I’m satisfied as to where I am in the process with my project.  I’m almost done. I just have a little bit of tidying up to do with some poems. I decided to rewrite some of them while adding to others. I also added five more poems from the chap book and one I just wrote this week, to the electronic literature piece. I did that because I chose not to add music, I wanted to add more poems and photographs.

The greatest victory of this semester was figuring out a way to add photographs to Twine. It became the bane of my existence for weeks. I actually did a happy dance when I figured it out. I would like to thank YouTube for guiding me. The issue was that I didn’t have the right program to convert the photographs to an HTML code. Which is needed in order to upload photos to Twine. Once I did that, I was able to really finalize my piece. Since, I had the time, I decided to add more poems. Three out of the four sections have four poems and one section had three poems. I think fifteen poems is a great amount for the time allotted for the construction of this piece. 

I really enjoyed playing around with the Twine website. I liked that I got to take my chapbook to the next level. The photographs with the poems added depth and dimension to my written work. I’m excited to share what I made with the class. 

I’m currently working on an electronic literature piece incorporating my poetic memoir chapbook as my final project. I choice to use Twine. I like the site a lot. I have uploaded 11 poems. They are broken down by four main pages using hyperlinks to lead the reader forward. Each link is a representation of a period of my life. I feel good about where I am. The goal is to add photographs and music if there is time. I have a fold of photographs that will be from my childhood as well as a few I have taken already to go for when I can get them uploaded.

The area that I am struggling in is adding photographs to Twine. I have tried several different ways to no avail.  If I can’t figure out how to do that by the end of the week, I might have to switch platforms. I’d rather do that now while I still have some time. If I do need to do that, I would be disappointment. I really like Twine’s layout and structure. I would like to have had my story play out on that platform. Since I might be switching platforms, I have looked into Quest and Squiffy. I was instantly overwhelmed by the opening page. I didn’t care for the set up at all. I hope I can figure out how to add photos to Twine. If I can get my vision to come to fruition I would like to take it step further and add music. For now, I’m taking one step at a time. My fear is that my project will be one dimensional. And it won’t have that extra step that would make it different from the original chapbook.  

For this week’s blog I chose Hana Feels. It is a blog about self-harm. I thought the way Inglis told the story using text like dialogue and the suicide hotline was an interesting way to deliver this message. I like that he added journaling to gain an inside perspective into our main character. It showed Hana’s progress with being able to open up and talk about her struggles. Inglis provided three different outcomes which I enjoyed. It felt like a pick your own adventure book. I thought the depiction of the Hanna’s mom was on point. It gave the audience a clear picture as to why she can’t talk to her mom about her mental heath struggles. The most important part of this piece was at the end. Inglis provided resources for his audience if they find themselves struggling mentally.

The topic of self-harm is something I’m familiar with. I spent my high school years hiding my scars, now my tattoos cover them. I know first-hand what it’s like to suffer with feelings of sadness, anger, and depression. I had a difficult childhood, and I had every right to be angry. But I could have used some guidance in how to process my emotions in a healthier way.  It took years to work through my traumas and learn healthy coping mechanisms. I believe there needs to be more mental health awareness and services provided for children and adults.

For this week’s ELit piece I choose to do Exposed by Sharon Daniel and Erik Loyer. Going off the title alone, I did not know what to expect. After reading the about page, it hit a little close to home. I’ve had a “cousin” (my mom‘s best friend’s son) who has been in and out of prison for the last 20 years. This person and I were very close as children, but I have not seen or spoken to him in 15 years due to his life choices. He also happened to be one of the incarcerated released early due to COVID-19 spreading throughout the facility. 

I thought this piece conveyed how stressful and anxiety inducing life was for those incarcerated during the pandemic. It stated that prisons suffered from lack of social distancing, proper cleaning, hand sanitizing and a shortage of food and medication.  The treatment of afflicted prisoners was far worse. It breaks my heart that these humans were forced into solitary confinement as known as the “hole” which is considered psychological torture. General population also suffered greatly during the pandemic with restricted phone privileges and suspended visits. This piece truly exposes how big of a humanitarian crisis COVID-19 was and how it pandemic impacted some of the most vulnerable people in our society. 

I think Sharon Daniels puts into perspective how terrible and unjust our prison system is. And I whole heartly agree.  I also agree with Daniels when she stated that there needs to be a massive and permanent reduction in prison population. There needs to be an education over and more mental health services provided to low-income areas throughout the country.

For this week’s piece I decided to do C-Ya-Laterrrr. I was interested in how Hett was going to explore such deeply personal stories in a creative way. There is so much senseless violence in the world, and this piece represents one of those awful, gut-wrenching events based on the Manchester attack. This is a sensitive topic to explore, and I appreciate the trigger waring that was in the author statement. I think it is important for the reader to have the option of view something that might trigger them. It wouldn’t be worth it if it impaired your mental health. 

C-Ya-Laterrrr is my favorite Elit piece thus far and I love the simplicity of it. It is the closest Elit piece I have explored that has been most like the pick your own adventure books. I loved being able to explore an interactive version of a childhood favorite. Although the topic was heavy the interaction was almost nostalgic. 

I appreciate that the reader will always end up at the same place no matter what path that they take. The end or the lack of end was my absolute favorite part of the entire piece and brought everything together. My favorite line “In the long run the only thing that matters is that these words and thoughts are somewhere” (Hett). The need to have a place to let out your feels in a creative way is important when dealing with real life traumatic events. There is also a lot of symbolism in this piece. The loss of a loved one and the existence of time that is always fleeting is really put into perceptive with this story. 

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1LfB_th5oiEDzVPRINUXxbp94U2WIc8L2StBSwOjSAzs/edit?usp=sharing

Every week I go through the same process as I decide which blog to read in depth. I begin by reading each author and editorial statements. This week, I knew immediately that I wanted to experience The Infinite Woman Elit piece. What I enjoyed most about this piece was the way the reader could interact with it. The reader was able to create their own poem by selecting certain sentences from the given poem. The best part for me was the ability to turn your poem into a blackout poem by unselect certain words. Blackout poetry is one of my favorite forms of poetry. The one line that stuck out to me was “the myth must not lose her femininity”. I don’t know if it’s a correlation to virginity or not but that’s how I took it. I think in this misogynistic society those two things go hand-in-hand which can be traced back to the bible and Christianity. And as the poem goes on the author gives some push back on those particular conservative views of womanhood. I think every member of the LGBTQ+ community has to go through push back to live their authentic selves. 

I have been part of the LGBTQ+ community for the last 20 years and being able to say that proudly out loud is a gift not every member has been given. I had the honor of marching for love against Prop 8 in California while I was attending the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. I and twenty-five other people held a giant rainbow flag and walked it from the Castro District to city hall. We chanted “we’re here, we’re queer and love is love.” I will never forget that moment and how proud I was to stand up for the rights of everybody in the LGBTQ community.

I chose Zui Yong Shi piece because in the author’s statement he stated it was a multimedia artwork that generates Chinese poetry paired with a pentatonic melody. I love multimedia projects. And I knew I wanted to explore this piece farther. 

I also chose this piece because of the original artwork that was in the thumbnail. My ex was half Chinese and every time we would visit their mother in Los Angeles, I would be mesmerized by this Chinese painting that hung their living room. I would sit there and make up stories in my head about this painting while I listened to my ex play classical piano. It’s nice to look back and remember a simpler time before my mom got sick and everything in my life had changed.

What I enjoyed about this piece was the music that went along with it. I thought the rhythm and the tone really added an extra layer to this poem. I like that the reader can hover over the symbols to see what they mean in English. I found it interesting that it doesn’t make up a sentence. It’s more like random words on the page that the reader can make into their own poem. I look forward to the presentation for this piece so that I can get a deeper understanding of the poem and the message the author was trying to convey.

I always read the author’s statement before I make a choice on which ELit piece I want to read. And Forgotten Nights immediately stuck out to me. Spoken word poetry is one of my favorite forms of poetry. I also love anything to do with astronomy. I instantly knew this was the piece that I was going to dive into for this week.

At first, I was a bit confused as to how this piece worked. I figured out that the poem started with one star, and it allowed you to add stars as you read the poem. I played around with it by manipulate the night sky to control the poem. The author laid out the words and it was up to the reader to choose the words and how the poem flowed. I thought that this was a great concept. I thought this piece was a great example of creating a new piece of art from the materials provided. The concept is simple yet profound. I appreciated the minimalistic aspect of this piece compared to other pieces that we have reviewed

I thought the word choices and the message was very well written. I liked the tone of the speaker’s voice. It was almost monotone, but it still had feeling and depth. I think the speaker’s voice was a great choice for this piece, and it added another layer.

As a writer and artist, myself, I enjoy combining two different art forms to make a creative piece. I think the author did a great job of that with this piece. It offered the reader the experience to manipulate their own poem journey. I like how technology has changed the way we view art and poetry. 

From the moment I clicked this piece of elit, I know it was going to be a weird acid trip of an experience. I appreciate all the colors that are attached to this piece. It’s important when the subject matter is tackling such a significant topic. I enjoyed the introduction of the main characters, Alien-Melon, and Tat Ghoul. I like that it helped the reader navigate thought this work.

I like that the artists added humor in a subtle way. For instance, the green skull and bone hand that are used as toggles as well as the bones falling when something is loaded on the screen. I also liked that Tat Ghoul sounded like a weird Pokémon The humor of this piece really makes this an enjoyable read. I like the creepy skeleton slinking about at the edge of the graveyard. Also, the flying bat clickable links and the dancing skeleton with a shovel. 

Tat Ghoul and I share a love for the cemetery. I spent my youth hanging out in graveyards often. To this day I find them more peaceful and welcoming than any church. I like how each gravestone had a heart hologram on it when you hoovered over them. But the question mark cursor is my favorite little add on. I thought the imagery of Blue Suburbia was ominous and creepy but great. I also like that they played Beethoven in the background. 

The topic of death is prevalent here. Yet it deals with it in a humorous kind of way. It makes light of a very heavy subject matter. It is a part of life, and everyone must deal with death eventually in their lifetime. I also think it is a great way to represent depression and sadness in a less textbook medical way and more of a down to earth relatable way.