I have a plea for any internet animation specialists out there: more poetry, please. Most weeks, when researching this column, I come up with a theme, spend a few hours overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what's on offer, have a strong cup of tea, then attempt to sift out a few choice nuggets. But animated poetry came up surprisingly short. This is a shame, because the vivid, hyper-real nature of Flash animation lends itself remarkably well to the images conjured up by the sounds, meter and vocabulary of poetry.

Listen, for instance, to Benjamin Zephaniah reading his poem London Breed, set to animation by Kristina Hedderly,on the British Council website, at tinyurl.com/6p7sv9. As the poet extols his love of London's melting pot, the cityscape keeps pace with his words; rather than offering a visual interpretation of the poem, it draws us in to the world it is creating.

One poet who has seemingly embraced animation is the former American poet laureate Billy Collins, whose thoughtful piece The Dead is animated in simple, flowing pencil drawings at tinyurl.com/63fcy5, one of several of Collins's works to get this treatment.

Next to this, the BBC's animation of John Hegley's What a Poem's Not, at www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/rca looks a little sparse, although it's still very enjoyable to read along, perhaps with a young child. The Bard of North London is an expert in bathos, and as his poem meanders through the alphabet, you know that there's a surprise waiting at the end. Great fun. You can't say the same of the heartbreaking Wilfred Owen trench poem Dulce et Decorum Est, at tinyurl.com/5rx27y, in which a photograph of the doomed poet has been animated so that he appears to be reading his work.

The perfect marriage of animation and poetry, perhaps, is the development of concrete poetry (in which the printed form of a word is as important as the word itself) into video undertaken by Ana Marie Uribe, at tinyurl.com/5nbnby. She calls them anipoems, and they consist of parades of moving type, designed to conjure up a mood. Take a look, but don't blame me if you get addicted.

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