Poetic Acts & New Media

Tom O'Connor

Jan 2006 · University Press of America

About this ebook

Poetic Acts & New Media advances the fields of literary and new media studies by clarifying boundaries between competing genres and media through the creation of a new artistic genre, "media poetry." This aesthetic mode of expression/becoming seeks to transform mass culture (our codes of communication) by self-consciously acknowledging how textual, audio, and/or visual signs are constructed according to their simulation and not their representation. This study draws heavily upon literary media theories that intersect with Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of 'Sense' as a simulated power of sensory transformations. Media poetry becomes a complex power of 'Sense' by blending conventional mass-media codes with poetic simulations that provide alternative forms of creating meaning. Poetic Acts & New Media specifically examines the works of several poets that exemplify this multi-sensory approach to printed-text poetry, especially: -Langston Hughes -Tony Medina -David Wojahn -John Kinsella -David Trinidad. It also analyzes several contemporary films that embody the multi-modal logic of media poetry: -David Lynch's Mullholland Drive -Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky -Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich. In addition, this study interprets two influential primetime TV shows as exemplars of media poetry: Twin Peaks and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All media poetry, regardless of genre or medium, allows readers/viewers to envision "reality production" as a rewriteable and poetic enterprise that can productively remediate any transparent abstraction or common-sense realism.

About the author

Tom O'Connor received his PhD in English literature from SUNY Binghamton in 2004. His articles have appeared in The Journal of Film & Video, Social Semiotics, Disability Studies Quarterly, and the essay collection Ready Made: The Film Remake in Postmodern Times. His poetry has been published in Poetry Southeast, Notre Dame Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Mankato Poetry Review, Pebble Lake Review, and Flint Hills Review, among other periodicals. He currently lives in Binghamton, NY.