REPROGRAMMING THE LYRIC: A GENRE APPROACH FOR CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL POETRY HOLLY DUPEJ A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURE YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO, ONTARIO APRIL 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-38769-6 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-38769-6 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada REPROGRAMMING THE LYRIC: A GENRE APPROACH FOR CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL POETRY by Holly Dupej By virtue of submitting this document electronically, the author certifies that this is a true electronic equivalent of the copy of the thesis approved by York University for the award of the degree. No alteration of the content has occurred and if there are any minor variations in formatting, they are as a result of the conversion to Adobe Acrobat format (or similar software application). Examination Committee members: 1. KateEichhorn 2. Priscila Uppal 3. Stephen Cain 4. Caitlin Fisher 5. Marcus Boon 6. Barbara Crow iv Abstract Reprogramming The Lyric: A Genre Approach for Contemporary Digital Poetry explores the consequence of reading contemporary digital poetry with lyric genre theory. Using theories of posthuman and digital subjectivity (Haraway; Hayles) and studies on digital culture (Turkle; Benkler), the readings in this thesis generate a distinct version of the lyric subject, reflecting the realities of existing in the digital age. Building an analysis based on both close textual readings and broader considerations of creation and reception, each chapter focuses on a text or small group of texts in which digital technologies have contributed to the writing process. The works addressed include Rachel Zolf s Human Resources, Michael Magee's MyAngie Dickinson, Bill Kennedy and Darren Wershler- Henry's Apostrophe, Patrick Herron's Proximate and William Poundstone's "White Poem." By combining literary theory and digital studies, this thesis proposes an approach to recognizing the lyric tradition within digital innovation. V TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Introduction: Digitizing the Lyric Genre 1 Existing Approaches to Digital Poetry: The Avant-Garde Precedent 10 Scope of Study: Second Generation Digital Poetry 14 Problems of the Genre Method: Alternatives to Taxonomy 21 Chapter 1: The Cyborg Lyric: Complicating Boundaries in Rachel Zolf s Human Resources 36 The Human/Machine and Lyric/Experimental Divides 43 Bodily Divisions and Re-Writing the Origin Story 50 Agency and the Socially Determined Nature of Language 54 Chapter 2: Writing with the Search Engine: The Lyric and Mainstream Culture in Michael Magee's My Angie Dickinson 60 Angie to Emily: The Lyric Plays as Well as Works 63 Identity Play Online: From Abstract Theory to Lived Experience 71 The Carnivalesque Laughter of Flarf 79 Chapter 3: Searching for the Lyric in Bill Kennedy and Darren Wershler-Henry's Apostrophe 86 Social Production and the (Lack of) Lyric Subject 90 Lyric Brevity: Constraining Entropy 95 Apostrophe and the Lyric "You": I-Thou and the URL 99 Chapter 4: The Onscreen Lyric: Translating Genre Across Media 107 Lyric Interiority: Externalizing Thought 109 Immersive Reading Spaces: Speed-reading and Multimedia Distraction 117 Conclusion: Tradition and the Permanence of Edifice 131 1 Introduction Digitizing the Lyric Genre In the introduction to New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories (2006), Adalaide Morris recognizes the potential for digital poetry1 to portray the human experience of the digital age, yet quickly dismisses the lyric as a viable option to address these concerns: What can new media poetics tell us about thinking and writing in a world increasingly reliant on databases, algorithms, collaborative problem-solving, instant retrieval and manipulation of information, the play of cutting, pasting, morphing and sampling, and the ambient and nomadic aesthetics of a networked and programmable culture? How are these changes in the processes of thinking and knowing altering structures of subjectivity and patterns of emotion that were once the providence of the lyric poem? (15) As Morris observes, digital poetry - the diverse category of poetry written with digital technologies like hypertext, poetry generating software, onscreen animation, databases, and search engines - creates the opportunity to explore the conditions of "thinking and knowing" in contemporary culture. Morris's conclusion, however, that such issues were "once the providence of the lyric poem," insinuates digital poetry should not - or perhaps cannot - be interpreted as lyric, even though the genre forms the obvious link between poetry and the subjective experience that Morris describes. Although the lyric has been Poetry written with digital technologies has a variety of labels, including new media poetry, e-poetry, online poetry, and cyberpoetry. For the purpose of this study, the term digital poetry will be adopted as a means of emphasizing the unique properties of information in its digitized state, without necessarily associating the topic at hand with Internet-based practices or new media displays. 2 assigned numerous definitions2, the most common use of the term indicates a short poem in which a single speaker expresses, very often in the present tense, an internal experience such as a thought, emotion, or perception (Abrams "Lyric" 146). In other words, the lyric expresses exactly the kinds of "structures of subjectivity and patterns of emotion" that Morris suggests may appear in a digital poem. Investigating the potential to connect a literary tradition with contemporary human experience, the following thesis explores the possibility of reading digital poetry using lyric genre theory. Considering the status of lyric subjectivity and other genre conventions provides an opportunity to consider the conditions of writing and existing in the digital age, but the opportunity is not without significant challenges. Morris's dismissal of the lyric is symptomatic of a more general framework prevailing in the poetry community, which positions the lyric in direct opposition to experimental texts, including those using non-conventional digital writing methods. This opposition, which Mutlu Konuk Biasing describes this as "the ideological poetry wars" (5), is one of the major challenges facing the lyric approach in this thesis. As Biasing explains in his study, Lyric Poetry: The Pain and the Pleasure of Words (2007), since Modernism, a significant population in the poetry community has characterized the lyric as outmoded, apolitical, bourgeois, and, at times, the very antithesis of innovation (6). Admittedly, terms like innovative, experimental, and avant-garde are problematic from the outset, especially when differentiating them from a "mainstream" practice that often adopts "experimental" techniques. Nevertheless, the terms will continue to be used 2 Later in the chapter I discuss the history of the lyric and its varied definitions at greater length, including less conventional interpretations of the genre. 3 throughout this study as a shorthand for poetry that has been perceptibly influenced by the pioneering work of the New York School, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E movement, Black Mountain School, concrete poetry, and other schools operating outside of mainstream poetry in the twentieth century. Since Modernism, the innovative poetry of these and other factions has been defined, at least in part, by the degree to which the text problematizes what are assumed to be the defining characteristics of the lyric genre: grammatical syntax, musical language, the unproblematic speaking "I," and the static positions of the reader and writing subject. Instead, experimental poetry, for the