MANIFESTO FOR THE INTERNET POEM
Because the Bit moves through a virtual space, across beleaguered
continents and doomed regimes, unabashed by the sniper's ballistic veto,
the reprimand of cannon, and the armoured tread of tanks, because the Bit
moves across seas unhindered by the submarine and the belligerent
battleship, over the walls and past the fences of the snide censors, the
moral Mommas and the mad dictators, I assert the ubiquity of the Internet
Poem.
The tyrant tore and torched the texts.
Because the Bit can replicate, because the Bit can be stored and
multiplied, because the Bit can be printed on paper or T-Shirts, because
the bit can be carried on diskette in the back pocket of a pair of
democratic Levis or the jacket pocket of a Saville Row suit, because a
purse or handbag can hold an archive of epics, I assert the continuity of
the Internet Poem.
On magnetic media, millions of minds.
Because the Bit is not in the gift of Academics, Editors, Critics and
Pundits, because the Bit is unabashed before the terminals of the mighty
and unashamed on the laptops of the low, because the Bit is created at the
screens of the outcast, the unconventional, the dreamers, the dispossessed
and the exiled, because the Bit is prolific, precise and passionate, I
assert the quality of the Internet Poem.
Postings of passion were placed on the server.
Because, by the grace of the Bit, reader and writer are drawn into a closer
community, because the Bit enables the creation of new types of verse and
new ways of meaning, because the Bit unites the artist, the poet and the
musician, I assert the superiority of the Internet Poem.
The landscape is lively with electric laureates.
K.M.Payne