In addition to the word: multissemioses and hybridity in the cyberpoema

Abstract

The present paper aims specially at discussing the multisemiotic genre in cyber poems. To do so, a historical path will be taken in order understand the migration from visual poetry to virtual poetry.  It is possible to notice the discontinuation of some structural elements of canonical poetry in favor of a kind of poetry (re)configured in a virtual and multisemiotic process, in which the plastic materiality of the text is beyond the written word and its semantic content. Three cyber-poems by Augusto de Campos are analysed – ‘Criptocardiograma”, “Semsaída”, and “Ininstante”, as well as the cyber-poems “Poemas no meio do caminho”, by Rui Torres, and “Worthy Mohths”, by Maria Mencia. The conclusion is that the poet, by using digital technology, gathers in a virtual space the simultaneous integration of words, movement, sound, and image, from the very moment it prompts a ludic and intelligent intervention on the part of the reader towards building multiple meanings to be drawn from the cyber-poem.