Malleable

Electronic literature is unique in that the form it takes on can vary in infinite ways. In this type of literature, the creator has more control over the tone and affect a piece has on a reader. When reading poetry from a page, the reader can place many meanings on it based on their reading from the words on the page. What makes Electronic poetry different is that the creator can add music, add changes or shifts within lines, take away the reading and replace it with a different variation of itself, which allows the work to reflect the tone of the words that are within it. For example, in the reimplementation of Christopher Strachey’s “Love Letters,” I felt anxious and noted the intensity. This poem uses words that describe intensity such as: “anxious longing,” “lust,” “tempts,” “burning wish,” “passionate desire,” “infatuation,” “craving,” “thursts,” “hunger,” “fond eagerness,” which when felt for someone, can be very emotionally draining and exhausting. I find this poem to be presented in a way that draws readers into becoming emotionally invested with the poem always moving before it can be finished and the words changing to describe different types of amorous desire. This makes readers feel the pressure and intensity that the person in the poem is describing, which otherwise would not be felt as strongly had it just been read on a page. It appears fleeting yet emotionally invested to the person the letter is for and it makes me wonder if the writer of the letters is writing to the same person or different people. Electronic literature is unique in that the form it takes on can vary in infinite ways. In this type of literature, the creator has more control over the tone and affect a piece has on a reader. When reading poetry from a page, the reader can place many meanings on it based on their reading from the words on the page. What makes Electronic poetry different is that the creator can add music, add changes or shifts within lines, take away the reading and replace it with a different variation of itself, which allows the work to reflect the tone of the words that are within it. For example, in the reimplementation of Christopher Strachey’s “Love Letters,” I felt anxious and noted the intensity. This poem uses words that describe intensity such as: “anxious longing,” “lust,” “tempts,” “burning wish,” “passionate desire,” “infatuation,” “craving,” “thursts,” “hunger,” “fond eagerness,” which when felt for someone, can be very emotionally draining and exhausting. I find this poem to be presented in a way that draws readers into becoming emotionally invested with the poem always moving before it can be finished and the words changing to describe different types of amorous desire. This makes readers feel the pressure and intensity that the person in the poem is describing, which otherwise would not be felt as strongly had it just been read on a page. It appears fleeting yet emotionally invested to the person the letter is for and it makes me wonder if the writer of the letters is writing to the same person or different people.

-itsacat