Henrik Wehmeier – författare

This book critically examines how the production and reception of performed poetry has changed in the wake of digitalization. The interdisciplinary chapters in this volume deal with fundamental questions confronting performed poetry in the digital age: How are concepts like liveness and performativity being adapted to mediatized digital environments? How are platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok helping to popularize performed poetry, and what online formats are emerging? How is the ubiquity of digital technologies transforming fields like experimental sound poetry, and how are they performed on stage? Bringing together authors from various countries and disciplines, this volume addresses diverse topics such as the evolution of poetry readings in Scandinavia; poetry slams as political criticism and a social practice in Brazil, the UK, the US, and Italy; the performance of AI poetry; posthuman entanglements between gendered bodies and technological devices in experimental sound poetry; the aesthetics and practices of poetic activism on the street and social media; and how recordings of performed poetry are being circulated in our current platformized, digital environment.

As a multifaceted and intermedial phenomenon, poetry in the digital age not only demands a rethinking and expansion of the traditional paradigms of literary studies but also attracts increasing attention from other humanities. This interdisciplinary handbook is thus addressed both to literary scholars and to the broadest academic audience interested in contemporary poetry research. It offers 50 contributions by an international collective of authors that highlight the diversity of contemporary poetry, examining it from a wide variety of complementing theoretical and methodological angles. The handbook focuses on contemporary modes of poetry presentation that are often located beyond the book, e.g., on stages, in public spaces, as multi- as well as transmedia publications, or on digital platforms. Such intermedial poetic practices, which may supplement poetic language with elements borrowed from music, visual art, cinema, or theater and performance, are transforming the forms and functions of poetry. It four parts thus (1) adapt established concepts and parameters of poetry research to the digital age, (2) explore established genres and emerging formats, (3) introduce interdisciplinary perspectives and new research fields, and (4) engage in current debates.