Poetics in Action. Time and Code in the Poetry of John Cayley and the Poets of Rozdzielczość Chleba

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to broaden readers’ understanding of how code is used in digital literary forms. Although digital poetics in the Polish context seems relatively established, the code aspect of works, particularly when we consider works in which a computer program becomes an active, causative subject beyond the full control of author and reader, requires some additional clarification. Using examples from Polish electronic literature, the article recapitulates the typology of code formulated by John Cayley, a pioneer in digital poetry; next, it examines a series of works by Cayley and Howe in which programmed “readers” – supplied with a source text and linguistic resources indexed by Google – are sent on a special mission in search of poetic originality. Three main theses are formulated: programming is a new kind of poetics in action; code in temporal or internet texts attains the status of an autonomous actor, situated in between text, author, and reader, and maintaining contact with other programs on the web; hypertext as a primary paradigm of digital textuality turns out to be a transitional form, from the point of view of the practices of Cayley and Polish cybernetic poets, much closer to the print paradigm, that was originally acknowledged.