My experiences so far with electronic literature have not at all been what I expected. I assumed that electronic literature involved reading e-books and finding texts online, but it is much more. It is a participatory experience between the piece of electronic literature and its reader. A person does not simply “read” electronic literature, but interacts and “plays” with it. An e-poem is so much different than a regular poem that is written on a page because there is more to read and see than is laid out for a reader. However, the two are similar in that both can be frustrating and difficult to read and write, but can also be very interesting and rewarding.
In Deena Larsen’s “A Quick Buzz Around the Universe of Electronic Poetry,” she talks about the symbiociation of electronic poetry. Symbiociation, Larsen explains, is the association of all of the different aspects of a piece of electronic poetry: the association of the words and the sounds, between the sounds and the images, the association of symbols, et cetera. It is a mutually beneficial, give and take relationship between all that makes that piece of electronic literature poetry. A perfect example of the power of symbiociation is the e-poem by Robert Kendall titled “A Study in Shades.” In this piece, there are two pictures, one of a man and one of a woman, and underneath both pictures are stanzas that the reader clicks through in the progression of the poem. With each stanza that the reader clicks through under the man’s picture, the picture of the woman gets lighter until it disappears completely. Contrastingly, with each stanza that the reader clicks through of the woman’s story, the picture of the man gets darker until he is only a vague silhouette.
The text of the poem explains that the man has Alzheimer’s Disease and the woman is his daughter. By having the pictures change with the progression of the disease, the reader is able to more fully understand that the memories that the father has of the daughter are disappearing and, consequently, the daughter is less and less able to clearly “see” her father. This connection of images and words, the symbiociation in the piece, helps to more adequately render the meaning of the poem to the reader, and that is why the symbiociation of e-poetry is such an important aspect of digital poetry.
As Talan Memmott explains in his article, “Beyond Taxonomy: Digital Poetics and the Problem of Reading,” classifying the elements within electronic poetry, as well as electronic poetry itself, is problematic. It is extremely difficult to come to a single and concise explanation or definition of what electronic literature it, what makes it and how it works. There are so many different kinds of digital poetry, as well as the programs that make and run it and these are constantly changing as new ones are being added all of the time and old ones are being refigured and refined. It is, however, according to Memmott, imperative to remember three very distinct and important aspects of electronic poetry: the material aspect, the performative aspect and the computational aspect. The material is the content – what is the poem saying, what is its underlying meaning, what is it talking about, et cetera. The performative is, as the name implies, the performance of the piece, its interactions with the reader and the interaction of all of the aspects within the piece. The computational is the programming underneath the digital poem that allows it to perform and interact the way it does. Memmott stresses that people must be willing to accept the constantly changing taxonomy of digital poetry, and even embrace the inherent changes, because the field of electronic literature will always be developing and evolving along with the developments and evolutions of electronic media.
One aspect that Memmott argues is constant in electronic poetry is its ability to “cause thinking.” In fact, Memmott believes that this ability is its greatest potential. Digital poetry causes thinking because there is so much going on in one piece of e-poetry that a reader is forced to think differently about it than a poem on a page. In other words, it causes thinking because different brain functions or processes are being used than would normally be used for a “regular” poem – different brain muscles are being exercised, so to speak. An example of an e-poem exerting its ability to cause thinking is Deena Larsen’s “Stained Word Window.” In this piece, there is the focal image of an X intertwined in an octagon, and in the different sections that these shapes form together and various words. When a reader hovers his or her mouse over one of the words, text appears on the side which goes into deeper detail of that word. Also, within the text that appears, certain words are underlined and if the reader clicks on the underlined words, it bring him or her to the text of one of the other words in one of the other sections.
This causes thinking because the reader understands that all of these words are connected, even though they are separated into different sections. The reader must then think about how and why all of these words are connected, why certain underlined words connect to certain sectioned words, what the text explains for each of the words it appears for, et cetera. Due to the very nature of electronic literature, a reader must consider the reasons behind each aspect of association and interaction in a piece of e-poetry. This “figuring out” of the why’s and how’s is the thinking that electronic literature has the ability to cause.
This new process of understanding poetry was very difficult for me to work through at first. I have only ever read and analyzed “regular” poetry, and so I had no idea how to approach electronic poetry. Reading and analyzing electronic poetry is no better or worse, in my opinion, than reading and analyzing poetry on a page, it is just different, and, like any new skill one is learning, must be practiced and approached with an open mind. Electronic poetry can be very overwhelming, and this can be discouraging to a new reader, as I found it discouraging in the beginning. However, I have also found that by giving it a chance and really trying to comprehend it, it does become easier to interact with and understand. As with “regular” poetry, it become almost instinct or second nature to look for and find the aspects that most fully convey the meaning of the piece. It becomes easier to understand what is significant in the piece, why a poet did what he or she did and how it all works together to help further the meaning or message of the poem.
Memmott believes that in order to be a critic of digital poetry one should have tried to write it or participate in it in some way because otherwise one will not have any sort of understanding (or at least not a satisfactory one) of what it really is or how it works. I agree with this belief wholeheartedly. Before attempting my own piece of digital poetry I did not know how to criticize it appropriately. In other words, I did not understand how to create an e-poem (let alone how difficult it was to do so) and I therefore did not fully comprehend the choices a poet would make in the production of digital poetry. I did not understand why e-poets thought that doing this or doing that would further their pieces – I did not fully understand the choices they made or how they came to make those decisions and then implement them. After creating my own e-poem, I have a much better understanding of the whole process. I more fully comprehend why certain choices are made because I had to make them myself and I understand the implementation of them because I had to figure out how to implement the aspects I wanted in my piece.
It is extremely difficult to write an e-poem. I used Microsoft PowerPoint in creating my e-poem and there are so many different choices one can make as an e-poet using this program, and sometimes these choices become confusing and overwhelming. It is difficult to decide on one effect and once a decision is made it is very easy to second guess yourself, and the process then becomes very time-consuming because these second-guesses become third- and fourth-guesses. There were many times during my writing when I took so long trying to perfect a specific characteristic that I lost sight of what I was trying to say as a whole and only focused on the visual aspects. Then I would have to start all over again to make sure my message was clear and wasn’t being lost in all of the complicated images and effects. In writing electronic poetry, it is important to remember that more is not always better. In fact, one of the aspects of my piece that I am most proud of I appreciate because of its simplicity. It is the part of my poem that reads, “Burn time, waste time, kill/ the lights/ And glow/ with melted-butter brightness.” These lines are split up between two different slides, the first one containing “Burn time, waste time/ kill,” and the second slide containing the rest. The part that I am proud of is the transition between slides because when it moves to the second, the background is completely black while the words “the lights” flicker in white before the remaining words shimmer, or glow, into appearance on the bottom in a butter-yellow color.
I feel that the simplicity of actually having “the lights” go out so suddenly enforces for the reader what it is like when it happens to them, and therefore makes the poem more relatable and easier to understand. Once you understand what it is you are trying to convey and how best to convey it through the media of electronic poetry, the actual writing of it is not that much different from writing a “regular” poem. Even with all of the effects and aspects that can be used in writing a digital poem, the unique creativity and the message behind it are still the most important characteristics for both forms of poetry.
E-Poetry/Powerpoint Blog
