What is our goal when we read a poem? Do we have an errand to carry out when we approach a text? Is it to traverse it, opening ourselves to the experiences it offers as we explore its psychogeography?
This hypertext poem prompts us to reflect upon these questions and more as we take multiple paths through a small amount of nodes. The poem overtly instructs readers to explore the piece in different ways and offers us three navigational tools: a scheduled linear reading in which the poem unfolds before us like a film, a series of linked o’s beneath the Flash canvas, and linked words in each node that form different loops of their own. Each node delicately layers sounds of nature, garden images, animations of frogs and butterflies, quotes, and scheduled presentation of static and kinetic lines of verse to produce a coherent arrangement of digital objects from a variety of sources.
With this poem Strickland and Coverley have taken up the challenge Marianne Moore poses in “Poetry” and presented for inspection “imaginary gardens with real toads in them.”
I think we have it.
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