Up to this point, our posts have mostly dealt with how to use the tools available in the digital world to make yourself more “professional” or “employable” (we think that you’re very employable, no matter what your job hunt is telling you!). But did you know that, aside from those valuable workplace applications, you can also make those same digital tools into a hobby?
The other week, when we were planning this blog out, Maryn (another writer) introduced me to something called “code poetry.” This appealed to me because, at that time, I was just starting to learn about coding. I was interested to see how the two worlds of coding and poetry could be brought together, since the two felt like completely different ways of artfully organizing words. I asked myself: what would a code poem look like? Would I even be able to understand it?
Enter: the Stanford Code Poetry Slam! This poetry slam is a code poetry competition that takes place among computer science students at Stanford University. This article labels the competition as an annual event, but I’ve had a hard time finding much information about the event past its initial ceremony in 2013. You can read the full competition rules here, but in short, cash prizes are awarded to the entries that best combine the worlds of poetry and coding. At the first competition in 2013, the winning code poem was called “Say 23.” Created by Leslie Wu, the code poem reads parts of Psalm 23 in three different voices. It’s pretty cool, I've included a clip of it below.
What I find so interesting about this brand of poetry is how unique the poems look. Much like “normal” poetry, there’s more than one way to compose a code poem. With many different coding languages and multimedia approaches available to the code poet, it feels like there are no limits to what you can do! I still have a hard time understanding what these code poems are doing or how they work, but here is a website that shows you some ways that code poems take shape. I'm not sure what they mean or quite how to read them, but these two examples from this site show the range of forms that these code poems can take.
It looks and sounds pretty cool, but why is this worth developing as a hobby? Here are two takeaways that I can see from learning how to create code poems:
The other week, when we were planning this blog out, Maryn (another writer) introduced me to something called “code poetry.” This appealed to me because, at that time, I was just starting to learn about coding. I was interested to see how the two worlds of coding and poetry could be brought together, since the two felt like completely different ways of artfully organizing words. I asked myself: what would a code poem look like? Would I even be able to understand it?
Enter: the Stanford Code Poetry Slam! This poetry slam is a code poetry competition that takes place among computer science students at Stanford University. This article labels the competition as an annual event, but I’ve had a hard time finding much information about the event past its initial ceremony in 2013. You can read the full competition rules here, but in short, cash prizes are awarded to the entries that best combine the worlds of poetry and coding. At the first competition in 2013, the winning code poem was called “Say 23.” Created by Leslie Wu, the code poem reads parts of Psalm 23 in three different voices. It’s pretty cool, I've included a clip of it below.
- Code poems are a new way to express yourself. Despite the endless possibilities available to poets, sometimes it feels like it’s all been done before. How can I contribute to a literary tradition that has already covered so many bases? If you clicked on the links above, you can see that there is still ground unbroken in the world of poetry. You don’t even have to write anything new to write code poems. From what I can tell, code poetry favors repurposing or reframing existing poems to create an aesthetic experience. Even if you don’t get into code poetry, learning about how it works can spark ideas about new ways of thinking about poems and their presentation. As a writer myself, I’m always looking for new inspirations. Coding could be a new way to find those inspirations!
- Code poems could be a way of revitalizing poetry in the modern era. Now, don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think that poems have gone out of style. Music is more popular than ever right now and modern-day poets continue to write meaningful and powerful works every day. I guess a more appropriate phrase to use wouldn’t be “revitalizing poetry” but “making poetry more accessible.” Many might feel like you have to be good with words or extremely well-read to write poems. If I can’t write like Shakespeare, then what’s the point? I worry that this could be a point of view held by lots of people outside of the liberal arts. Imagine, though, just how cool it would be to see the works of a bunch of coders who learn that they can make meaningful contributions to the world of poems! As we learn to harness the benefits of the digital world, we can also do our part to help people in the digital world harness the benefits of the liberal arts.
Comments
Post a Comment