Pay Attention! Or, what is our brain on the Internet?

As I thought about which poem to pick for my presentation, I could not help but notice how much creativity was put into making these poems. As I watch the videos online, I discovered the many ways poetry can be expressed. Each poem had their own individual meaning and demonstrated its meaning through impressive methods. This really made it hard for me to pick a poem. They all seem to grab my attention, but there was one that really caught my eye.

Faith by Robert Kendall is a poem that is expressed in a very interesting way. The poet expressed his ideas through the sound of music, different colored words and through the motion of words and phrases. His method of catching the reader’s attention really surprised me. It was the first time I had read a poem online which used such creative ways to express ideas and feelings. The tone of the music in the video made me feel at peace and at ease. The different colored words and phrases made me concentrated on the words the poet wanted me to concentrate on and make connections between them. I really enjoyed this poem and I highly suggest you go watch the video.

http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/kendall__faith.html

As I was wondering what to choose for my electronic literature presentation, I have decided to choose Strings by Dan Waber. It’s a simple set of words that are commonly used online and in reality. I realized that all of the words used to describe laughter, argument, and flirtation were the words that I use when I talk to my friends.

I feel that the strings that Waber uses to form the words are greatly used since it looks like the words that are actually written by people. Instead of computer typed words that present a more hard, technological feel, the strings feel more alive. Sometimes, there are people who choose to write words that look typed. However, I believe that our handwriting are all unique and it is what separates us from other people. Waber shows that there aren’t many hand written words out in the computer.

Personally, I enjoyed watching the “haha” and “argument” works because the words that he chose reminded me of myself when I interact with my friends. Firstly, I would always type “haha” during my conversations online. Also, the words, “yes and no” are what everyone says. Seeing how a simple string and a few commonly used words can become a great work of literature surprises me.

This poem first attracted me by its title. I thought it would be interesting what type of poem would come with this title. When I clicked it, a guy began speaking in a foreign language with English subtitles. Although I didn’t understand what he was saying, his voice was very soothing and it gave an interesting effect to the poem. He allowed us to pick a story about other people and read them.

In Ezzat’s poem he speaks of the many stories of people he has. He says, “Picking a story is like picking out a star in a clear night sky.” It made me think deeper about the poem and its relevance to the title. It’s interesting how at night time there are millions of other people looking at the night sky as well.  It made me think about how everyone has a different story and how the stars sees these people and their lives. We  all wish on stars and I feel like each star has many wishes that are granted upon them and it carries all these wishes with them. The night sky makes us realize how insignificant we are because there are millions and billions of other people throughout the world with their own stories and their own problems. But there is one thing that we all have in common; we all have stories and we all have problems.

http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/ezzat__like_stars_in_a_clear_night_sky.html

I chose “Galatea” by Emily Short because the thumbnail was very mysterious-looking and drew me in. Upon clicking it, it realized that I had to download a series of things, which made me more intrigued. I found that this was a text-based program, one where you type commands and the program responds. Commands that the program recognizes are “look”, “examine the pedestal”, “touch” and “tell about”. It was a bit confusing to use at first but I got the hang of it. The program best works with words that it has already mentioned.

First command: “Look”. We zoom in on Galatea, this beautiful, pale woman, wearing a emerald green dress. After a series of commands, you realize that Galatea, the woman on the pedestal, is just as stubborn as the program being used. When you do illicit some sort of response from her after getting lucky with a command, the response is drab and stubborn-sounding. Second command: “Ask about life”. Things start to get interesting from here. She talks more, gives you longer answers, opening a door for you to get more information from this program. Her answers are still full of mystery though.

http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/short__galatea.html

I chose this piece because unlike the other pieces, this one grabbed my attention. I looked at almost all the pieces before realizing this piece was the most interesting one. Not only did the game of poker entertain me, but the idea of making an interesting poem did as well. I wanted to win the poker game but i also wanted to really make a better poem than the other players. I mixed around the words in my head, trying to think of a great poem. Unfortunately, i lost because i didn’t have a flush or a full house, but i did feel like i could’ve made a better poem than my opponents with the words i had.

I liked how Marko Niemi linked poetry with poker. Many can consider poetry to be a gamble. It is very difficult for a poem to be successful in critics’ eyes. Every poem written is a gamble. Having said that, i do not mean that every poem written is not a good poem. A poem can be perfect to one person and horrible to another. I thought the words i was drawn in the poker game created a great poem but some people could think otherwise.

http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/niemi__stud_poetry.html

In this slide show, it talks about a girl named Alice that’s 8 years old in search of her father. Her father, John, would usually go out to look for oil while Alice and her mom would stay at base camp to wait for her father to return. One day her father hadn’t been home for two days, and had never called back to them. So Alice and her mom had decided to go out to look for John. Alice would use her ba-xi, device, and the jeeps satillite to look for her dad. However, there were too many locations to track her dad down. As she sits in the car to find her dad, Alice begins to feel bored. She drew a picture naming it Brad and makes a list of the things she would want to be doing. Her mom then interrupts her list making and tells her to turn the device off. It begins to get darker and Alice suddenly sees Brad pointing in a direction. Alice tells her mom to go in that direction and they see her dad. They had finally found John. Apparently his jeep broke down and that there was no signal for miles around.

This animation had been created with flash animation. To follow the story you would need to click on the arrows presented. I thought that it was an interesting way to tell a story.

Link: http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/pullinger_babel__inanimate_alice_episode_1_china/index.html

The work I chose is “Rice” by geniwate, and I chose it because I found it to be very fascinating. I felt like it took me on a journey. Even though “Rice” contains mostly photos, it’s hard to not formulate words about what the author experienced while in Vietnam, and the pictures help you create your own narrative in your imagination. There is a part of “Rice” called “Them” (I guess it’s a poem within a poem?), and “Them” tells a story about the aboriginals. The images really tie “Them” together, and it makes the entire interactive poem come together to form one compelling work that seems simple on the surface but is really profound when considered as a whole.

http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/geniwate__rice.html

I picked this “work” because I found it the most interesting. This is something that I have never seen before. It is a kind of work that uses many different kind of sounds, which can be combined together. I believe that poetry is a kind of art that does not have to include words all the time. You can have the same feelings and experience looking at just photos or in this case, listening to different voices humming. Listening to and mixing different voices gives me a different picture and allows me to create my own story which is pretty amazing.

http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/andrews__nio/Nio5.htm