Digital Zoopoetics

This article discusses the emergence of a genre of technologically mediated, computationally networked zoopoetic practices. I approach this discussion through an analysis of contemporary examples of zoopoetry, firstly drawing on print-based examples such as the poetry of e. e. cummings and the poetic animal dialogue of the novelist Laura Jean McKay. I then consider the ways in which digital technologies and digital aesthetics have the potential to add modes and imaginaries to zoopoetic authorial practices. I introduce digital zoopoetics through the creation of two related digital interfaces: The (m)Otherhood of Meep (2023) and The Songbird Speaks (2024-ongoing). These works invite new imaginaries for interspecies signal interpretation through machine learning technology by moving towards generative interspecies translation as its own zoopoetic form. From the practical contribution to zoopoetics that these works make, I offer a non-exhaustive series of suggested affordances of digital and computational aesthetics that come forth as representative of a digital zoopoetry form.