In 2019, on a whim, I signed up for a workshop called Alt Text as Poetry hosted at an art space in Brooklyn, New York. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as a disabled person and a poet, I was definitely intrigued. Led by Shannon Finnegan, who cocreated Alt Text as Poetry along with their collaborator, Bojana Coklyat, the ninety-minute workshop wound up transforming the way I think about poetry, accessibility, and perception.
Alt text refers to image descriptions embedded into HTML that can be read with screen readers used by people who are blind or have low vision or certain cognitive disabilities. In the context of Alt Text as Poetry, the term is used more broadly to refer to all image descriptions, whether they’re embedded in code or shared in the body of a post or a caption field. Writing alt text tends to be viewed as a chore—something that must be done for compliance. Alt Text as Poetry rejects this idea and instead celebrates the expressive potential of alt text, encouraging people to explore writing image descriptions as a creative practice.
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contributor
contributor
Amy Berkowitz is the author of Tender Points, re-released by Nightboat Books in 2019. Her other writing has appeared in publications including Bitch, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Jewish Currents, and Wolfman New Life Quarterly. She lives in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco, where she’s writing a novel. More at amyberko.com.
