Touch Screen - Philip Armstrong

The term "touchscreen" emerged in the 1970s to describe a computer display that doubles as an input device. In Touch Screen, poet Philip Armstrong reexamines this term, exploring the evolving interface between humans and technology through poems that blend personal lyric and myth, asking: "Can you feel it?"

The word ‘touchscreen’ entered the English language in the early 1970s to describe a computer display screen that also functions as an input device operated by touching its surface. In this absorbing collection, Touch Screen, poet Philip Armstrong dismantles this now ubiquitous term and helps us see its component parts afresh – ‘touch’ and ‘screen’ strangely reconfigured in today’s complex technological world.

In poems that range from the personal lyric to retellings of myths and stories long held in the human imagination, Armstrong explores the rapidly evolving interface between human and non-human worlds. Touch Screen brings us face to face with being alive here and now, and asks the urgent question: Can you feel it?