Kinetic and Interactive Poetry - Cameron W

 Kinetic and Interactive Poetry

I really loved ii in the white darkness by Reiner Strasser and M.D. Coverly. I was confused at first, but once I realized that I needed to click on the white dots, I was in awe. The images and videos that were embedded in this piece were breathtakingly beautiful. I felt like I was experiencing the most magical moments of someone’s memory.

I was very fond of the use of sound in Cruising by Ingrid Ankerson and Megan Sapnar. The background music mixes perfectly with the voice reading the story and the images rolling by at differing speeds. I have never seen works like this before and I felt extremely inspired. 

I enjoyed the structure of this week’s chapter. It consisted of many shorter sections, making it much easier to take in. I was intrigued by the inclusion of time as an aspect of kinetic and interactive poetry. I had never thought about the involvement of time in art or in digital literature. I liked the description of the performance of an interactive poem as, “a series of feedback loops,” (Rettberg 120). It is cool to think that the reader’s interaction with the poem modifies or even steers and creates the poem in a way. I felt drawn to this quote by Steve McCaffery within the chapter, “‘consider the page not as a space but as a death occurring in the gap between ‘writing’ and ‘wanting to say,’’” (Rettberg 123). That was very strange, interesting, and thought-provoking to me. 


Ian Hamilton Finlay - Little Sparta

I was deeply impressed by the description of Ian Hamilton Finlay and his wife Sue Finlay’s construction of “the garden of Little Sparta.” I was especially intrigued by the amount of work that went into it, which spanned over decades. The concept of poetry stamped into stone and concrete structures is very cool and I like the fact that poetry is rooted in nature. In the video, the Finlay’s son, Alec Finlay, explains that to his father, creating the garden was, “an act of incredibly deep healing.” He also says that his father used to say that “the poem is also the plants, the shadows, the fall of the light, the silent.” I really loved this video, I think it perfectly captures the garden and its purpose. It is also very powerful hearing all of this from their son, who grew up on this land and is also a poet and artist.

Comments

  1. Abby T.March 5, 2023 at 3:17 PM

    I just watched the video you posted and wow, that was amazing. You can literally feel the energy of the garden through the screen, it's so inspiring. It reminds me a bit of other gardens and outdoor art exhibits I've been to. They all give me a similar sense of peace

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