Between Page And Screen: Poetry Book Uses Augmented Reality

Siglio Press recently announced a book called "Between Page And Screen", what they call "a digital pop-up book." Each page will contain no words at all - only a special QR code that the reader can hold up to a webcam, allowing sections of the poem to appear on their screen.

Carlton Books used this technology last year for a series of children's books with augmented reality content.

But for the most part, such technologies have been supplemental to the text itself, whereas "Between Page And Screen"'s physical book contains nothing but black-and-white codes.

If you, like Jonathan Franzen, are skeptical of digital book technology, bear in mind that poetry has always been about different forms of word art and experimentation. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once put it, "All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."

See below to watch "Between Page and Screen" in action:

Correction: the text originally contained a mistake in the title of the book. This has since been corrected.

Comments

[heerox001]

03:20 AM on 02/06/2012

I like reading my books with just my eyes thank you. Everybody doesn't want to buy a webcam.

[Vanderbil Covington]

01:37 AM on 02/06/2012

Poetry is like a word song of an experience -- Like music put to words. No technology can replace the written word and it's ability to summon feelings from a past or create images long forgotten.
Like a Shakesphearian play or conserto by Mozart, these are masterful art forms are to be experienced without corruption or artificiality. Technology has nearly replaced true art forms in just about every genre once held precious in sheer power and depth of expression

[fluffychenille]

11:32 PM on 02/05/2012

I don't know about going thru all that trouble when all you have to do to read beautiful poetry is come to my "Poetry Parlor" at: http://www.poetryparlor.net. It's an experience in itself!...just saying!

[Al Schrader]

06:28 PM on 02/05/2012

I openned the book,
and took a look.

My search for paraplex began,

The ins, the outs, the sparrow spouts,
a chance without the random,

To grasp the wind, to touch the cloud, to gain with out gains,
To choose, or not choose, and glimpse the glimplseless,

To travel there, to search the winders, to catch the last wave,
and the maximum minus the dream not the rant,

the starts that never restart, yes the unkown is the constant.....Alfred-

[nimue2002]

03:26 PM on 02/05/2012

I prefer my dog-eared, beloved paperback collections of Yeats, Neruda, and Rilke, and my old hardback edition of Frost. There's also the Sarton book that sits on the shelf, patiently waiting for me to once more open it at random to experience a moment of reflection. The books I have had since childhood, anthologies of English poetry, well-known, well-worn, as comfortable as old slippers, are there for comfort as I sip a cup of tea. Hafiz and Rumi sit alongside compendiums of poems from other lands and languages. Poetry is a way of life for me, not just a flashy gadget. I really can't see the "techiness" of this invention adding anything of real substance to the world of poetry I have long inhabited. But if it is a portal for the young into that side of life, then by all means, let teachers and parents open that door.

[lakespell]

03:11 PM on 02/05/2012

I have noticed a glitch in the system ---

Why does the comment not match the grammar in the original messages on these comment pages?

[lakespell]

03:00 PM on 02/05/2012

How does that inhance/translate this beyond or equal to the poet's intensions?

from just inside of maybe so

somewhere just th' other side o' reality
is where I
have always longed t' dwell just inside o' 'neverwhen,1 not far from
'I wish it was'
places to visit in day/night dreams where giant beasties out o1 myth roam
coloured hills an' glens perhaps float free an' weightless
tethered
t' some behemoth craft o' space
walkin' new found slopes o' worlds
beyond th' reaches o' th' most far seein'
observatory
t' travel
as from hamlet t' hamlet, from time t' time t' th' first an' last o' ages long dead
an' yet t' come
t1 wander through these lands o' fancy
t' visit an converse wi' those not m' kind
for this I have yearned since told m' first tale
from th' edge o1
'what is not1
a shame it is that up we grow from toddlers wi' rounded eyes o' wonder
t' adolescents
forced t' leave behind invisible places
a-hidin' in rural Ohio farmlands
that are dreams o' youth
t’ young adults
urged t' be a-graspin'
nettles o' here an' now
I can only imagine disappointment t' those that so encouraged me
for failed I have
t' grasp an' hold those pricklies
rather would I hold wisps o1 whimsy
lurkin1 just within translucent worlds
that grow an' live —
just inside m' mind

[dickn2000b]

02:14 PM on 02/05/2012

Another gimmick. I read that QR codes were now obsolete in Europe and Asia and were not even used any more. And I don't understand how a cutesy gimmick will make the poetry any better. The poetry is in the words not the computer.

[gurukalehuru]

01:54 PM on 02/04/2012

How would this augment a poem?

[writersbloc]

01:05 AM on 02/04/2012

Nice gag. It'll probably build toward something greater. What that is, who knows?

[tg9563]

06:31 PM on 02/03/2012

Useless rubbish

[dianadanko]

01:30 PM on 02/05/2012

There is an organization within the FBI called Criminal Justice Information Services Division. Their job is to prepare for the future. Augmented Reality Technology was listed as a tool along with autonomous vehicles, multimodal biometrics, exoskeleton suits, handheld laser spectroscopy devices, radio frequency identification system. It is neither useless nor rubbish. Maybe it is safer to dismiss out of hand this kind of kind of technology.