"The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry"

“The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry” discusses three major perceptions of creating and understanding poetry in a digital form. The ontological perspective that is brought up in the start of this article is a very interesting perspective to think about. Through the reading of this section of the article, I couldn’t help but to think about my own start and exploration of flash and animated poetry. When I first started work for this class I had no idea how to begin viewing or creating poetry that moved and spoke to the viewer and reader in a whole different way than anything I had every explored. This article explores the basic ideas of computers and explains in detail how people must be at least somewhat computer-literate to view many animated pieces of poetry in hopes to understand the purpose and main idea. When creating a piece of animated poetry the “author” must have a detailed plan of what emotion or reaction they want to receive from the audience. This idea is similar with writing poetry on hard paper but when animating pieces of poetry I find that I have drive to obtain a deeper emotion and reaction from my audience. I feel that when I write poetry on paper I expect that my readers will interpret the piece and think to themselves in piece and among personal experiences, but when I create a piece of animated writing I find that I expect my audience will react more openly and among others about their reaction to the piece. I like that the article mentions the code of language that a computer provides for users, because people do need to possess some computer knowledge and people must understand what it takes for others to create such pieces before they view them. This code of language is the “new” element that computers bring to the table in relation to creating animated pieces of poetry. The article also discusses this possible element of computers adding to literature and writing, “…whether computers and the Internet truly bring forth anything new?” I think that computers and the element of the internet do bring some new tools and sources that writers can use to present new forms of creative writing to their viewers, and they also provide new ways to express emotions and thoughts that cannot be shown on the written printed text.

            I think that computers definitely provide something new and different for writers and for thus for the viewers. Although, I feel that computers provide new elements of creativity, I do not think that they have changed writing itself. Currently, animated poetry and printed poetry seem to exist perfectly balanced in the culture of writing and reading and interpreting, so I think that this balance has the potential to last. Before, this semester began, I had only seen a touch of animated poetry, but I had not nearly the level of understanding about them that I do now. To create and to view animated works of poetry and writing, one must have some sort of understanding of how the process works and what a writer potentially hopes to receive from their creative work.