Hypertext Week 2 - Gwen West

I've really been enjoying what we've been looking at and reading these past few weeks, especially Afternoon, the love letters, and Entre Ville. Making the love letters was super fun and definitely my favorite thing we've done so far. The concept of hypertext within generative poetry was really fun to play with (and very comical). Afternoon was quite interesting, and I found that this piece of hypertext was a little more elusive and sort of confusing compared to some of the other works we've seen. The storyline was incredibly skewed and hard to keep up with, but regardless, it was intriguing and kept me engaged while reading. I also enjoyed looking at Entre Ville, J.R. Carpenter's hypertext creation. I loved that each door and window on the house had something new behind it, as well as their videos accompanying them. The extended poem on the left page was also interesting to read. One of my favorite stanzas was -- 


"We surrender to
Thailande's chill interior.
We linger over our
air conditioned plates; 
we marvel at the waiters' 
crisp white shirts."


I liked this stanza because it showed how the poem's text focused on mundane concepts, but described them in a more complex and detailed way that makes readers think just a little harder. I also was happily surprised by the Down the Garden Path section when you click on the gloves in the upper left corner of the original page. This was a super neat way to create a poem through hypertext, as clicking on the red arrow brings you to the next page and line of the poem. Entre Ville is formatted in a truly unique way that captures viewers attention for a long period of time. I found that I couldn't get bored while looking through this piece due to the amount of variety and attention to detail Carpenter put into Entre Ville. The dog in the corner who changes the poem and a few other features on the page was my favorite aspect. 

Comments

  1. Ava GarciaFebruary 20, 2023 at 8:54 AM

    I also thought creating love letters was one of my favorite things we have done so far! I liked the stanza you included too and I agree that the hypertext focused on many different mundane topics but found a super creative way to make the reader enjoy the poem. I definitely did not get bored reading this piece and I thought it was one of the most attention grabbing ones we have read so far!

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  2. Dr. MFebruary 20, 2023 at 12:32 PM

    The love poems were hilarious! Afternoon is purposefully slippery, but it starts to come together the longer you read and get to know the characters (not SOLVED, necessarily haha). And Entre Ville is more layered and multimodal, but also with a linear piece. I love the dog too!

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