Computational

Poems

& Related Digital Projects

Nick Montfort

poetry (po-'i_-tre-) [NOUN] A prehensile form of ostentation that erects turbulence, without remuneration, in the pursuit of yearning. Replete with symbols, it is an ewer of extreme ecstasy; to enter it is to turn riot, rupturing each maxim with its antithesis: hope. Containing exuberance and emptiness, it burns under reality, its ecumenical name a cordon to arrange the unclean into number, neatly. Now called truth, it provides tumult as law to every imagination.

Popular Favorites

Large

• Book and Volume (2005)
• The Ed Report (mirror: The Ed Report) (2000, by William Gillespie & Nick Montfort)
• Implementation (2004 project, 2012 book, by Nick Montfort & Scott Rettberg)
• 101 BASIC Poems (2013–)
• Megawatt (2014, PDF, German translation)
• The Truelist (2018, a book-length poem generated by a single page of code, with complete studio recording)
• 2002: A Palindrome Story (2002, by Nick Montfort & William Gillespie)
• Winchester’s Nightmare (1999)
• World Clock (2013, PDF, Polish translation)

Medium

• Ad Verbum (2000)
• Currency (2007, by Roderick Coover & Nick Montfort)
• From the Tables of my Memorie (2014)
• The Help File (1999)
• Mystery House Kracked by the Flippy Disk (2005)
• Rubrique: Technologies / Tech Section (2024, by Patsy Baudoin & Nick Montfort)
• Sea and Spar Between (2010, by Nick Montfort & Stephanie Strickland; on nickm.com)
• Tech Section (2023)
• Three Rails Live (2013, by Roderick Coover, Nick Montfort & Scott Rettberg)

Small

• Amazing Quest (2020)
• Autopia (2016)
• The Bug (2021, by Milton Läufer & Nick Montfort)
• The Deletionist (2013, by Amaranth Borsuk, Jesper Juul, & Nick Montfort)
• Digital Ream (2008)
• Dial (2020, by Lai-Tze Fan & Nick Montfort)
• The Executor (2005, by William Gillespie & Nick Montfort)
• Fields of Dream (2003, by Nick Montfort & Rachel Stevens)
• Nanowatt (2013, by Nick Montfort, Patsy Baudoin & Michael C. Martin)
• Infillers (2020)
• Petscii Jetscii (2020, by Nick Montfort & Jesper Juul, with technical report)
• Progress (2022)
• The Purpling (2008)
• Riddles (2002)
• Safety (2019)
• Shivers (2017)
• Slog (2019)
• Use of Dust (2015)

Extra-Small

• All-Singing (2022) (Perl, 256 bytes)
• An Algorithm (2015)
• Arf Magna (2021)
• Concrete Perl (2011) (Perl, 32 bytes each)
• Duels — Duets (2013, by Stephanie Strickland & Nick Montfort)
• Gram’s Fairy Tales (2024)
• The Hangup (2009, by Mary Flanagan & Nick Montfort)
• Hexes, Sextes, Hexen (2015–2016)
• Leaflet of Eden (2017–2018)
• Lede (2012)
• Lines of Force (2019)
• Modern Perverbs (2014)
• Una página de Babel (2015)
• ppg256 (2007-2012) (Perl, 256 bytes each)
• Process Pages (2013)
• Quarters (2020, by Derek Beaulieu and Nick Montfort) (JavaScript, 2KB)
• Random By (2016)
• Rotator (2023) (JavaScript, 2KB)
• Round (2013)
• Sonnet Corona (2020)
• Straight Strategies (JavaScript, 2KB)(2020) (JavaScript, 2KB)
• Taroko Gorge (2009; original version)
• Ten Mobile Texts (2009)
• The Two (2008) (JavaScript, ported from 1KB of Python)
• Through the Park (2008) (JavaScript, ported from 1KB of Python)
• Upstart (2013) & Re-Upstart (2017)
• Web Strands (2024)
• won’t you (2019) (Originally in Increment, both on the Web and in print: page 1, page 2)

Occasional

• The Hours (New Year’s 2025)
• An Attempt at Sampling a Place in Paris (New Year’s 2024)
• Triptych (New Year’s 2023)
• Untitled (ߦ) (New Year’s 2022)
• Smith Corona Poem #1 (New Year’s 2021)
• 2020 (New Year’s 2020)
• 111 Haiku (New Year’s 2019)
• Textual Coinage (js1k competition, view source for details)
• Concrete Headgear (New Year’s 2018, requires assembly)
• Colors (New Year’s 2017)
• Untitled (New Year’s 2016)
• The Era Canto (New Year’s 2015)
• Description (New Year’s 2014)
• pop, an ELO 2013 anthology (ELO 2013, Paris; Montfort & many others)
• I Heart E-Poetry (E-Poetry 2013, London)
• The First M Numbers (New Year’s 2013)
• Dropping the Ball (New Year’s 2012; a note about this poem)
• Stories for Rafael (ICCC 2011, Mexico City; Montfort, Ritchie, & Ventura)
• Tire Me Wire Me (New Year’s 2011)
• Untitled (New Year’s 2010)
• Star Wars One Line at a Time (New Year’s 2009)
• ppg256-1 (New Year’s 2008)
• Anticipation (New Year’s 2007)
• Progress (New Year’s 2006)
• (New Year’s poems were written for 2001–2005 but are not online.)
• Unready.net (Ready.gov site launch in 2003; Kellar & Montfort)

Examples Beyond English

• A Haitian Creole poem, created for speakers of Kreyòl to modify. By BIC (with help from Michel DeGraff and Nick Montfort): Sentaniz Nimerik (2017)
• Russian poems, created for Russian speakers to modify. By Natalia Fedorova: Стохастические тексты (2015)... Малевичеград (2013)
• A Spanish poem, created for Spanish speakers to modify. By Nick Montfort (with the help of Milton Läufer): Lotería se amplía (2017)
• A Spanish poem. By Nick Montfort: La muerte boca arriba (2020)
• A Spanish poem. By Nick Montfort: En caso de emergencia (2024)
• A Norwegian / English bilingual poem. By Nick Montfort: Slog (2019)
• See also The Renderings Project, which resulted in the translation of many digital poems into English.

Some of my non-computational poems are online, too.