NUPoD: Print on Demand Poetry: Making Books After the Internet (2015)

“This course operates at the intersection of creative writing, media theory, and the history of the book. Since the written word overtook the Homeric epic poem as a kind of communal Wikipedia, poetry has been less about communicating information and more about lyric expression. Recently, digital technologies have been seen to present this same challenge to the book. Like poetry, we might say that the book isn’t dead, it has simply lost its claim as the primary source of information. Over the last two decades, some of the most interesting works of art and poetry have turned to the book in both form and content, as both inspiration and fallen idol. It has never been easier for writers to publish, not just on Twitter and Facebook, but across a range of Print on Demand (POD) platforms for the printed book. This course examines recent works of poetry alongside new developments in print technologies. From Seth Siegelaub’s The Xerox Book (1968) to new works of POD poetry published throughout the quarter (TBA, 2015), we will study the emergence of innovative forms of writing the book under the influence of digital networks.”

Daniel Scott Snelson, Northwestern University, Fall Quarter, 2015
Course information and publication research conducted by the NUPoD editorial collective

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