MAIN ASPECTS

 

·         Reading order

At first sight, we can see that Stephanie Strickland uses the link-driven reading to show us her poem, it is clear that the whole poem is a Hypertext, and all the text and the images are clickable. If you click the images, then the whole poem is shown in a particular order.

 

But we can also see that Strickland also uses a complete reading. At the end of the page we can see many links represented by zeros (0). The author uses that for giving continuity to the poem and don’t make it random.

 

But if we want to randomize our reading we can do it. We can use the zeros and the images and the words of the poem to create our personal version of the poem. Maybe it seems similar to the link-driven reading, but here you can click anywhere to choose the way of reading the poem.

 

·         Structure

We can see that the main structure that Strickland uses is a ballad. According to The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, a literary ballad “is a narrative poem created by a poet in imitation of the old anonymous folk ballad. Usually the literary ballad is more elaborate and complex; the poet may retain only some of the devices and conventions of the older verse narrative. Literary ballads were quite popular in England during the 19th cent. Examples of the form are found in Keats's “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” Coleridge's “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and Oscar Wilde's “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” In music a ballad refers to a simple, often sentimental, song, not usually a folk song”. (The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.)

 

The earliest literary imitations of ballads were modelled on broadsides, rather than on folk ballads. In the early part of the 18th century, Jonathan Swift, who had written political broadsides in earnest, adapted the style for several jocular bagatelles. Poets such as Swift, Matthew Prior, and William Cowper in the 18th century and Thomas Hood, W.M. Thackeray, and Lewis Carroll in the 19th century made effective use of the jingling metres, forced rhymes, and unbuttoned style for humorous purposes. Lady Wardlaw’s “Hardyknute” (1719), perhaps the earliest literary attempt at a folk ballad, was dishonestly passed off as a genuine product of tradition. After the publication of Thomas Percy’s ballad compilation Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765, ballad imitation enjoyed a considerable vogue, which properly belongs in the history of poetry rather than balladry. (taken from Encyclopedia Britannica http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/50461/ballad/50931/Literary-ballads - last viewed in 7th december 2008 at 20.30 pm)

 

·         Characters

Soot loves Sand, we are told. We see him as a devoted and frustrated lover. But we are never really told that Sand loves Soot. We learn throughout the course of our reading that the things they thought separated them probably do not, that each partakes of some of what we assume "goes with" the other, that they can exchange roles, languages, colors.

 

Sand is demeaned if considered information-per-se. Not simply because she has a physical substrate manufactured by, say, Intel. Sand itself, not exactly solid, liquid or gaseous, has the particular properties of granularity beautifully explored by Sisyphus, wondrously associated with time, in a Sisyphus-drawing, an hourglass&emdash;or a system clock. Sand is border-like, seashore-like, it invites us to play and to build. It beckons, but is it "really" stony or "really" fecund, sexual, virtually sexual? For one answer choose Ana Voog on the Contributors page.

 

Sand as meta-medium, the digital medium into which everything else can be poured or translated, sound, image, touch, data, has its own Protean or Circean character; a hyperspace, a cave, in which any world can present itself and be lived. There is a kind of process of interpenetration, or perhaps learning, that goes on between Sand and Soot, yet they are strongly contrasted to the end. Does Sand love Soot? Stay tuned.

(taken and re-written from http://www.wordcircuits.com/htww/strickland.htm - last viewed in 7th december at 20.45 pm)

 

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