Eve's Week 6: Kinetic and Interactive Poetry

In this week’s chapter of Electronic Literature, Rettberg writes, “Perhaps we have always imagined our letters as objects, as material forms in constant movement, pulling themselves together into thoughts, words, and poems. Kinetic poetry enables us to see and experience this process, which has until now lived in our imaginations, before our very eyes” (151). I found this to be a good summarization of kinetic poetry and how the medium can change the meaning or add depth to writing. Kinetic poetry includes movement, sound, words, and images to create a dynamic and immersive experience. Poetry generally involves a lot of metaphors and can take on many forms to convey a message, so Kinetic poetry takes that a step farther by incorporating various digital elements to create meaning.  

I decided to take a closer look at “Cruising” by Ingrid Ankerson and Megan Sapnar. It took me a little while to figure out how all of the pieces worked. At first, I was just changing the speed of the pictures moving while the audio was playing by moving my mouse. Then I figured out how to zoom in closer to the pictures, so I restarted the audio and read along with the pictures. I think it’s cool that you have to “learn how to drive the text” and interact with the media to get the full picture.