Brian Bilston’s multimodal poetic practices: interactions between the digital and the analogue

This article examines texts by the modern British poet Brian Bilston from the perspective of their semantic and syntactic organisation and the lines of the author's investigation into paralinguistic, i. e. visual, elements. To this end, it draws on contemporary research into complex communication objects — multimodal texts. The study provides an overview of the principles of new media: modularity, numerical representation, automation and variability. Formulated by Lev Manovich, these precepts find reflection in Bilston's poetic practices. It is shown that traditional paralinguistic means, such as the spatial arrangement of components or the use of colours, shapes and figures, are used to compose iconic texts where the actual similarity of the sign and the referent comes to the fore. A non-standard technique is described that utilises the font as an element of traditional polymodality to label the actor. The use of new media elements — computer interfaces, data visualisation and emojis — in poetic and meta-poetic functions is explored alongside an examination of conceptual metaphors illustrating reflection on a subject's individual experience — reflection couched in digital reality terms, such as 'filter', 'format' and 'function'. As for the referential correlation between verbal and visual components, the role of emojis is demonstrated in devising the structures of parallel, complementary and substitutive syntax in literary, public and advertising Internet communication. It is concluded that the choice between traditional and new visual components reflects how form and content interact in a text. The espousal of digital reality elements is linked to the poet's interest in the features of communicative relationships. The significance of the communicative format associated with the conceptualisation of digital reality is shown to perform a text-forming function in Bilston's poetic practices.