Immersion By Alex DeLattre

     Electronic poetry (e-poetry) is a new form of the classic media know as poetry. With e-poetry the author or artist can transcend the two dimensional world of a book and pull the reader into a new universe. Fully immersing the reader into the world the author has created to portray their piece. Using this new medium a writer can not only use words to capture one’s mind, but can also bring to life so to speak anything in their imagination (a link for further reference on e-poetry,http://iloveepoetry.com/?p=11968).     Exemplifying this is the e-poem called The Sweet Old Etcetera authored by Alison Clifford, where they take poetry written by the famous author E.E Cummings. A link to the piece http://collection.eliterature.org/2/works/clifford_the_sweet_old_etcetera.html, in this new take of the classic poem, Clifford brings a whole new level of interactivity. Using images made up of words from the poems. This a brilliant use of modern technology to really immerse the reader into the world of the poem. Allowing the reader to relate to the piece even better, another thing Clifford did was have the text fall like a leaf alluding to the subject of the poem. Moreover, when one looks at this piece and the completely white canvas it is presenting it is easy to see that there is an infinite possible ways this piece could develop into. Filling the reader with suspense, baiting them into clicking the interactive piece, propelling them on a journey of unexpected outcomes. One could almost relate the writer as a fisherman and the reader a fish being drawn in by the bait. Clifford has truly brought a new dynamic dimension to this classic piece of literature.
     Lastly, e-poetry can be looked at like an ocean of the human psyche projected upon our modern technological world, while the reader is a fish in that ocean being drawn in by the different pieces of digital media in this ever expanding ocean.