Pandemic digital poetry : an analytical study of two selected social media poems as examples

Abstract EN

as a branch of digital literature or electronic literature (e-lit) - has sprung and spread during the twentieth and the twenty first centuries.

It has depended on the technology of computers, WWW (World Wide Web), smart phones' networks, and the different social media platforms in composing, producing and disseminating the digital poems.

Sound and/or image may be merged to produce these poems.

Both the digital poetry and the internet have added to the aesthetic qualities of each other.

Posting or publishing the digital poems on the different social media platforms has advantages and disadvantages.

Yet, the value of the digital poetry has increased worldwide during the last year because of the quarantine imposed due to the dangerous wide spread of Covid-19 known as Corona virus pandemic.

Online digital social media poems have expressed clearly the social, economic, psychological and political consequences of this crisis.

Social media platforms have facilitated online poets/poets and/or poets/audience meetings and symposiums.

The two poems: “First lines of emails I've received while quarantining” and “Lockdown” for Jessica Salfia and Richard Hendrick successively are discussed as examples.

Salfia's poem was posted or published on Twitter, while Hendrick's on FaceBook.

Both of them have been read, liked and shared widely achieving a notable success.

Salfia's poem deals with some of the devastating aftermaths of the crisis of Covid-19 and some of the shared subjects between people during the quarantine.

While, Hendrick's tackles the positive sides of the crisis and suggests hopefully and optimistically some counteractions and strategies to overcome its horrible effects.