The electronic reflection of avant-garde tradition in American poetry: Digital poetry

Abstract

The avant-garde movements of American poetry after the 1950s, criticizing the traditional norms of the former periods, were eager to form an alternative renewing and developing culture, and tended to consider the demands of the populace of the readers. Black Mountain College (1950 - 56), Greenwich Village (1950 - 63), the Black Arts Movement (1962 - 70), the Language poets of New York and San Francisco (1979 - 89) were among the major avant-garde movements. The avant-garde approach was not only affective in literature but also in other genres of art, such as music and painting. The expressionist painting and Jazz music brought a new function to these genres of art. Avant-gardism also created a warm communication among different genres of arts, and changed the traditional norms of the presentation of the new forms. Powerful computer technologies and the new innovations of telecommunication created sites such as e-identity, e-education, digital art and digital criticism. The poetry created in this nominal world is called digital-poetry, electronic-poetry or e-poetry. Digital-poetry as a reflection of avantgarde movements of the 1980s is examined and illustrated in this paper.