The Ambient Poem is an experiment in digital poetics that was live from late 2015 through early 2019. It was an app that converted real-time atmospheric data for a specific area into a continuous reading of that atmosphere in the form of a poem.

Users of the app could see the live poem for their location and for other locations around the US. They could also see the data behind the poem, and could capture, save and share excerpts of the poem. During its lifetime the app generated tens of thousands of lines of poetry for users across the US, who captured hundreds of excerpts from it, and an installation featuring a projection of the app was included in the show “Weather or Not, That is the Question” at the CMA in New York.

Because anytime someone saved or shared an excerpt it was also posted to the app website, you can read more excerpts of the poem there: http://www.ambientpoem.org.

 

Excerpts