Poetrygo! is a new interface for reading poetry that uses portable digital technology, geolocation, image recognition, and augmented reality, to enhance poetry’s features (brevity, fragmentariness, intensity of experience), in order to bring poetry into the everyday and integrate it into our perception of the real, thus re-enchanting the world. The application would pair specific locations and/or specific objects with poems relevant to these locations or objects. The user would point her smart phone with the camera on to her environment, the image of the environment would be seen on the phone’s screen, layered on the image the user would see (and read) poems (entire or excerpts) that are relevant to this environment. “Poetrygo!” would thus enhance our perception of reality not through the accumulation of information – as maps or other information apps using augmented reality do – nor through the distortion of the real – as virtual reality does – but by embedding into the real a layer of imaginative thinking, aesthetic pleasure, and emotional response: poetry.
Current Members
Associate Professor, Department of French and Italian