Research · Library
Poetry
Where the computer first wrote verse. This corner of the library gathers the collection's computational and concrete poetry — and two of its founding works run here, live, from their original code: bpNichol's First Screening(Applesoft BASIC, 1984) and Knowles & Tenney's A House of Dust (a 1967 FORTRAN poem, often called the first).
Living works
First ScreeningbpNichol, 1984
Twelve kinetic poems on an Apple IIe, running from bpNichol's genuine Applesoft BASIC. Press play — a full run is about seven and a half minutes.
A House of DustKnowles & Tenney, 1967
A FORTRAN poem that recombines four word-lists into endless quatrains — reconstructed here from Nick Montfort's Python. A new house every few seconds.
On the reading shelf
Anthologies, histories, and source-code archives — readable in full.
rot 19 — Georg Nees: computer grafik
Georg Nees, Max Bense · 1965
Book (scan)
rot 21 — konkrete poesie international
Max Bense, Elisabeth Walther · 1965
Book (scan)
An Anthology of Concrete Poetry
Emmett Williams (ed.) · 1967
Book (scan)
Concrete Poetry: A World View
Mary Ellen Solt · 1968
Book (scan)
Computers for the Arts
Dick Higgins · 1970
Book (scan)
First Screening: Computer Poems (source code)
bpNichol · 1984
Book (scan)
Words Made Flesh: Code, Culture, Imagination
Florian Cramer · 2005
Book (scan)
The House of Dust (Python reconstruction)
Nick Montfort · 2014
Book (scan)
A House of Dust — Exhibition Journal
Alison Knowles · 2016
Book (scan)
A House of Dust — Research Journal
Alison Knowles · 2016
Book (scan)
In the collection
Physical poetry holdings, in hand.
rot (edition rot)
Max Bense (ed.), Elisabeth Walther (ed.) · 1960
BookOn the shelf
Monuments
George Nama, Aaron Stuart Lupovitch · 1973
BookOn the shelf
BASIC Computer Games (Microcomputer Edition)
David H. Ahl (ed.) · 1978
Book (scan)On the shelf
The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed
Racter, William Chamberlain, Thomas Etter · 1984
BookOn the shelf
First Screening: Computer Poems (1993 disk edition)
bpNichol · 1993
BookOn the shelf
Timm Ulrichs: Die Druckgrafik
Timm Ulrichs · 2003
BookOn the shelf