On-Line Publication Keeps the Internet Well-Versed : NEXT L.A.: A look at issues, people and ideas helping to shape the emerging metropolis.

Can the soul of a poet live in the cold-wired world of the Internet?

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh and his brother, Alexander, think so. They are doing their part to grace the world’s computer monitors with regular helpings of original verse.

Every couple of weeks, they send “The Occasional Screenful: An Edited Electronic Magazine of Short Poetry” to an e-mail list of subscribers scattered along the electronic tentacles of cyberspace.

Each free issue consists of one poem selected by the Volokhs and a law student, Laura Brodbeck, out of contributions from mostly unknown poets. Recent submissions have come from as far as Israel and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.

“This is the first [list] of its kind anywhere,” said Eugene Volokh, a famous mind on the Westwood campus. Now 27, he was admitted to UCLA at the age of 12 and received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science at 15. Alexander graduated two years ago at the age of 19 with degrees in English literature and math economics.

Occasional Screenful is unique among e-mail poetry lists, the Volokhs say, because it is edited. They include a few written guidelines in the magazine:

Poems must generally be rhymed and metered. Preferred length is 16 lines or less, never more than 32 “except for sestinas.” Humor? “Generally no, unless it’s VERY funny.” Limericks? “Absolutely not.” Profanity or explicit sexual description? “Generally no, unless the poem is EXTREMELY good.”

“Many people don’t want to get 10 to 15 poems a day of varying quality,” Eugene Volokh said. “Rather than send out 10 things, it’s better to send out one thing 10 times as often. In paper you can’t do that, but in electronics you can.”

A traditional print version of the magazine also would cost several hundred dollars an issue to produce, according to Volokh.

“Everyone likes poetry, but not enough to make it a viable commercial venture,” he said.

So, instead, they send it free to their brothers and sisters in poetry on the ‘Net. Verse, it seems, is thriving on the Internet.

*

World Wide Web sites include works from Allen Ginsberg to Emily Dickinson, ethnic poetry from Turkey and classical Chinese poets, spoken-word recordings and largely anonymous hopeful poets who put up their own verse on a home page.

Will this explosion of poetry in the etherworld of the computer have any impact on Los Angeles--much- maligned as a cultural wasteland?

“The impact is always greater the more the city is wired, the more a city is into art and poetry,” Volokh said. “By those standards, Los Angeles is close to the top in general.”

*

To Subscribe to “The Occasional Screenful” list:

Send e-mail to listserv@netcom.com with this text: Subscribe Occasional-Screenful

To submit poetry, e-mail volokh@law.ucla.edu

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Poetry on the Web

Here are some World Wide Web sites that offer poetry or links to poetry collections. Browser software is needed to reach them.

* Yahoo--Poetry

https://www.yahoo.com/art/literature/poetry

An index to poetry on the Internet.

* Literary Kicks

https://www.charm.net/ ~ brooklyn/litkicks.html

Found here: The Beats, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, et al.

* B.A.W.P. Best Quality Audio Web Poems

https://www.cs.brown.edu/fun/bawp/ As the name implies, spoken word.

* Charles Bukowski

https://www.and.com/silva/bukowski/buk.html

The late, great Los Angeles poet.

* Richard Darsie’s Poetry Page

https://www.ece.ucdavis.edu/ ~ darsie/library.html Many poets here, from William Blake to Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare to Li Po. Poetry for children.

* Internet Poetry Archive

https://sunsite.unc.edu/dykki/poetry/home.html

Selected poems from contemporary poets Czeslaw Milosz and Seamus Heaney.

* Project Bartleby

https://www.cc.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby The public library of the Internet. Maintained by Columbia University.

* Cowboy poetry

https://agricomm.com/agricomm/cp * Aviation poetry

https://www.cyberspace.com/mbrunk/avpoem.html