This paper attempts an analytical study of a poetry forum at kano-online.com that targets Northern Nigerian readership. The forum reflects an emerging literature as it sets out to shape its own standards of literary creativity, transmission, circulation, as well as communication reality and perception in cyberspace.
By now, almost 400 poems have been published, each putting forth a discussion topic in its own right, encouraging further comments, quotes, etc. Every topic reveals various levels of discourse. The primary level is that texts are created in a digital medium which presents itself as an inexhaustible source for their rapid circulation and unlimited distribution. The next level, constructed by emergence of a text as a digital unit, is the immediacy of its communication through an audience, which simultaneously ensures a possibility of intensive reader feedback.
Based on an analysis of selected topics I also discuss the highest level of discourse, i.e. metatextuality as being the essential nature of a digital text. I argue that posting of a text, which is obviously a completed product of individual creation, serves as a starting point for a further creative process. The agent of this textual reworking is the audience which generates different interpretations of a given literary piece. Not only do readers make critical evaluations of published poems, they also endeavour to find hidden meanings, ideas, and emotions behind particular metaphors, images, or whole texts. Thus, what we witness there is a switch from an individual creative process to an impersonal collective deconstruction, a process engendering metatexts. Quite often it is a joint practice shared by authors and their audiences, whereby the former may initiate a discussion by giving explanations, or otherwise encourage readers to voice their perceptions. This game-like reciprocity is mainly controlled by the originator of a poetic piece and serves as a form of direct communication between poets and their intended audiences.
Therefore, the main issues that need to be resolved are as follows: how should this kind of literary process be classified? Is it a new form of literary creativity or a new format of performance?