Chapter 5

Chapter 5 covers Kinetic and Interactive Poetry, Rettberg discusses the characteristics of kinetic and interactive poetry and explains how they “explore the specific multimedia capacities of the contemporary computer as a poetic environment for both composition and reception” (118). He later explains that Kinetic Poetry did not just evolve out of thing air when the digital age came around. He explains the history behind of typographic animation in film and how it is related to kinetic poetry with examples like Anemic Cinema from Marcel Duchamp in 1926. Flash plugin changed the way these poetic genres were consumed, and flash had a major impact on all e-lit genres. It created a way for creators to express their work and for their readers to engage with it via computer. The discussion of different programming tools like HTML and Javascript helps the reader connect the history of these poetic genres to more modern-day ideas with program that’s a lot of creators/designers use every day.

I wanted to talk about Twine a little bit as well. I feel that twine felt better to use than Dreamweaver, although you have to understand the coding/text inputs behind it I found it fun to use. The game we created in the class the other day felt interactive and enjoyable to read through other games as well. Although our ideas were larger than the time we could produce in, we cut corners on some places however seeing the final outcome and having a better understanding of how these html editors work opened my mind to all the possibilities behind e-lit, and kinetic/interactive poetry. These devices make it simple to be able to express your story and create interactive work for you and others to enjoy.

Mason Sweet