University Press of America Poetic Acts & New Media

Poetic Acts & New Media advances the fields of literary and new media studies by clarifying boundaries between competing genres and media through the creation of a new artistic genre, "media poetry." This aesthetic mode of expression/becoming seeks to transform mass culture (our codes of communication) by self-consciously acknowledging how textual, audio, and/or visual signs are constructed according to their simulation and not their representation. This study draws heavily upon literary media theories that intersect with Gilles Deleuze's philosophy of 'Sense' as a simulated power of sensory transformations. Media poetry becomes a complex power of 'Sense' by blending conventional mass-media codes with poetic simulations that provide alternative forms of creating meaning. Poetic Acts & New Media specifically examines the works of several poets that exemplify this multi-sensory approach to printed-text poetry, especially: · Langston Hughes · Tony Medina · David Wojahn · John Kinsella · David Trinidad. It also analyzes several contemporary films that embody the multi-modal logic of media poetry: · David Lynch's Mullholland Drive · Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky · Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich. In addition, this study interprets two influential primetime Tv shows as exemplars of media poetry: Twin Peaks and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All media poetry, regardless of genre or medium, allows readers/viewers to envision "reality production" as a rewriteable and poetic enterprise that can productively remediate any transparent abstraction or common-sense realism. Review Poetic Acts & New Media deftly combines interrogation of contemporary poetry, film, and new media. Tom O'Connor combines philosophical, aesthetic, and socio-cultural analysis to make connections and provide insights into a wealth of material ranging from the poetry of Langston Hughes, Tony Medina, and David Wojahn to films of David Lynch, Cameron Crowe, and Spike Jonze to the cult TV-series Twin Peaks and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Engaging and challenging, O'Connor finds poetry surging through our new media environment.--Douglas Kellner, UCLA; author of Media Culture and Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy O'Connor turns toward poetry as not only relevant in contemporary American culture, but vital for its participants....In this way, O'Connor suggests that poetry allows one not only to resist the potentially oppressive forces of one's environment, but to transform them in a genuine creative act-not unlike O'Connor's book itself, which reconsiders one of our oldest forms of media (poetry) in a way that both reaffirms and renews its potential in a multimedia environment.--Project Muse, Spring 2010 Tom O'Connor embarks on a timely exploration of the potentials of media for poetry. He puts an end to the useless separation of poetry from the media arts. In place of the stale division of the authentic poetic act versus the media spectacle, he opens up a new way of thinking about the poetic event in any and every media, as poised against domesticating and normalizing forms in verse, film, television, or wherever. This is an essential book for anyone interested in the intersection of techne and poesis.--McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto About the Author Tom O'Connor received his PhD in English literature from SUNY Binghamton in 2004. His articles have appeared in The Journal of Film & Video, Social Semiotics, Disability Studies Quarterly, and the essay collection Ready Made: The Film Remake in Postmodern Times. His poetry has been published in Poetry Southeast, Notre Dame Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Mankato Poetry Review, Pebble Lake Review, and Flint Hills Review, among other periodicals. He currently lives in Binghamton, NY.