Chapter 5 in Electronic Literature is focused on kinetic and interactive poetry. On page 118, Rettberg states, "Kinetic and interactive poetry explore the specific multimedia capacities of the contemporary computer as a poetic environment for both composition and reception." I think this sort of definition is helpful in defining what should and should not considered digital poetry. Last semester I took intro to poetry and surprisingly we never interacted with any forms of online, kinetic/interactive poetry, so I found this chapter to be informative and interesting. In this chapter, Rettberg attributes time, movement, and language as the sole characteristics of kinetic and interactive poetry. Since multimedial effects are an important feature of kinetic poetry, the text and motion of a poem are the key to if it's actually good or not.
In Dear e.e. there is a lot of random and sudden movements across the screen and the "dream" section is overwhelming. Dear e.e. was similar to because i love you) last night as it also used very distracting methods of writing. It is a very chaotic and jumbled piece of electronic literature. I guess it is fun because it's different but it's also not something I want to read/look at for hours on end. I personally was not a big fan of the e.e. cummings poem because i love you) last night. I think the punctuation gets in the way of the actual message behind the poem and is really distracting. While the vocabulary used is really beautiful, the random structure and punctuation take away from the quality of the poem.
~Maddie
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I agree that the dear e. e. poem was distracting and chaotic. I like how you claimed "the text and motion of a [kinetic] poem are the key to if it's actually good or not." I wonder then if dear e. e. is considered an exceptional work of art because of all the rapid movement and detail it incoroporates. I also did not enjoy the "dream" section because of how overwhelming it was, but I wonder if dear e. e. is a good kinetic poem because it invokes a distrurbed reaction from its audience. If so, I would say that I'm not a big fan of kinetic poetry.
ReplyDeleteGood point on bringing the poems into the perspective of a book. I never thought of something like that and I definitely wouldn't be able to concentrate for hours on end with something so chaotic. I think the poem has a little bit of irony as thee vocab is so throughly and thoughtfully used while the random structure makes it a little messy.
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