E-CyberDigital Poetry: To Grasp or to Build a Genre Identity through a Term’s Choice?

In recent years, the field of digital poetry had at least three major critical monographs
discussing the genre and its state-of-the-art. Loss Pequeño Glazier (2002), Brian Kim
Stefans (2003) and Christopher T. Funkhouser (2007) have not only introduced new
critical perspectives, but have also discussed the genre’s problematic definition and its
denominations’ variety: e-poetry, cyberpoetry and digital poetry.
Considering Theo Lutz’s Stochastische Texte (1959) as the first work of
programmable poetry, one should note the genre’s long history of practice in spite of
its shorter history of critical writing. Therefore, the way authors have been coining
and defining the genre itself claims for a theorization standpoint and helps shaping the
field towards a specific path and perhaps a crystalized historical construction.
Do the referenced terms position their authors in a similar flow of thought? By
following a concept’s trajectory and the author’s choice, one must consider the fact
that its crystallization will shape future critical writing. In this sense, it is important to
discuss this diversity and track important differences. Therefore, I argue that one
needs to identify an option towards genre definition and keep a solid and accountable
reference to it. For that matter, I find digital poetry a suitable concept to adopt when
considering works of poetry that take advantage of networked and programmable
media.