Twitter Poetry

The digerati are all agog at another distributed social web service we never knew we needed and didn't ask for. Twitter is something of a cross between instant messages and text messaging, by way of blogging - tiny status reports that users share with the world. Having received several invites over the last two weeks (which seems to be the total history of this red-hot little venture), and being curious about these things in general, I signed on.

And now I know about Howard's travels, and Jason's workouts, and Fred's Blackberry, and Jason's listening habits. That's, er, nice, I guess. I mean, I do want to stay in touch. Really. But I don't need alerts sent to my cell phone every time a buddy is watching Mayberry RFD on cable and wants to alert his network. Not necessary. And frankly, given the pace of my days of late, it doesn't rise to the level of must-see networking.

So I was about to pass on Twitter. And then, this message flashed across my Twitterstream:

Driving down to West Cork used to be a quiet pleasure.
Now it's a melancholy chore.
Still, the sky is absolutely full of stars.

Wow. Poetry. Quite possibly the best social networking post I'd ever read. And I thought, hmmm - this Twitter thing may have legs, but not in the way its founders or a few self-obsessed wired wonksters may think. See, Twitter is a poetry machine.

That beautiful entry above, by the way, was written by Steve Bowbrick, a friend of mine from the crazy Internet bubble days in London - the first bubble, people. We're talking '96-97. Steve's one of our guest authors over at newcritics, and one of Britain's original digital entrepreneurs. But he'd just lost his father and was journeying back to Ireland to be with his mother. And in his three-sentence Twitter post, written on his mobile phone, Steve told such a human story.

So I started to pay more attention, and found myself reading the Twitter posts of strangers on the service's general feed. I didn't really care what they were doing; this wasn't a voyeuristic journey. And it really wouldn't be, unless you had a big-time jones for the mundane. No, I went looking for words to stitch together. Because although Twitter is seen as another cool social networking tool - a way to stay plugged in, as if that's what we really need - I saw it as a way to plumb the common mindset, to see what communal wisdom and beauty and insight the group of geeks could register with their thumb a-flyin'.

These lines are taken from Twitter posts today, many of them simply "texted" to the Twitter website (which limits each post to 140 characters). The assembly is mine.

One
Pouring another cup of coffee and trying to get motivated.
Revelling in playing the Clash at inappropriate levels of volume.
Napping is seriously heaven.
Rip, mix, burn.

Two
waiting for my clothes to dry
today is not starting well. at least i didn't spill the coffee on my pants.
underway. crying as usual. i hate this part.
ate sandwiches at lunch.

Three
Making coffee
Finally awake
Mmm, pie!

Four
Emailing Dr. Kapp
None of your business
Getting there
Packing
Packed

Five
nothing wrong with scooby do
but it wasn't even
like
to help starving kids with cancer
or something

This can become addictive: the slight relationship between the words and their original writers. The scrolling collective stream of consciousness. I may do more - please contribute your own.

UPDATE: Steve Bowbrick has a moving elegy to his father up on his blog. It's entitled A Dictionary of My Dad and it's well worth a full read; here's an excerpt:

Knowledge – proper, factual knowledge – stood, for my Dad, for freedom. Freedom from ignorance and poverty and the arbitrary nature of existence. We shared that love of knowledge but I think the difference is a lack of urgency: I guess I can take it or leave it. For him it was life or death.

Comments

[aliza at babyfruit]

glad I found this post via another twitterer's blog. I'm inspired! looking for the poetry of twitter...

[Gavin Heaton]

I love the idea of Twitter being a poetry machine. I particularly like that it is being used in ways that were unintended, or at least unexpected, by its creators.

[Kevin Moore]

Slowly I turned...step by step...returning to the coffee

[Steven Livingstone]

Neat - i wonder what a collaborate poem would look like. Line by line, built up amonst friends.

Based on the random contexts (meetings, airplanes, bars, restaurants, home etc) of most of the messages i get the result would be very interesting...

[Mark]

I agree, Twitter itself is pretty mundane but there are some interesting applications. Twitter mashups like TwitterVision and TweeTweeT are pretty good ways to waste a little time.

[John Hicks]

It's a thrill to share a spontaneous insight with you. Since twitter captures the moment in a few words, tweets can be haiku that sum up an instant or an insight in 17 syllables. On a motorcycle trip this March, I wrote haiku inside my helmet and texted them to twitter at rest stops. It created a cheap knock-off of Basho's brilliant haiku travelogue. I've found a few others who tweet haiku or other short verse forms and know there're more. I've kept it up at http://twitter.com/blueheron. Here's a tweet that sums it up:
"twitterku" Did you
Read it here first or am I
Way too late - again?

[Ali]

Hi there. I came across this post while searching Google for webpages on "twitter poetry." I've only just discovered Twitter (an old college professor of mine turned me on to it), and the idea of using it poetically struck me almost immediately. The limitations on the length of posts and the use of cell phone technology put me in mind of a kind of byte-sized prose-poem or modern-day techno-haiku. I've started an on-going project, trying to use the medium in just that way (I call it "Aortography," the metaphor being the injection of a foreign substance into the "bloodstream" of txt chatter to render the processes of life suddenly apparent as a single, still image or "x-ray"). I'm surprised there's not more talk out there about using Twitter and other similar systems as a means towards aesthetic and poetic experimentation. I was really glad to find your post and discover yet another way of exploring the poetic side of Twitter. ;)

[Jeramy]

Hi Tom.Thanks for your post .Your article make great idea to me.Thanks.

[John Hassell]

I had a similiar revelation recently and I've set up a little experiment to see if it's possible to encourage people to send their best short-form writing to @twitliterati on twitter. If anyone actually takes up the challenge (they probably won't, but wouldn't it be fun it they did?), you'll be able to see the results at http://twitliterati.com. Cheers.

[Will C Mars]

I encourage all of you reading these posts to follow each other. The goal? Tweet one 146 character poem at least once a week, I'm going to try for everyday, starting now First post:

I don't want a love you have to put on the clothes line. I need at least a low heat tumble dry love, a favorite t-shirt kind of love.

follow @willcmars

[Will C Mars]

I encourage all of you reading these posts to follow each other. The goal? Tweet one 146 character poem at least once a week, I'm going to try for everyday, starting now First post:

I don't want a love you have to put on the clothes line. I need at least a low heat tumble dry love, a favorite t-shirt kind of love.

follow @willcmars

[Will C Mars]

Here's my blog post with more info:

http://willcmars.wordpress.com/2008/03/23/twitter-poetry/

[Jack ( twitter marketing ) Sinclair]

twitter poetry is a very novel idea, and one I think will bring a lot of value to twitter. Tom, mind if I add you as a friend on facebook?