Poetry and the Digital World

Poems have shifted from simple paper and ink into an interactive experience for readers. In class we were given the opportunity to look at many different works of e-Poetry. To first understand the works the class had to understand what e-Poetry is. After learning that e-Poetry engages in aspects that digital media offers we looked at a piece titled “ask me for the moon”.

This piece involves poems describing the labor behind the scenes in a Hawaii resort. At first glance I felt that this topic would not catch my interest, however by the author immersing his work into the digital world he made it a piece that appeals to many more readers such as myself. I caught myself paying much more attention to what I read as I interacted with the piece. Clicking through I was much more immersed due to the author using Adobe Flash to make the work dynamic instead of stagnant text. The flash animations and the dark colors draw your interest in as you watch Waikiki slowly appear before you. The dark colors symbolizing the work done at night and behind close doors to keep guests happy only enforce this notion that is already being made throughout the poem. Messages and themes of the poems can be conveyed much stronger with the sound and visual effects that the digital world offers.

The verses of the poem appearing and disappearing forces readers to actually pay attention as they read through the story. This is what makes e-Poetry much more interesting than normal poetry. e-Poetry forces you to think and interpret what is going on throughout the poem. I feel that e-Poetry is a better way to present new poems due to their interactive aspects. These poems appeal to an audience outside of those who will recreationally read poetry. e-Poetry is a step in the right direction for digital literature.