Design Is Poetry; Poems Are NFTs
Dear friends and readers,
I wish you all a Happy New Year full of wonderful poetry! 🎆
Ironically, this is my first update that doesn’t relate to a newly published poem. However, two other interesting things have happened since my last post.
First, I’ve published an essay on poetry in The UX Collective—or, more specifically, an essay on how designs can be poetry and why designers should treat their work more as such. I’m very excited about this since it combines two of my big passions: digital product design (my day job) and literature.
☞ Beyond form and function: Design is poetry
Second, I’ve turned a poem into an NFT for the first time. The poem of my choice was “Life,” a visual poem published in issue 67 of Otoliths Magazine . . . or, well, at least one possible static representation of it, which was also published, under the title “(A complete) Life.”
Now, what does this mean? Technically, that on the Polygon blockchain, there is now a unique digital identifier (the NFT) referencing the digital file containing the poem. Practically, that while there is an image in Otoliths that shows the poem, from my point of view, there is now a definitive version—the one referenced by the NFT—that can be owned (even if the intellectual property remains with the author).
Creating NFTs for poems might provide exciting new opportunities, especially when a poem is only published digitally. It’s like owning an original work of art or first edition. Of course, I’m by far not the first one to come up with this. NiftyLit is doing some pioneering work in this respect, so I strongly encourage you to head over to their website if you’re interested in this topic.
So much for now. Let’s see what else 2023 will bring. 😊
Thanks for reading,
Max
… & if you want to spend me a coffee to support my writing, that’s always greatly appreciated. ☕