By: Katherine Schade

    Faith is by no means a typical work of electronic literature let alone a typical regular poem. It exemplifies Lev Manovich’s definition of new media as, “graphics, moving images, sounds, shapes, spaces, and texts that have become computable” (Manovich, 20).  The different layers that make up the entire poem give way for thought about the influence of having pages versus a singular paged poem. Due to the unconventional reading, people will realize the influence that the different colors and movement of the words have on the poem. Both of these aspects of the work allow for the author to more accurately and explicitly emphasize different words that would not be so apparent or clear in a normal poem in a book. Well expressed by a blog, Debbie and Elit Class, the use of sound, animation, music, and words allowed Kendall to “create a poem that says and does more than if it were found in an anthology” that “reaches a different audience than the usual poetry readers” (Debbie 1). The usual audience for e-literature may not experience poetry often, but the readers that find the poem after reading traditional poetry for a long time will delve even further into exploring the electronic aspect of the work. They will notice difference between a regular poem and this poem that is paced by the creator. They will also notice the effect of physically having to click to get to the next level of the poem has on the meaning of the poem. The physical click of Faith relates to the form of Public Secrets by Sharon Daniel in which the reader is also required to click in order to delve further into the electronic literature.

The forced slow pace of the work will cause more exploration of the text itself. While the reader is waiting to look at the next slide, they will pay more attention to the words on the current slide and look deeper into their meanings. The physicality of clicking to advance to the next layer of the poem may seem insignificant, but even this slim amount of interactivity in the work creates thoughts on how other levels of interactivity in different electronic literature would create even more explorative opportunities. Kendall does a fabulous job using the slimmest amount of electronics in Faith to have the biggest impact on the work and on the exploration that the reader takes part in.