Representatives and A Study in Shades

The first piece of work I chose to analyze was Representatives by Megan Sapnar. In this poem, the poet is describing a relationship that is strained between two sisters. When the reader first opens the poem, a green screen pops up. On one side is a picture of a women sitting behind a computer screen, seemingly at work. She has what appears to be a headset on. On the other side, there is a picture of another women who is on the phone. A fast-paced drum song is playing in the background. The music is steady and powerful, which ( as the reader will see ) is fitting to the tone of the poem. Once the reader clicks the picture, the image remains but the sound of a phone ringing begins to play. The phone rings a few times and then a woman's voice picks up and says " Hello?" Both pictures are shaking slightly and there are black lines connecting the two images which are symbolic of the telephone connection.

As the reader hovers their cursor over the women on the phone, the words " A women I've never met before joins me in the kitchen." The reader must then click on her image. The screen then turns red as the poem begins to appear. The different lines appear in bold black as the screen behind them remains bright red. The poem speaks of the strained relationship between the two sisters and how both of them enjoy the distance between them. It is not uncommon to associate the color red with anger or rage which appear to be the message of the poem thus far and describes how the first women is feeling. The music in the background features what sounds like a morocco which instantly reminded me of the sound a rattlesnake makes before it strikes its victim. The interaction at this point is limited; the reader simply follows the text which appears without any clicking or searching.


After the reader has finished the first section, they must click on the image again to return to the main, green page. They will now hover over the other image of the women at the computer. The words " Some things are truly lost I will tell her" appear. The reader will now click on her image and the screen will turn a serene shade of blue. Text will appear which tells of all the different events this sister is telling to the other sister. Some events are serious, such as someone who is ill, while others are trivial, such as the recipe to a pasta dish. The blue color of the background and the lack of emotion displayed by this sister leads the reader to believe that the disdain of the relationship described by the first sister may be one sided. In fact, the second sister ends the conversation with " I will miss you." She seems to either have no idea of the turmoil between them or simply does not give in to the anger displayed by the first sister. The music chosen for this part of the poem is predictable and relaxing.


This piece of electronic poetry was simple yet effective. The differences in color led the reader to draw conclusions about each of the sister's opinion on the relationship. The music also played a role in determining the tone of the poem. These are elements that could not be utilized if the poem was written traditionally. The poem may have been difficult to understand if the two images of the women were not present; on paper, the reader may have gotten confused that two people were talking in the poem rather than one. This poem is fairly simple and the author does not employ similes or metaphors throughout the poem When the second sister says " I will miss you" at the end of the poem, the reader is left to wonder why the relationship is so rocky between them. I found myself thinking that " I will miss you" could be taken literally as in the sister will look forward to talking to her sister the next time or it could be taken as the calm sister misses the person her angry sister used to be. This poem, although simple, may not translate well on paper and is much more effective and enjoyable as E-poetry.

The second poem, A Study in Shades, is written by Robert Kandall. When the reader first opens the poem, there are two pictures, similar to the first poem, with an older man on one side and a young women on the other side. Both pictures are created in a gray scale and are of equal darkness. There are arrows under each picture, with the first group of lines of poem under the man visible and only a single line of the poem under the women visible. The reader will read the first section of the poem under the old man first, then click the arrow the is pointing to the right under the old man to continue the poem. After click the arrow, new text will appear under the old man, and the picture of the women on the other side will fade slightly. Each time the reader goes deeper into the poem of the old man, the picture of the women on the right will fade. By the end of the poem, the picture of the women has completely gone white and she is no longer visible. These images fit perfectly with the message of the poem and enhance its meaning greatly. The poem of the old man, who appears to suffer from some type of memory loss, is describing how the image of the women sitting across from him ( who we learn later is his daughter) continues to fade into the background. He is seeing all of her features and characteristics, but he seems to be missing the big picture; he struggles to "place " her and can not recall that she is his daughter. As the poem continues, her picture fades away which is symbolic of his memory of her slipping through the cracks in his mind.

The reader will now go to the arrows under the section where the picture of the women once was. They will click through her poem just like they did the old man's poem, but this time, something different will occur. As the reader gets deeper into the poem, the picture of the old man grows darker and darker. By the last couple lines, his picture is completely black and his features are no longer visible; only his outline can be seen. The reader can not stop this process from happening as they click through the poem. The author uses alliteration with the word "black" which is used to describe how the daughter feels about her father. These feelings are reinforced by the picture getting darker and darker, an allusion to her inability to penetrate into her fathers once lucid mind. The daughter talks of the aspects of her life, which she stored with her father for safe keeping now being lost. The author does a great job in conveying the hopelessness she feels and the despair she experiences as she watches her father slip further and further away. While this poem may translate relatively well to print, the pictures do add to the message of the poem. The reader is limited ( like the first example) in their interact; they seem to be along for the ride rather than the driver.

These pieces of E-poetry are simple in comparison to other pieces we have looked at thus far. They are straightforward and reveal themselves to the reader rather than making the reader search for the answers. I personally enjoyed reading them; I think too much animation and interaction can be frustrating and take away from the message of the poem. I also enjoyed pontificating on the first poem; how did the relationship between the sisters take such a turn? Why do they seem to have such opposing feelings regarding their relationship? I enjoyed these two pieces of work more than some of the others for their simplicity and message.

URL Of A Study in Shades: See Comments
URL Of Representatives: See Comments

Warming up...MAYBE

I decided to come into the second assignment with a clean slate; I was going to give E-Poetry another try with the new found knowledge that I can't really COMPARE regular poetry to E-Poetry, but rather I should see E-Poetry as a different genre.
After reading the first part of the assignment written by Deena Larson, I think I began to have a better understand of what E-poetry is all about. I think she did a great job of providing examples for each different medium used. My personal favorites were "Nio" by Jim Andrews and "Strings" by Dan Waber. I think I may have preferred those the best because the interactions were easy to understand. Some of the E-poetry we have experiences in the past can be confusing to the point where it discouraged me from trying to understand the message it was trying to convey. I also enjoyed the website that allowed different people to collaborate on writing a single poem. Each person is able to write a line or two in a poem that had already been started by someone else. The poem has influences from many different writers. I think this can be useful because it encourages people to add their own vision on to a poem while incorporating the vision of someone else.

The poetry that we read this week I thought was more engaging and enjoyable than last week. As previously stated, I don't really enjoy when someone else reads the poem for me. I like being given the freedom to interpret the poem as I see fit. With this in mind, I must comment on the poem " Firefly" by Deena Larson. This was by far my favorite poem presented this week. I loved how I was able to choose the story while still staying within the lines that the author assigned. I enjoyed changing each line and seeing how it effected the poem as a whole.

I also enjoyed "Penetration" although it did confuse me a bit. As the reader continued on in the poem, the flower on the side grew. The colors of the key words ( which them redirected the reader to another stanza of the poem) changed depending on if the reader had completed this section or not. I eventually did complete the whole poem and I think I grasped the main concept, but it was confusing at times because I wasn't sure if I was at the beginning,middle or end of the poem. I could see how this confusion could be meaningful to the context of the poem though.

The last piece I wanted to comment on was "War Games." I think the idea behind this piece is brilliant. The reader was instructed to try to "click on the landmine" which was moving at a fast pace at the top of the screen. Each time the reader missed, a fact about landmines and their devastation would be brought up. After reading the fact, I went back to tried to click the landmine again, with no success. Eventually I caught the landmine ( I was rewarded with a prosthetic hand) but only after numerous attempts. This was fun but also informative. I think the majority of people won't be satisfied until they catch the landmine. This desire propels them to continue to try, thus providing them with more facts each time they miss.

I think I may be warming up to E-Poetry. My only gripe is that some of the examples are too confusing. I can't speak for anyone else, but if I can't figure out how the animation works within a couple minutes, I am totally discouraged and have lost all desire to read the poem. I think simple is better. If the website is easy to understand, I can see how E-Poetry would add to the meaning behind the poem and engage the reader more deeply than traditional poetry can.

My initial response to e-poetry based on pieces assigned so far is undetermined. I have mixed feelings about the pieces we have experienced thus far. When I think of poetry that is written in books or even online without animation in comparison to poetry that is read for you or paired with pictures, I immediately think various best selling books that have been made into movies. A big fan of reading, I thoroughly enjoy being able to sit down with a book and read the words of the author while injecting some of my own personal story into the book. Although the characters in a book are created by the author, the reader does have some input as to how the characters look or sound. For example, Wally Lamb may have written " She's Come Undone" but I fell in love with Dolores as I saw her in my mind. Once a best selling book becomes a movie, it inevitably leaves those who have read the book disappointed. Simply put, the movies never live up to the characters as we imagine them.
" The Best Cigarette" poem was enjoyable. I enjoyed the text version much more than the Action Poetry version. With the text version I was able to linger over words or images that I deemed important. It was self paced. When the poem was read for me, it felt rushed. I scrambled to keep up with the reader and felt like I was missing the beauty of the poem. The images presented were enjoyable but I much rather contextualize the poem myself.
The poem by Lewis was a bit confusing at first, but after a couple reading, I think I started to understand the message he was trying to convey. In terms of the flash version of the poem with the movable tile pieces, to put it bluntly, if I wanted to play with a puzzle I could go to a game site to do that. I understand ( or at least I believe I do) that the puzzle pieces fitting together is a symbol of his many lives. I guess I would consider that adding to the message of the poem, but I am not a large fan.
The interactive version of "Mermaid" was just bizarre to me. The words were so small that they were unreadable and everything shook as you went to click on it. To me, that defeated the entire purpose of having a poem.
Maybe e-poetry is useful in some ways though. We live in a world where most adults can not concentrate on a given task for any extended period of time. If readers can click, move pieces, listen to someone else read the poetry and shake words, maybe it will give them that extra focus they need to actually complete the poem. Personally, thus far, I am not a fan of e-poetry but I do think it has potential. If a writer is going to add images to their poem, maybe it would appeal to me more if they put images of themselves and the time in their life when the poem was written. I feel like if they were to do that, I could connect with the author and better understand their emotions and feelings at the time. I don't enjoy when the poetry is read aloud because ( just like the books versus the movie argument) the reader is able to put inflection in words that I may not have or they may give no meaning to parts I think are crucial to the poem. It almost discourages the reader from thinking for themselves about the words presented. I much rather allow my mind to do the work than have someone do it for me.