Dial-A-Poem, the decades-long project by John Giorno, has now left its analog home and embraced the new world with an online address.
Dial-A-Poem debuted at MoMA in 1970 after being created by John Giorno a year prior. The concept was simple: dial a phone number and hear a recitation of a poem. The project was ahead of its time and dealt with the dawn of the mass media age. The collection at its debut included poems by Gary Snyder, Peter Schjeldahl, and João Paes, among others. The project also included poems by radical activists of the time like Bobby Seale and Abbie Hoffman.
Since then, the live project has added poems by many more. But now, Dial-A-Poem takes another leap and goes online to connect with a new generation of audience. The online version is created by Giorno Poetry Systems.
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The online version of Dial-A-Phone contains latest additions of poetry from Thailand, Mexico, Italy, France and Switzerland. In line with the vision of John Giorno, the online version would offer subtitles for the poems in other languages but no translation. Curator Pedro Barbosa, who is affiliated with the project, said: “We thought a lot about how you achieve different audiences. Someone in the middle of the Amazon jungle can dial the number and have access to a poem.”
