The Electronic Poetry Center at the University at Buffalo, part of the State University of New York, is examining how new styles of online poetry are developing.

Once people were working with computers, they said 'How could we do something on the computer with poetry that can't be done on paper?' It was at that moment that electronic poetry was born.

Loss Pequeno Glazier

This includes the inter-weaving of written words with moving images and sound, in which the poets can create online "performances" for their work, says the centre's director, Loss Pequeno Glazier.

"Once people were working with computers, they said 'How could we do something on the computer with poetry that can't be done on paper?' It was at that moment that electronic poetry was born," said Mr Glazier.

"On the web, you can have the poems move or have some sort of timing to them or changeability,'' he said.

This can include changes to the size and colour of fonts, shifting patterns of words and moving backgrounds.

For instance, the centre links to an e-poem called "being human" by Annie Abrahams, the word "bonjour" edges across the screen showing the rest of the poem.

Or in a sonnet called "My Transparent Brother" by Luigi Bob Drake, sections of the poems appear and disappear and change position.

However unlike poems printed on paper, there is no fixed, library version of a finished work. As well as studying and presenting new work, the Electronic Poetry Center is considering ways of storing e-poems.

In some cases, as software and browser changes render original works obsolete, the centre will be translating poems into newer formats.