If our in-boxes are ‘an index of contemporary anxieties’, might they also yield a uniquely 21st century found art form? Welcome to the era of ‘spam poetry’, or ‘spoetry’, as it’s been dubbed.
The phenomenon began with the success of spam filters – programs designed to pick out emails with phrases like “enlarge your penis”, and prevent them from reaching your screen. In an effort to slip through the system, spammers have turned to their dictionaries, inserting random words like “pyrophosphate”, “necromancer” and “pine cone” with weird and occasionally wonderful results.
