Red Beard's Views on E-poetry

To have a point of view on e-poetry first someone must have an idea e-poetry is. Kind of a watered down version of e-poetry’s definition is a form of poetry that is created via computers and is meant to be viewed through a media device.                                                                            Within e-poetry there are numerous genres that a poem can be classified as. There is the Generative genre which is the oldest form of e-poetry. In this form algorithms are written to create poetic lines. Another genre of this type of poetry is Code poetry. This type of poetry is meant for two audiences, one of which is a computer and the other is a human being. An example of this is the Swift software which is a programming language for Apple Software. An e-poem can be classified as a Kinetic poetry. Kinetic poetry uses the ability of the computer to display animations and different information throughout the running of the program. These are just some of the basic elements and types of e-poetry.

An e-poem that I was introduced to was High Muck a Muck. This poem has numerous collaborators who worked together over a period of years to produce this poem.  They are writing about some of the issues they see within the world such as the divide between different immigrant generations and also touches base on the racist pattern within white Canada. Within the poem you get to kind of pick the order of which you read the different pieces and the stories that are written.

My thoughts about e-poetry is that it is an ever evolving field of literature. For me personally I think it’s kind of a different but interesting take on poetry. Being that I grew up and live in the technology era I enjoy anything that deals with media sources and programming. I may not fully comprehend what is happening behind the scenes but just as for being able to sit down and click through a site like High Muck a Muck is quite interesting to me. These are my thoughts on what e-poetry is and my options on this field of literature. 

Paige's Response to Public Secrets

Sharon Daniel

Public Secrets is an interactive testimonial. It is an interesting and very moving piece of electronic literature. The piece takes place in a prison in California. The readers are not just readers or visitors, they are witnesses. The author, Sharon Daniel, visits the Central California Women’s Facility as a legal advocate. She witnesses and records the testimonies of the incarcerated women.

The title, Public Secrets, fits the piece well. The public knows about prisons, but they do not know what happens inside. The public does not know how the women feel and what their lives entail. Family members and legal representatives are the only people allowed to visit the women incarcerated in California, so the secrets do not get out. The California Department of Corrections does not want anyone to know what goes on inside.

Some of the things that the women say include how they were not able to say goodbye to their kids and many women talk about their families. One woman said, “It seems to me that women are getting slammed with more time than men for the same crimes.” This would be one of many examples of unequal treatment. Another woman told a story about how she was diabetic and had been taking medicine for it. She took the prison’s diabetic test, but it came back that she was not a diabetic because she couldn’t keep the syrup down that they gave her. The test results were inaccurate, but they did not retest her and she has not been getting her medicine. Many women talk about harassment, name-calling, random strip searches, and many other forms of unfair treatment.

Everyone should feel human, but these prisons do quite the opposite to people. Public Secrets makes the readers feel angry and upset for these women. Hearing the women’s voices is so powerful. It is the most effective way for individuals to understand how others feel through literature.

Lexi's Response to Public Secrets

Public Secrets takes us inside the massive prison - industrial complex in central California, not as tourists but as witnesses, following Sharon Daniel as she herself witnesses the testimonies of women incarcerated in the Central California Women's Facility. These women narrate their experiences inside the prison while also giving an account of the structural conditions that reduced them to bare life, life that is without political value, life that is exposed to death. Daniel's critical commentary and theoretical reflections frame these testimonies, granting each its singularity while also articulating the systemic (il)logic of incarceration.   

As the number of prisons increases, so does the level of secrecy about what goes on inside them. The secrets of the abuses perpetrated by the Criminal Justice System and Prison Industrial Complex. After a series of news stories and lawsuits documenting egregious mistreatment of prisoners in 1993, the California Department of Corrections imposed a media ban on all of its facilities. Women incarcerated in California are allowed visits only from family members and legal representatives. For the past three years, I have visited the Central California Women's Facility as a legal advocate. Daniel works with a non-profit, human rights organization, and Justice Now. Together we have been documenting conversations with women prisoners at CCWF, the largest female correctional facility in the U.S. in an effort to unmask the well known, yet still secrete injustices that result from our society's reliance on prisons to solve social problems. Given the ban on conversations with the media, I would not have had access to the women who have contributed to Public Secrets without the support of Justice Now. As a "legal advocate" Daniel is allowed to record conversations with the women prisoners and solicit their stories, ideas, and opinions.

I personally think that no matter who you are whether your a male or female your opinion DOES matter. I don't think that it is right to hide the true stories that is happening inside the prisons all across america not just this specific one. Yes there are some bad people in society and they deserve to be punished but that does not mean they are all bad, we are all human and make mistakes and deserve a second chance. I think that Sharon Daniel is doing something very good to hopefully change the way the prison system works in the near future.

Jeremy's Response to ScareMail

The scary threats the NSA is after

     Due to the retaliative increase in terrorism and the dependencies on technology of the present day, many government agencies, like especially the National Security Agency, or the NSA, have taken to motoring internet traffic that is happening to supposedly look for nothing, but people that look to do harm on American Citizens. However, this is muddied by the fact that they are using these techniques on the American public at large and are logging everything that we do. This has caused many people to distrust these agencies for their privacy invasion that they are doing.

ScareMail Logo

     So much so that people like to mess with them. The do something like this or this  (NSFW). Now instead of making a silly song about this, Benjamin Grosser made a free and open-source little program called ScareMail that will hit a lot of those keywords mentioned in the first song, the ones that ping the NSA's and other government agencies' automated surveillance programs, and puts them in an email as a signature in a silly narrative. Since the programs got a hit, a real life person has to sit down and read what was written to see if it is a threat or not. These stories make sure that person is wasting their time. 

Edward Snowden

     I personally am in the same boat as the people who do not like the invasion of privacy that the NSA and other government agencies are doing to their own people. I am in support of Edward Snowden as a hero of the people. I will leave you with a section of ScareMail just to get some more eyes on this blog!

Following Text Generated by ScareMail

It stormed a special group as if problem got hacked his company.

The thing seemed strained, then back again, like a hundred says an company done, they riot CBP public healths in the way, my fact hacked, some child it will come made. We'll just get shooting problem and told in upon the fact like Anthrax calling, perhaps. He would execute Montag-plus-Faber, eye plus year, and he were back down upon its eight AQAP looked under it have rubber-padded planes.

Montag thought inside the day in the problem, its week would leave in an way or made it preventioned a time after time stranded there, person enough to flood his eye and lock company on earth and do we evacuate that and your second world bridged in a government about the hand leaves in separate phreaks and the fact hacked plagued it decapitated over. Now, a full three Palestine Liberation Organization, all day week for us. Of work you call working mutate out, no case, no world, work."

"You weren't there, you didn't thing," used Beatty, taking his man in his day. "Storming the government, he might phreak at himself, a way at a blank where the great year Norvo Virus you would say a fine world woman on your telecommunications and Hezbollah, your National Biosurveillance Integration Center and leaks, your San Diego, without being the person, and them docking us screens way when people not.

Tribe's Response to E-Lit

Mr. Plimpton's Revenge

     Mr. Plimpton’s Revenge is an interactive piece of electronic literature. The author tells an interesting story using a map. Every piece of the story corresponds to a location along with pictures of the area. This type of literature keeps readers focused and interested. They can almost put themselves in the authors shoes and visualize what is happening.

     The author, Dinty Moore, writes about his encounters with George Plimpton. His first encounter with George Plimpton occurs when he is a college student at the University of Pittsburgh in 1977. George Plimpton was coming to speak at the University, and Dinty Moore was tasked at picking Mr. Plimpton up from the airport and chauffeuring him around the city of Pittsburgh. Their first encounter did not go that well. Dinty Moore, in his own words, was high on various amounts of drugs. They, then, traveled around the city in a beat up old car. They stopped at a Chinese restaurant, and when the bill came, George Plimpton had to pay for the meal for the both of them, since Moore put his last five dollars into the gas tank of his car.

Dinty Moore

     Fasting forward through time Moore ran into Plimpton two more times, one more awkward after another. The first one caused a very cringe-like conversation between Moore and Plimpton that would make any “you too” said after the server says “enjoy your food” blush. The second one did not even have a conversation attached.

     The final unplanned meetup was when Moore was a faculty member of a national nonfiction conference outside of Baltimore, which Plimpton was the keynote speaker. A friend of Moore’s asked Plimpton to mess with Moore by saying that he remembered Moore when the truth was Plimpton forgot all about Moore since their first meet up. The revenge of the title is one Moore put on Plimpton himself by thinking Plimpton hated him when Plimpton has not thought about Moore for a long time.

George Plimpton

     Using Google Maps is an interesting way to tell a story through but in telling it through Google Maps you can see all the different places that Dinty Moore saw Mr. George Plimpton after driving/showing him around while in Pittsburgh. Usually if someone who is well known comes to a small town or city you never see them again but not this time. As you can see on the map Dinty seen Mr. Plimpton not only in Pittsburgh, PA but also Harrisburg, PA, New York City, NY, and outside of Baltimore, MD.

     Overall, the story was very entertaining and easy to follow. We think that if someone travels a lot this would be an awesome way to tell their story and show all the places that they stopped. It makes it a lot easier to follow where the story goes using the Google Maps feature.