Since being in this class I have learned one thing for sure; Electronic Literature is unlike ANY other form of literature. The poetry and stories that we have read so far are not really what we think of when we think of literature. We have a conception within our minds as to what literature is, what it is meant to accomplish and how it is presented. Electronic literature, such as "The Jew's Daughter" plays around with our conception of what a story is and how it is presented. It is not really a story in the fact that it does not have a clear structure and beginning, middle and end. But at the same time it isn't really a game. There are so many facets to Electronic Literature and that is what makes it so intriguing even though I can be frustrating to try to derive meaning from it. E-lit such as "Penetration" is kind of free flowing and each reader gets a different message from it which is what makes it so interesting. In contrast, e-lit like "The Jew's Daughter" has a set storyline but the means of presentation are really the most important aspect of the work.  read more »

I made a freaky observation while playing around in Robert Kendall's "Penetration." I found a way to break out of the prescribed frame (of the green curvy links and the growing plant).

I accidentally stumbled upon it by starting at the History page of "Penetration", then --right clicking-- on each of the links at the top of the page ("Resume the reading where you left off." and "Start over and delete the current history") and selecting -open in new tab- from the drop down menu and clicking through a few links in each new tab.

I don't know if any of this is relevant at all, or if it is just a minor coding glitch, but it drastically changed the way I viewed the poem. By snapping off the extraneous sections of the visual frame (growing plant, page spacing) this left the green links centered in my eyesight, with lead me back to a stronger connection with the bare-bones history (which I expand on in this post http://teaching.zachwhalen.net/e-lit/content/linking-words-penetration#c... ).

"Twelve blue" and "Penetration" are two works of electronic literature which I have never experience before. For the simple fact that it is online and it is a click-thru-type application it is already a new application type. I'm already a big fan of this type of "poetry" especially the Penetration which I enjoyed because it showed you how far you are through it, which always helps because you never really know when it ends.

Also, Penetration also kind of goes along with the poem. The sense of rebirth and being alive. I think that there is a great connection there.

I look forward to reading more of these type of electronic literature because the fact taht it was so interactive helped you understand it more and it made it fun to read.

After playing Penetration, I had an assignment for my Freshman Seminar class that was to read the first three chapters of a book called Linked: How Everything is Connected by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. This particular book discusses the six degrees of separation theory, which is that any individual can be connected to any other individual in six steps. I was thinking about this theory I was reminded of Penetration, not necessarily in that the words can be connected in six steps, but of the connection between the words in general. After playing it a few times I started to understand that all the words seemed to be linked together. For example when I choose to click on the word "never open" I was then directed to choose "aunt", then "vanished", then "trellis", then "homeland". On the homeland stanza I was given four choices with one of them being "aunt" again. That suggested to me that the stanzas are all connected in some way, and even though a storyline may be difficult to follow there is still an apparent relationship between the words and stanzas. This relationship could even transcend a storyline and develop within the structure of the poem itself.  read more »

Author’s note: I tried posting this yesterday prior to class since I knew I would be unable to meet in maryMOO, but apparently my connection at home wasn’t cooperating with me. I didn’t edit the post, so I apologize in advance if anything within is redundant or covers ideas discussed in class.

My experience with Kendall’s “Penetration” surprised me on two levels. The first was that the first time I read through it, the browser on the computer I was using had its settings changed, which meant the links never updated and I found myself going through the poem time and again, looking for something new that never materialized. That’s not terribly important, though; it was just an exercise in frustration.  read more »

Even though we haven't formerly discussed Robert Kendall's work in class yet, I thought I'd post some thoughts:

--> The plant on the left side of the screen: genius and mysterious and a very powerful visual choice for this piece. It starts out as a minuscule speck of nothing (just like your connection to the poem in the first few clicks) and as it grows, so does your emotional investment in the world you're playing around inside.

--> If you leave the poem, and come back to it, it presents you with the option to begin at the beginning again, or to continue from where you had read up to. I thought this was especially unique for a piece of hypertext poetry. I had always assumed that if you lost it, then you lost it, and you started over from scratch as though you'd never been there before. It's like daydreaming when you're stuck in a labyrinth, then snapping back into reality exactly where you left off.  read more »