Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture
Source: www.hudsonreview.com
Topic: Poetry
Sort Desciption: literary people whose notion of poetry has been shaped by print ... they do to literary poetry. Roland Barthes, a creature of print ...
Content Inside: DANA GIOIA Disappearing Ink: Poetry at the End of Print Culture Since all media are fragments of ourselves extended into the public domain, the action upon us of any one medium tends to bring the other senses into a new relation. —Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media I. The End of Print Culture W e are currently living in the midst of a massive cultural revolution. For the first time since the development of moveable type in the late fifteenth century, print has lost its primacy in communication. The proliferation of electronic technology has gone far beyond providing new means for the communication, storage, and retrieval of information: the new media have gradually changed not only the way we perceive language and ideas but also the world and ourselves. The shift in the modes of communication has had an extraordinary impact on every aspect of contemporary life, but literature, an imagina- tive enterprise created entirely from words, has been profoundly affected in ways that we are still in the process of comprehending. How does one describe this cultural change? A few gross statistics may help to characterize the general environment. According to one recent study, the average American now spends about twenty-four minutes a day reading, not just books, but anything—newspapers, magazines, diet tips, and TV Guide. This small investment of time compares with over four hours daily of television and over three hours of radio. Less than half of U.S. households now read daily newspapers, and many of the newspapers they do follow, such as USA Today, increasingly model their short attention span formats after television. Younger adults The Hudson Review Volume LVI, Number 1 (Spring 2003). Copyright © 2003 by Dana Gioia. (ages 18 to 30) read significantly less than older groups. Children now grow up in a world where reading has been overwhelmed by other options for information and entertainment. According to a 1999 survey, at that time the average Am ...
