Poets Inspired by Technology?

dejetal asks: "Does anyone know of a poet who's typical topic is some form of technology? I have been personally interested in this subject for some time now (with disappointing search results), but now I have some new motivation: I will be attending Columbia University fairly soon, and I would like to have an interesting topic to work on for a writing/composition course. Columbia also has some exciting new majors that may appeal to the Slashdot crowd, one of them being Digital Media Technology , the area of study that I wish to enter. Can anybody point me towards some good techno-poets?"

Comments

Mostly anti-tech

[RobotWisdom]

I can't really imagine a serious poem about tech unless it's anti-tech. For light verse, John Updike no doubt has some things, and there's Nabokov's "The Refrigerator Awakes" [RealAudio]. (In the realm of song lyrics, They Might Be Giants is another likely source.)

Paul Durcan's "Christmas Day" (not online) has a comment that could be Slashdot's motto:

Why do computer programmers always answer
When asked in questionnaires
In Sunday newspapers
What is your idea of Heaven? -
Snorkelling in Acapulco.

Pope Leo XIII wrote a Latin piece on photography in 1867: [translation]

O miracle of human thought,
O art with newest marvels fraught...

Some gleanings from my weblog: landing-gear crisis, Chuck-E-Cheese, auto repair

Luis de Camoes

[SAN1701]

Considered the great portuguese poet ever, his most important work, "Os Lusiadas", is a story about the Portuguese explorations of the seas since 1400, and their achivements (like, discovering the route to India, "discovering" Madagascar, etc.). Since they were dealing with the highest technology of their time, I think it qualifies as an important poem inspired by technology.

"Os Lusiadas" is mandatory reading in many high schools in Brazil and Portugal. Some links:

http://web.rccn.net/Camoes/
http://lusiadas.gertrudes.com/

Share & Enjoy !

[espee]

"Share and Enjoy" is, of course, the company motto of the hugely successful Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Complaints division.

At times of special celebration a choir of over two million robots sing the company song "Share and Enjoy". Unfortunately another of the computing errors for which the company is justly famous means that the robot's voices are exactly a flattened fifth out of tune...

Share and Enjoy
Share and Enjoy
Journey through life
With a plastic boy
Or girl by your side
Let your pal be your guide
And when it breaks down
Or starts to annoy
Or grinds when it moves
And gives you no joy
Cos it's eaten your hat
Or had sex with your cat
Bled oil on the floor
or ripped off your door
You get to the point
You can't stand it anymore
Bring it to us
We won't give a fig
We'll tell you...
Go Stick Your Head In A Pig

Lawrence Lerner, RACTER, Momus

[metamatic]

I'm assuming you mean published "name brand" poets, rather than Anonymous Cowards... I suspect I'm gonna be the only person posting anything useful here, but it just so happens that you've touched on a favorite obsession of mine: why aren't there more poets dealing with actual modern life?

Anyway, a few pointers:

You'll probably have trouble finding them, but Lawrence Lerner wrote two books of computer-inspired poems. The first was "A.R.T.H.U.R.: The Life and Opinions of a Digital Computer". UMass Press, ISBN 0-87023-181-2.

ARTHUR is a dim-witted AI (the poems were written in the early 70s). The poems are humorous, but at the same time some of them are quite chilling. I forget the title of his second ARTHUR book; I never managed to track down a copy.

The other obvious answer is "The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed" by RACTER, aka William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter. RACTER was the psychotic cousin of ELIZA, and Chamberlain and Etter used it to create programs which would output demented prose and poetry.

Something I've often pondered is the feasibility of building a reverse-engineered INRAC clone under the GPL, so RACTER could live again. (Apparently the original authors lost the BASIC source code some years ago.)

If you include song lyrics as poetry, you have to check out recent albums by Momus. He's the only songwriter I'm aware of dealing with technological subjects in an intelligent and witty fashion. "Virtual Valerie" (from "The Philosophy of Momus") is the best song I've ever heard about long-distance relationships via Internet, and "Finnegan The Folk Hero" is a hilarious pastiche of country music that'll strike a nerve with any web developer.

5 Volts

[Tal Cohen]

Here is 5 Volts, by Eran Tromer.

Re:Going back to Victorian times

[muzthe42nd]

oh yes, good old william mcgonagall, he's quite possibly the greatest poet ever, well, ok, that'sa teeny weeny lie. HE got a mention in the book "worst writers" or something, part of a series of books called the mind's eye or something. But seriously, he s really awful, hilariously awful