What Hacker Poetry is:

1. The Hacker Vision:

Since art is the culmination of the collaboration with self, present and past society, and our collective inertia towards art, then it is conclusive that true art is the ultimate hacking space: the artist is the hacker which takes, creates and innovates the moving soul of the world for the purpose of making art, and the self, better.

(response to Ginsberg’s “New Vision”)

 

2. “A hacker is one who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming and circumventing limitations of systems and who tries to extend their capabilities^[3]

“The act of engaging in activities, such as poetry, in a spirit of playfulness and exploration is termed hacking.

“However the defining characteristic of a hacker is not the activities performed themselves (e.g. writing, poetry, etc.), but the manner in which it is done: Hacking entails some form of excellence, for example exploring the limits of what is possible,^[5] thereby doing something exciting and meaningful.^[4]

 

Richard Stallman explains about hackers who program:

What they had in common was mainly love of excellence and programming. They wanted to make their programs that they used be as good as they could. They also wanted to make them do neat things. They wanted to be able to do something in a more exciting way than anyone believed possible and show “Look how wonderful this is. I bet you didn’t believe this could be done.”^[6]

(credit)

What Hacker Poetry isn’t:

It isn’t a viral campaign.

It isn’t going on YouTube. Well, it might.  Everything gets on YouTube these days.  But that’s not the direct idea.

It isn’t a cure for anything. Except for literary madness.

It isn’t a movement to change, per se. It is a movement to create.

It isn’t the Elks Lodge. It isn’t a mother’s group. It doesn’t have membership status. A hacker doesn’t need a card to tell themselves who they are. You define yourself.