Author Dan Waber created a moving poem called “Strings” (Waber 1999). “This amazing work by Waber makes handwriting dance by using Flash to treat it as a piece of string: elastic, plastic, and so graceful! What we witness in this suite of short works of kinetic concrete poetry is not exactly a disembodied hand inscribing on the blank canvas of the page. We are looking through a window into a larger space, one in which little dramas are taking place, sometimes outside of our view. From the tug of war of the first “argument,” to the flirtation of a “no” morphing into a “maybe,” these pieces have a bounce and a rhythm to them that fill these manuscripts with life” (Flores 2012).
The digital poem “Strings” is composed of eight stanzas with their own links: “argument,” “argument2,” “flirt,” “flirt (cntd),” “haha,” “youandme,” “arms,” and finally “poidog.” Each stanza title is named for a single “word”. Each word in language has both connotation & denotation, along with the feeling gained by looking at the script as a two-dimensional object. The word as an object exceeds the weight of its typography and font choice, instead it also takes on sculptural significance to the viewer based on the inferences made by the viewer who experiences the poem.
It could also be said that Fluxus artist Jenny Holzer was famous for her use of text in sculptural or painterly conceptual art. One might theorize that Holzer’s work bridges the gap between new digital poetics and earlier typography based art like that of surrealist, Max Ernst. However, typically Holzer’s artistic words were presented as static objects with the exception of her ticker tape series which scrolled across LED lights (Purves 2009). I make this comparison of Waber’s work to Holzer’s in this analysis of digital poetry to help the reader contextualize the new movement of e-poetry into the larger framework of post-modern art and literature. More importantly, we must recognize epoetry as a vital intersection of art, literature, and coding. As print poetry’s readers are lost to the progress of online media, poets are well served to brush up on their coding or at least reconsider the idea of words as mere static objects.
Poetic words can be scribbled on paper, whispered on microphones, turned into sculptural objects, flashed in lights, or coded into an online experience to be interacted with. In fact, the technology now exists to create “kinetic typography” which allows words to move, morph, and dance across the viewer’s screen. Yet, digital poetry is different than kinetic typography, though the e-poetry form may choose to utilize kinetic typography as an interactive tool for poetry distribution to readers. The online platform inherently increases the size of the poem’s audience. How we choose to craft our messages digitally gives us even greater potential for variety and innovating novel ways for getting our ideas across to viewers.
The epoem “Strings” shows a word coded to appear as cursive handwriting on the screen (Waber 1999). Each word itself moves and dances in a way appropriate for the connotation of the word the poet has chosen to illustrate. In the stanza “Flirt,” the word “no” morphs into the word “maybe.” The stanza “Haha,” allows the words to gently bounce from side to side, replicating and growing, like a friendly belly laugh seen visually with the playful letters. For the section of the poem entitled “youandme,” the two words interact without connecting. My favorite stanza is called “arms.” The action of the kinetic typography resembles a hug, with the words morphing from “me” to “your arms” to what resembles an enveloping circle at times. The visual action seen in this stanza adds meaning to the simple scrolling of three words. Meaning is added to the poetic words by the action coded into their display.
However, it seems plausible that this particular poem could also be experienced on a projection screen (offline and enlarged), and still retain its meaning and action. For other epoems, they may not carry over into a static exhibition space as well if more interaction is required from the viewer. It seems that the author, Waber, intended for the stanzas to be experienced sequentially, due to the user interaction controls at the bottom of each screen. You can click “next” to go to the next section.
Therefore, the final stanza of the poem appears to be “poidog,” which states “words are like strings that I pull out of my mouth.” This is the section that most resembles traditional poetry, confessing the purpose of the entire creative exercise seen in this work.
Words are more than just their definitions, how they are said or shown conveys a greater depth of meaning. How one chooses to portray their words while flirting, can make the same statement seem either coy and sweet or predatorily awkward. Upon reading the poem “Strings,” we might infer that we should choose carefully the words we pull from our mouth with deliberation. Especially since sometimes the wrong words can spill out, be misspelled or worse, misunderstood. The inspiring aspect of digital poetics is the potential layers of meaning authors can add to their messages, not just by adding multi-media dimensionality but in better utilizing the benefits of coding to add interaction and motion to the delivery of their poetic work.
WORKS CITED
Baetens, Jan, and Jan Van Looy. "E-Poetry between Image and Performance: A Cultural Analysis." E-Media Studies 1.1 (2008): n. pag. Web. 13 Nov. 2016.
Flores, Leonardo. "“Strings” by Dan Waber." I ♥ EPoetry. Generate Press, 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2016.
“I ♥ E-Poetry: Discovering Digital Media Poetry.” Perf. Dr. Leonardo Flores. TEDxUPRM. TEDx Talk, 24 June 2016. Video. 10 Nov. 2016.
Waber, Dan. "Strings." Electronic Literature Collection. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, July 1999. Digital Poem. 14 Nov. 2016. http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/waber__strings
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