Slippingglimpse
by Stephanie Strickland & Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo
I chose this e-literature because I feel that it is representative of the vagueness that Calvino gives as the opposite of the valuable exactitude. But, as with Leopardi, who begins his diary with the intent of expanding on a mathematical abstraction that leads to an indefinite description of the senses, this visual poem starts at the opposite end of the scale, but, with user interaction, can be more exact, if the wandering words seem too much to bear.
The range begins vague, but by the necessity of interaction, an exact choice needs to be made. When first experiencing the title page of Strickland and Jaramillo’s poetry collection, there are 10 to choose from. There is a vagueness about their thumbnails that allures the reader. A choice must be made, and in that the user narrows the perspective of the experience. Once interacting with a visual poem, words float around an ambiguous flowing, watery surface, and the user must wander with the floating words to make sense of the poem. However, for the more linear and exacted mind, there is the option to scroll the text in a split screen fashion. This enables the reader to experience the abstract vagueness, but define the substance of the words by reading them in a more incisive way.
The most interesting part of experiencing this electronic literature is that its quality (in this case, exactitude) is not defined by the author. In print literature, it is the author that defines the place that his or her literature falls on the scale of that particular quality. But with electracy, that power of defining the space where the literature exists on the scale is no longer in the control of the author. He or she merely creates a range, but within that range, the user interacts with it and decides how exact or how vague they want the e-lit Slippingglimpse to be, depending on their aesthetic judgment. But in my own interaction with the visual poems, I felt that, even if I enjoyed the vague, it couldn’t last forever, and I resorted to using the scrolling text as a reference.
I think this experience of enjoying the aesthetic of the vague, but needing an exactness to understand its meaning is what Calvino says we look for in life, especially literature. He refers to the fundamentals of contemporary science as the “contrast of order and disorder,” in which the world is so full of constant motion, change, and chaos that we look for a locus, “privileged points in which we seem to discern a design or perspective” (pg. 69). In literature, too, we take the infinite mess of the universe, and find something already existent within it, which “crystallizes into a form, acquires a meaning–not fixed, not definitive, not hardened into a mineral immobility, but alive as an organism” (pg. 70).
Even with the e-lit’s freedom to indulge in the vagueness, to enjoy the soothing aesthetic of the rippling water and the floating words, there is a sense of discomfort in not know how the words connect, if they do, and what they mean to say. I think that’s why I resorted to using the scrolling text; I needed to find a locus, a privileged point, that would give the visual poem form and meaning.
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