HaikU

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haikU is a browser-based, audience participatory, haiku poem project. The project displays randomly generated haiku poems, and allows the Internet audience to contribute to the project's database of haiku lines. [1] The project is known as a work of electronic literature and for its use of an evolving database, [2] and for the relative coherence of its output. [3] [4] [5] It was created by Nanette Wylde in 2001 and is considered a form of interactive digital poetry.

Contents

Description

haikU is an early example of internet coding for creative output. It was written using cgi [6] with html and perl in 2001. The project creator states, "This project is an homage to early Internet programmers who created the first web-based, audience-participatory, creative works, often in the form of haiku generators." [7]

Upon entering the website the viewer is presented with a haiku poem in standard (English) five-seven-five syllabic structure. Each poem is created from random selections of haiku lines from three separate repositories which follow the five-seven-five syllabic structure. The opening page has buttons to create a new poem, to contribute one's own lines to the three haiku repositories, and to learn more about the project and haiku poetry. Poems do not repeat upon refresh. The project is primarily in English, but on occasion lines in a variety of languages appear.

Elit scholar, Scott Rettberg writes "Nanette Wylde’s haikU (2001) is a project based on principles of user participation and on the use of a randomizing function to produce haiku that startle in the sense of producing unintended juxtapositions—no single author has determined which lines will appear together. The reading interface is a simple, spare web page. Every time a reader reloads the page, a new haiku is produced. Following a link to “Write haiku” individuals can submit their own haiku in three lines, each of which has its own button to post the line to bins of first, middle, and last lines. The poems delivered on each reload of the site are not the individual haiku as submitted by readers, but recombinations of these first, middle, and last lines of haiku pulled together in a variable way. Reloading the page twenty times or so, it is remarkable how many of the poems read as if they have been individually intended by a human intelligence. Most of the haiku, perhaps 80%, cohere quite well as poetry." [3]

Reception

HaikU has received critical attention from the electronic literature community [3] and contemporary art writers. [1]

Scott Rettberg states, "In haikU, the combinatory form and structure of the project, in concert with the form and structure of the poetic form, and the fairly subtle instructions to contributors, lead to the production of a poetic database that works fairly well. While extremely simple in concept and execution, the combination of human-written lines and arbitrary structure results in new poetry neither completely determined by any human nor free of authorial intention." [3]

Star writes, "Wylde’s use of the regenerative haiku changes how the haiku is perceived by her audience. Although the sequence of words is spontaneous and unpredictable they seem to flow together creating meaning. Part of the experience of the poem is breathing its first, last, and only meaning into it. Once the upper left hand dots have been clicked the haiku is gone possibly forever because people are constantly adding new lines to the generator. Although they were shown individually I argue that just as Wylde encourages her audience to contribute to the regeneration of the haiku, Wylde also intends for her interactive audience to create their own ties and breaks where it seems organic." [8]

Another reviewer states, "I like how open-ended haikU feels, and therefore how personal. . . it allows you to make your own connections, but you are also free to make no connections between the different haiku. This allows the reader to become partly a creator and make their own meaning for the poems. That’s one thing I find unique to electronic literature in general and this kind of randomly generated poetry in particular; the reader’s interpretation becomes a part of the work itself." [8]

haikU is taught in college level electronic literature courses. [8]

Related Research Articles

<i>Haiku</i> Japanese poetry form

Haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 phonetic units in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a kireji, or "cutting word"; and a kigo, or seasonal reference. Similar poems that do not adhere to these rules are generally classified as senryū.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hypertext</span> Text with references (links) to other text that the reader can immediately access

Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typically activated by a mouse click, keypress set, or screen touch. Apart from text, the term "hypertext" is also sometimes used to describe tables, images, and other presentational content formats with integrated hyperlinks. Hypertext is one of the key underlying concepts of the World Wide Web, where Web pages are often written in the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). As implemented on the Web, hypertext enables the easy-to-use publication of information over the Internet.

Syllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed or constrained number of syllables per line, while stress, quantity, or tone play a distinctly secondary role — or no role at all — in the verse structure. It is common in languages that are syllable-timed, such as French or Finnish — as opposed to stress-timed languages such as English, in which accentual verse and accentual-syllabic verse are more common.

Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use of computers. Digital poetry can be available in form of CD-ROM, DVD, as installations in art galleries, in certain cases also recorded as digital video or films, as digital holograms, on the World Wide Web or Internet, and as mobile phone apps.

Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature are usually intended to be read on digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the work cannot be carried over onto a printed version.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of literary terms</span>

This glossary of literary terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in the discussion, classification, analysis, and criticism of all types of literature, such as poetry, novels, and picture books, as well as of grammar, syntax, and language techniques. For a more complete glossary of terms relating to poetry in particular, see Glossary of poetry terms.

A haiku in English is an English-language poem written in a form or style inspired by Japanese haiku. Like their Japanese counterpart, haiku in English are typically short poems and often reference the seasons, but the degree to which haiku in English implement specific elements of Japanese haiku, such as the arranging of 17 phonetic units in a 5–7–5 pattern, varies greatly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deena Larsen</span> American writer of electronic literature (born 1964)

Deena Larsen is an American new media and hypertext fiction author involved in the creative electronic writing community since the 1980s. Her work has been published in online journals such as the Iowa Review Web, Cauldron and Net, frAme, inFLECT, and Blue Moon Review. Since May 2007, the Deena Larsen Collection of early electronic literature has been housed at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">María Mencía</span>

María Mencía is a Spanish-born media artist and researcher working as a Senior Lecturer at Kingston University in London, United Kingdom. Her artistic work is widely recognized in the field of electronic literature, and her scholarship on digital textuality has been widely published. She holds a Ph.D. in Digital Poetics and Digital Art at the Chelsea College of Arts of the University of the Arts London and studied English Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Rettberg</span> American-Norwegian digital culture professor and author

Scott Rettberg is an American digital artist and scholar of electronic literature based in Bergen, Norway. He is the co-founder and served as the first executive director of the Electronic Literature Organization. He leads the Center for Digital Narrative, a Norwegian Centre of Research Excellence from 2023 to 2033.

Poetic devices are a form of literary device used in poetry. Poems are created out of poetic devices via a composite of: structural, grammatical, rhythmic, metrical, verbal, and visual elements. They are essential tools that a poet uses to create rhythm, enhance a poem's meaning, or intensify a mood or feeling.

John Howland Cayley is a Canadian pioneer of writing in digital media as well as a theorist of the practice, a poet, and a Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.

ReRites is a literary work of "Human + A.I. poetry" by David Jhave Johnston that used neural network models trained to generate poetry which the author then edited. ReRites won the Robert Coover Award for a Work of Electronic Literature in 2022.

Lexia to Perplexia is a poetic work of electronic literature published on the web by Talan Memmott in 2000. The work won the trAce/Alt-X New Media Writing Award that year.

This is How You Will Die is an interactive digital poetry and art game created by Jason Nelson, a new media artist, digital poet, and lecturer. Released in 2005, the game combines elements of poetry, digital art, and chance-based mechanics to explore the concept of death and the unpredictability of life.

Generative literature is poetry or fiction that is automatically generated, often using computers. It is a genre of electronic literature, and also related to generative art.

Storyland is a browser-based narrative work of electronic literature. The project is included in the first Electronic Literature Collection. It was created by Nanette Wylde in 2000 and is considered a form of Combinatory Narrative or Generative Poetry which is created with the use of the computer's random function.

Caitlin Fisher is a Canadian media artist, poet, writer, and Professor of Cinema and Media Arts at York University in Toronto where she also directs the Immersive Storytelling Lab and the Augmented Reality Lab. Fisher is also a Co-founder of York’s Future Cinema Lab, former Fulbright and Canada Research Chair and an international award-winning digital storyteller. Creator of some of the world’s first AR poetry and long-from VR narratives. Fisher is also known for the 2001 hypermedia novel These Waves of Girls, and for her work creating content and software for augmented reality.

Nanette Wylde is an American artist and writer. Wylde is known for her early incorporation of digital media as a fine art media, her work in net.art, electronic literature, and artwork which takes book form.

References

  1. 1 2 Kanai, Miki (2002). "Web Reviews" (PDF). N.paradoxa. 10. United Kingdom: KT Press (published July 2002): 95. ISSN   1461-0434.
  2. ↑ "Visible and Invisible Archives: The Database Aesthetics of The Atlas Group Archive and haikU | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Rettberg, Scott (2013). "Human Computation in Electronic Literature". In Michelucci, Pietro (ed.). Handbook of Human Computation. New York: Springer. pp. 187–203. ISBN   978-1493948154.
  4. ↑ Flores, Leonardo (2013-04-02). ""Times Haiku" by Jacob Harris and The New York Times". I ❤️ E-Poetry. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  5. ↑ Müller-Zettelmann, Eva; Rubik, Margarete (2005). Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric (ist ed.). Leiden, Netherlands: BRILL. p. 321. ISBN   978-90-420-1906-5.
  6. ↑ "CGI (Common Gateway Interface) | ELMCIP". elmcip.net. Retrieved 2023-10-13.
  7. ↑ "about haikU". preneo.org. Retrieved 2023-10-12.
  8. 1 2 3 "ENGL 376VV. A literature course at the University of Mary Washington". ENGL 376VV. A literature course at the University of Mary Washington. January 21, 2014.
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