Recently I discovered the poetry of Veronica Forrest-Thomson. At first I thought it too clever and academic but then I saw the sly humour and irony that runs through most of her work. Now I am convinced that shows one one of the great poets of her generation. Sadly she died when she was only 27.
I wanted to write some kind of poetic response to her work, but found I could not express my thoughts in words I thought adequate in comparison with hers.
So I have taken one of her poems played around with the words and word order, and translated it into several codes - including the binary code that lies behind what you are now seeing on screen. I also translated it into Chinese online, then back from Chinese to English.
Some of the scrolling text is deliberately moving too quickly to be read with ease.
Veronica Forrest-Thomson did not hesitate to borrow lines from other poets and therefore I felt it fair to borrow her poem to make one one of my own.
She was also heavily influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein and his theory of language games.
My 'poem' may or may not work for you, but I enjoyed making it and it gave rise to some interesting thoughts about language, poetry and new ways of writing.
Examples of Veronica Forrest-Thompson's poetry can be seen on the Kenyon Review website.
If you watch the video it is best to do it on full screen using the button to the right of the YouTube logo.