💿 ⌨️ ⛓️💥 🫧 🕸️ 🐾
computational poetry reading group
March 18, 2026 at tiat / Facilitator: Helen Shewolfe Tseng /
https://coyote.computer/cprg/260318.html
Welcome!
This is our initial gathering, and it is an experiment. I have prepared a brief, incomplete overview of the computational poetic landscape on the web (as I understand it) in 2026, which is open to being augmented by your input. We will do some archival exploration and group discussion. At the end of our time together, I would like to hear your input toward future gatherings.
Brief introductions
Please share:
- Your name
- Your pronouns, if you'd like
- If applicable: one piece of computational poetry (or other creative engagement with language and technology) that has moved you
- For posterity and for the group's reference: please also share a link here
- If above is not applicable: What do you hope to learn and gain from this group?
What is computational poetry?
Computational poetry is a subset of
electronic literature (or
e-lit for short), which encompasses the various genres and processes of writing that engage digital or computational capabilities aesthetically. Computational poems might utilize hypertext, animation, duration, randomness, input, interactivity, algorithmically-generated or dynamic text, digital decay, browser affordances, etc.
Computational poetry involves poetics on both the levels of:
- syntax – the poetry in the code itself
- affect – how the code works to (re)arrange language and produce creative expression
The
School for Poetic Computation expands their definition of
poetic computation to include alternate, radical, and critical engagements with computing, that reimagine its uses beyond the dominant patterns of serving capitalistic goals.
Computational poetry is a varied genre, and it has drawn from pre-digital/pre-computational poetic practices, including:
- formal constraints, such as haiku, limericks, sonnets, which constrain writing via elements like rhyme, meter, verse count and length, repetition, and other patterns
- avant-garde constrained writing, such as lipogrammatic writing that omits the use of specific letters, or the many practices of Oulipo members
- generative modular text, such as Queneau’s Cent mille milliards de poèmes
- visual and concrete poetry, which might depict an image likeness, or use typographical or visual effects in intentional ways
- conceptual writing and instructional/procedural text, such as the work of Fluxus artists
- asemic writing, which may be semantically open, wordless, gestural
- Any others to add?
Other related references and fields (in my personal mental map):
- net.art (see archives via net-art.org, Rhizome net art anthology)
- game design
- the demoscene, a subculture of coding tiny self-contained audiovisual programs
- mathematics and mathematical art
- textiles (e.g. weaving, knitting, crochet), baskets, beading, and other pattern-based or algorithmic crafts
- zines, artist books, and experimental publishing
- spellwork, divination, and ritual: procedural engagements with language, material, chance, and time
- the handmade web, a term evoked by J.R. Carpenter to refer to the portion of websites coded by hand and maintained by individuals, with an ethos that advocates for an ongoing active engagement with making that draws attention to the body and its labor, and suggesting slowness and smallness as forms of resistance
- low-tech websites: the weight of a website is relevant to its carbon footprint, and websites with lower byte counts typically consume less energy
- natural language processing and (critical, creative, and smaller scale lenses on) large language models (see: Allison Parrish, Katy Ilonka Gero)
- tender, animist applications of technology
- fun or "useless" websites
- Any others to add?
A brief, incomplete overview of the computational poetic landscape on the web in 2026
- The Electronic Literature Organization was established in 1999, dedicated to literature produced for the digital medium.
- The New River Journal, founded in 1996 and still publishing "computational poetry, interactive fiction, augmented reality, video art, playable media, literary Twitter bots, web-based sound art, and innovations in between" annually
- Taper, twice-yearly since 2018, publishing tiny computational poems under 2 kilobytes (2048 bytes)
- The HTML Review, an annual journal for literature made to exist on the web, since 2022
- Re•mediate (founded in 2024) explores critical engagements with language models, AI tools, and computer programs in creative writing; Ensemble Park (founded in 2025 by two former Taper editors), explores iterative entanglements in human-computer co-writing
- Game Poems, founded in 2025 by Jordan Magnuson, focusing on short-form video game design as artistic, expressive, lyric practice
- WordHack, a long-running event series (since 2014) at the intersection of language and technology, facilitated by Todd Anderson
- School for Poetic Computation, an experimental school and alternative education with a critical lens on art and technology
- Other notable publications and projects include:
Crawlspace,
Dead Alive,
ORAL.pub,
The LAOB,
Backslash,
Tiny Awards,
Naive Weekly, and many others
- (Countless personal and independent projects not affiliated with a publication)
- Any others to add?
Exploring some archival computational poetry
Taper Issues
1 and
2 were published in Spring and Fall 2018, respectively. The first issue of
Taper had a sizecoding constraint of 1KB (1024 bytes) per piece; since the second issue onward to present day, the constraint has been set at 2KB (2048 bytes).
- Browse through Taper Issues 1 and 2. Notice which pieces catch your eye, and why.
- Choose one piece to do a close reading of. Spend some time with it, and see what variations might emerge in the reading of it. Try to make sense of it without reading more from the author.
- View the page source to read the creative statement of the piece (if available, some of these earlier Taper pieces omit a creative statement).
- Examine the poem code, between the closing header tag and closing body tag. Are there any interesting poetic choices here?
Break into small groups of 3-4, and share the piece you chose with your group. Show them how it works, and explain why you chose it.
Some possible discussion questions:
- What do you think makes an effective computational poem?
- Did you notice anything that reminded you of something else? A lineage, perhaps?
- How does a particular piece engage with the issue's themes on poetic, visual, and technical levels?
- Can you draw a connection between a visual effect to its poetic affect? That is, how does a particular aesthetic choice change how something is read? How does it change its emotional impact?
- How does this piece make the most of its size constraints (1 or 2 KB)?
- What are some interesting ways it takes advantage of browser-based affordances and limitations?
- These poems are now ~8 years old. Did you notice any possible marks of time or digital decay?
- Any other points of discussion not included here?
Time permitting, you may opt to play with a
quick remix of the piece you chose, via
CodePen (free signup),
JSFiddle (no account needed), or work from your text editor of choice. You may also collaborate or discuss the following with another member of your group.
- How might you remix this poem?
- What is a creative, technical, or expressive element included here that you might want to experiment with in a different application?
- How might you combine the creative and technical elements of more than one poem you encountered?
A silly, yet eerily prescient short story
The First Sally (A), or Trurl's Electronic Bard by Stanisław Lem (from
The Cyberiad,
first published in 1965!)
This may foreshadow a topic of discussion I hope to have at a future reading group !
Closing questions and looking ahead
I am curious about interests and alignments for future gatherings; please include your answers
in this document:
- Frequency of group gatherings? (monthly? every two months? quarterly? something else?)
- How much structure/guidance vs. openness?
- What is helpful to share ahead of time, and with how much notice?
- What do you most want out of this group?
I encourage you to
suggest future readings for the group to investigate, or
propose casual talks or demos (not necessarily limited to your own work: consider sharing work that you find influential, surveys of specific niches or processes in the field, provocations for discussion, or anything else relevant to the group and its interests). Please also
get in touch if you might be interested in co-facilitating or leading any future sessions around a specific topic.
