http://www.wordcircuits.com/clues/

Digital poetry artist Robert Kendall explore the gray area of technology and poetry in which he quote in his opening statement “We all know that poetry and technology don't mix . . . until we remember that writing itself is a technology. The technology of writing is changing in an age of electronic media, and literature is changing with it. This home page is part of my effort to help poetry and fiction make the transition from ink to pixels” This brings up the issue of is digital poetry could be consider a form of poetry? To some people, poetry means that open up a book with artistic cover and read verses which carries hidden emotion. Feeling the texture of the paper between the figures and have the smell of paper faintly in the air making the experience of reading the poem goes through all you five senses. Reading digital poetry takes away this physical sensation form the readers. Digital poetry usual being display on a screen with not just text but a hybrid of texts, sounds, images, and animations. Sometimes these poetries could become overload with information as Manovich described in “Avant-Garde As Software” “the information becomes noisy.”
However with the new technology and the invention of digital technology, some could argue that, with new mediums available and with new techniques that can be use, this had enhanced the way the poetry being written. New mediums allow the artist express their thoughts and emotion when they right the poem better then just simple text. Also the sounds, images, and animations also carry the message that the artist tries to transmit better to the readers and improve the readers’ experience.
Robert Kendall’s “Clues” is a leading example of digital poetry. With this piece he included sounds, image and text typography to carries the reader through his work and experience the poem in unique way with each entry.
“Clues” is a poem with detective theme. As the reader entering the page, the readers are show to a mysteries design with the sense of 1950s detective films, with the “technique-color” display and ambiance lighting. As the reader entering “Clues” readers are being welcome in with a mysterious music that boosts senses and provokes reader curiosity to explore more of this world. As reading through the first page the reader in introduces to three doors in which when the reader chose the door they would enter a different place.
With it own narrations that tie to the images. As reading deeper in to poem the readers will encounter with segments of the poem called clues that provide the reader with more information that carries the readers the readers to experience the poems in different ways. The clues also follow the detective theme of the poem, with clues that the readers come across show in red to suggest to the readers to unlock that path and moving on reading the poem. The style that artist shows to the readers carries the hidden meaning of the poems in with the artist want the readers to read through and ultimately discover the meaning and the message that the artist express in the work.
The typography the artist chooses to display his poetry is clean nothing too fancy that could disturb the reading process of the readers. The text also carries the design of the early 1900s with dark text against a neutral color background, which makes the text seem transparent, and acts as a narration to the images which standout. The writing has a sensuous sense, with evocative messages that have many meaning and with the images and sound available, it able to captivate readers and bring the readers into their own world of thoughts. “Clues” is a good example of digital poetry because it carries one of the more unique characteristics of digital poetry... the interactive between the readers and the artwork. Each page of “Clues” can be access in a non-specific order. The flow and contains of the piece are reading differently depend on the order that the reader choose to access. Each door opens to a different reading and within each door there are sub links that all can be read in different order making the message being transfer is different depend on which order the poetry is read. This is a unique element of the digital poetry that regular poetry do not have. The crafting of this style of poetry gives the reader different experiences when reading, instead of a specific and static form of regular poetry this style gives the readers their freedom to be interactive and choose what to read next.
“Clues” is a good example of digital poetry. However it also has some of the common flaws of this style. The artist try to create interactivity between the work and the readers by create small sub pages, connected to the main page by links, however these link sometimes quite hard to locate to give the readers access to the next page, and in some pages the reader could get stuck within the page with no way to get out. This digital poetry is quite special creation of the technology age, the poem by the artist is contemporary, and the way it being present is new, matching up with the advance of today society. However, the techniques being use is still in a processing method that have room for further improve.