshmen creative writing class back in my undergrad, “ gushes fan Fran Lieptowicz, a fan of Wikipoetri 2.0. “I mean, you add a line onto a previous line, or even edit and delete lines of poetry written before. It’s constantly evolving.”
Other writers disagree:
It’s constantly revolting,” says Rachel Summer, PhD in Poetics from the Naropa Institute of Disembodied Poetics, Boulder, Colorado: “Imagine a morass of constantly changing lines, no coherent assonance, alliteration or rhythm, and symbolism that starts and then goes nowhere. It’s ridiculous. More so, it is shameful.”
A snippet of one of the Wikipoems (version 07/08/2008 07:53pm) is called “Nostalgia”:
The lucid dreaming of driving
the headlights burn tunnels, stare hole like Superman into the night
the Venturi effect inhales the car
the night closes behind like a tight sphincter
Eat My Exhaustion
Ms. Sumner responds, “I mean, come ON, ‘stare hole like Superman into the night’? ‘the night closes behind like a tight sphincter?’ I mean, what the fuck is that?”
The anonymous founders of Wikipoetri, going by the literary poet names of Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Olsen say that Ms. Sumner is missing the point.
Wikipoetri 2.0 breaks the boundaries of traditional poetry, much in the same way that spoken word poetry broke the bounds of what was traditionally known as poetry. Like Spokenword poetry, where anyone could get up on stage and read their writings, Wikipoetri 2.0 enables poetry writers to collaborate and attempt to write a great community written poem”
Professor Sumner shudders, “It’s spray paint over the Louvre, the great tradition of Poetry. If shit can be poetry, then poetry is shit. I simply can’t abide it,” at this point Ms. Summer stuck her head in an oven and turned the gas up.
Video of the poet Wang Zen performing the
wikipoem Nostalgia, version 07/08/2008 07:53pm
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